By Ryan McMaken*

The Associated Press reported last week that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is suing the Albertsons grocery store chain in federal court over limits placed on employees as to when they may speak Spanish on the job.

The specifics of the case are less clear-cut than the headlines suggests. The lawsuit alleges that the company adopted a stance in which management “suggested … it’s best if workers refrain from speaking Spanish in front of workers who do not speak the language.”

The EEOC alleges, however, that this admittedly flexible policy was enforced too aggressively and applied only to employees of Hispanic origin.

In other words, the real problem, according to the EEOC, is that a hostile work environment was created for a certain subset of Spanish speakers. It’s not really a case of a blanket prohibition on Spanish.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Albertsons did impose a blanket “no Spanish” policy on employees.

That assumption, after all, seems to already be driving numerous articles in the media. Tucker Carlson, for example, has used the Albertsons suit as an occasion to advocate for a mandated national official language in the United States. Apparently unaware that Switzerland exists (with its four official languages), Carlson maintains that any country without a single official language will be torn asunder by civil strife. (Carlson also ignores the fact that the US has a long history of linguistic diversity, and ten percent of the US population in 1920 reported a “mother tongue” other than English.)

At the other end of the spectrum is Raul Reyes’s article in The Hill which is mostly just a pro-immigration article, but which states: “Speaking whatever language we choose is one of the hallmarks of our democratic, free society…Our country gives people the freedom and right to speak whatever language they choose.”

But do people really have a “right” to choose the language they use?

Well, as Murray Rothbard points out, that depends on the situation. Specifically, it depends on whether the person in question is on his own property or not, and whether or not he acts with the approval of the owner. In Man Economy and State, Rothbard explained how “freedom of speech” cannot be separated from property rights:

Freedom of speech is supposed to mean the right of everyone to say whatever he likes. But the neglected question is: Where? Where does a man have this right? He certainly does not have it on property on which he is trespassing. In short, he has this right only either on his own property or on the property of someone who has agreed, as a gift or in a rental contract, to allow him on the premises. In fact, then, there is no such thing as a separate “right to free speech”; there is only a man’s property right: the right to do as he wills with his own or to make voluntary agreements with other property owners.

This is fairly easy to apply to the specific situation of speaking Spanish (or any language). Obviously, in a Spanish-speaker’s own home, or in his own business, he ought to free to say anything he wishes, and in any language he wishes.

Rothbard continues: 

In short, a person does not have a “right to freedom of speech”; what he does have is the right to hire a hall and address the people who enter the premises. He does not have a “right to freedom of the press”; what he does have is the right to write or publish a pamphlet, and to sell that pamphlet to those who are willing to buy it (or to give it away to those who are willing to accept it). Thus, what he has in each of these cases is property rights, including the right of free contract and transfer which form a part of such rights of ownership. There is no extra “right of free speech” or free press beyond the property rights that a person may have in any given case.

The same relationship between property and the rights like “the freedom of speech” applies to the use of foreign languages as well. A person has a right to produce a lecture, publication, or broadcast and distribute it to anyone else who would like to read, hear or watch the media in question.

If we apply this to the situation of employees speaking Spanish at an Albertsons store, the solution is clear: an employee on duty has a right to speak any language the employer agrees to. The same would be true of customers as well, since an owner may also limit what customers do on the premises.

In practice, of course, badgering either employees or customers about what language they use is terrible for business and for employee morale. In most situations, multi-lingual employees are an asset, not a liability. And it’s not a great idea to turn away potential customers who happen to prefer using other languages.

Predictably, the media has attempted to turn the controversy into a battle of ideologies over immigration, religion, culture, and ethnic origin. We’ve seen this sort of thing before.

In 2014, when Hobby Lobby sued in federal court over the right to contract freely with employees on the matter of health insurance, many leftwing activists labeled the conflict as one between an alleged “right” to healthcare and the reactionary forces of “theocracy” and religious dogma. In truth, it was simply a case of an employer wanting freedom over how to compensate workers who freely consented to employment.

Similarly, in 2015 the fight over whether or not shopkeepers can decide for whom they might want to bake a cake, the defenders of private property were once again denounced as religious zealots.

In both cases, the real heart of the matter was simply one of ordinary property rights in which consenting adults ought to be free to enter into agreements — and in which no person can force another person to use his own body or other property in a way he or she doesn’t want to.

Nevertheless, the conflict is being framed as one in which workers from a certain ethnic group are being targeted by bigots. The response from some on the other side has been to attempt to devalue the use of foreign languages altogether and to even frame them, as Carlson is doing, as a threat to American domestic peace.

The Albertsons conflict, however, won’t be fixed by implementing “official languages” or by threatening federal lawsuits at any employer who requests only certain languages be spoken in the break room.

Indeed, there is no reason for any sort of government policy on the matter whatsoever. In the real world, depending on location, ownership, and the customer base, some employers will be quite open to the use of foreign languages. And some will be less so. In those places where consumers often use Spanish, for instance, employees who also speak Spanish will be more valuable than mono-lingual employees. In all cases, of course, owners and employers will have an incentive to accommodate foreign-language-speaking consumers.

But in each case, it must be up to the property owners to determine the best way to do this.

Yes, there will always be some emotionally fragile oddballs who feel “offended” or “threatened” by hearing a foreign language spoken within earshot. And it’s unfortunate that such people revel in being poorly educated and unable to comprehend foreign tongues.

Nevertheless, it must be up to shopkeepers, employers, entrepreneurs, homeowners, landlords, and other private owners who determine what sorts of speech are allowed on their premises — and what languages may be spoken there.

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

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

“The evasions and obfuscations of these two willing technicians of state terror are chillingly similar.”

On May 9, Gina Haspel, Donald Trump’s choice for head of the Central Intelligence Agency, testified at her Senate confirmation hearing in Washington, DC. Some senators questioned her about her tenure, in 2002, as CIA station chief in Thailand. There, the agency ran one of the “black sites” where suspected al-Qaida extremists were interrogated using procedures that included waterboarding. She was also asked about her role in the destruction of videotapes in 2005 that documented the torture of illegally detained suspects.  Her evasive answers to these questions, disconcerting and unsatisfying, are also hauntingly familiar.

In 1960, Adolf Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli spies in Argentina and brought to trial in Jerusalem for his part in the extermination of millions of European Jews during Germany’s Third Reich. In his interrogation with Israeli police, published as Eichmann Interrogated, DeCopo Books, NY, 1999, Eichmann stated that in the intervening years since the acts in question his own view of them had evolved and before the Senate on May 9, Haspel expressed herself similarly.

Haspel testified that while she can’t say what exactly might constitute an immoral order in the past, her “moral compass” would not allow her to obey one today, given the “stricter moral standard” she says “we have chosen to hold ourselves to.” She does not judge the actions that she and her colleagues took in the years after 9-11, “in that tumultuous time” of decidedly looser moral standards: “I’m not going to sit here, with the benefit of hindsight, and judge the very good people who made hard decisions.” She testified that she supports laws that prohibit torture, but insists that such laws were not in place at the time and that such “harsh interrogations” were allowable under the legal guidance the CIA had at the time and “that the highest legal authority in the United States had approved it, and that the president of the United States had approved it.”

Likewise Eichmann was probed about his obedience when “ordered to do something blatantly illegal.” In a response that augured Haspel’s Senate testimony a half century later, Eichmann told his interrogators: “You say illegal. Today I have a very different view of things…But then?  I wouldn’t have considered any of those actions illegal…  If anyone had asked me about it up until May 8, 1945, the end of the war, I’d have said: This government was elected by a majority of the German people…every civilized country on earth had its diplomatic mission. Who is a little man like me to trouble his head about it?  I get orders from my superior and I look neither right nor left.  That’s not my job.  My job is to obey and comply.”

Not to compare the evil of the holocaust with the CIA rendition and torture (as if evil could be measured by quantity) but the evasions and obfuscations of these two willing technicians of state terror are chillingly similar. Eichmann’s cowardly protestations that he could not have known that facilitating torture and murder was illegal ring hollow. It was only after Eichmann’s atrocities, though, that such crimes as torture were formally codified into law. By 2002, however, along the precedents of the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg, the United States was legally bound along with most nations in the world to the Geneva Conventions, to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture. Even the U.S. Army Field Manual, cited by Haspel in her hearing, labels waterboarding as torture and a war crime.

“We all believed in our work. We were all committed,” Haspel proudly boasted to the Senate, describing the morale and esprit de corps of her CIA comrades overseeing illegal detention, torture and murder in the years after 9-11. Eichmann similarly praised the work ethic of his team. Inspired by Eichmann’s trial, Thomas Merton, in his poem, “Chant to be Used in Processions Around a Site with Furnaces,” put these words in the mouth of a condemned concentration camp commander: “In my day we worked hard we saw what we did our self-sacrifice was conscientious and complete our work was faultless and detailed.”

An Israeli court did not buy Adolf Eichmann’s defense that he was following orders and obeying the law as he understood it and he was hung on June 1, 1962. We will soon know if the U.S. Senate will accept Gina Haspel’s appropriation of Eichmann’s alibi and confirm her as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

* Brian Terrell is a co-coordinator for Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Students from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Edwardsville, Illinois, will have the opportunity to talk with astronauts on the International Space Station next week as part of NASA’s Year of Education on Station. The two 20-minute, Earth-to-space calls will air live on NASA TV and the agency’s website.

NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel will answer questions about life aboard the space station, NASA’s deep space exploration plans and conducting science in space during both opportunities.

The first event will connect Oklahoma students from several schools in grades 5 through 12 with the two Expedition 55 astronauts at 10:35 a.m. EDT Monday, May 14, from the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium. The students submitted essays describing what they would ask an astronaut and how that question relates to their own lives on Earth as part of the selection process.

The second event will allow eighth grade students from Liberty and Lincoln Middle Schools in Edwardsville to speak with Feustel and Arnold at 10:10 a.m. Friday, May 18.

Linking teachers directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning, performance and interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). These in-flight education downlinks are an integral component of NASA’s Year of Education on Station, which provides extensive space station-related resources and opportunities to students and educators. Astronauts living in space on the orbiting laboratory communicate with the Mission Control Center on Earth 24 hours a day through the Space Network’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).

In addition to the educational events, Feustel and fellow NASA astronaut Scott Tingle will be interviewed by the USA Today Network, and the “Off Track with Hinch and Rossi” podcast from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at 9:35 a.m. Thursday, May 17.

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman called me to apologize for his anti-Catholic tweet. He did not mince words: he admitted that I was right to call him out for this, and that he regrets what he said.

It’s over. Apology accepted. I found Senator Hoylman to be sincere.

This article has been updated from the original, deleting the previous content and running the apology.

In several conferences and seminars, one usually hears about the rapid strides made by Indian chemical industry in multiple directions and boastful talk about break through in research and development efforts and Indian entrepreneurial initiatives

However, a careful study of the ground realities would readily highlight the fact that while there are isolated achievements and praiseworthy efforts, the overall picture is not as rosy as it is made to look.

The claims on rapid progress of overall Indian chemical industry are often made in vacuum, without being substantiated by the happenings on the ground.

Study of Indian import figures of chemical and allied products readily highlight the fact that the import of several chemicals are rapidly increasing year after year and in some cases at the rate of 10% per year and even more. This, obviously, indicates that the capacity build up efforts in Indian chemical industry are far from adequate.

There are number of cases where India has totally stopped production of very important chemicals such as vinyl acetate monomer, polyvinyl alcohol, styrene and have started entirely importing the Indian requirement.

Number of chemicals are imported in huge quantity which are not presently produced in India though they represent excellent investment opportunities and the Indian requirement entirely met by import, such as L-lysine HCl which is made from cane molasses or starch(import around 45000 tonne per annum) , citric acid which is made from cane molasses or starch(import around 85000 tonne per annum) and so many other products are not produced in India though feedstock for such products are readily available in India

There are number of products where the project promoters appear to be reluctant to go for capacity expansion or setting up new projects, though India has adequate experience in operating such projects . An immediate example is carbon black, where there is impending global shortage due to variety of reasons and Indian import is steadily going up. Carbon black is also substantially exported from India . Indian consumers of carbon black are complaining about the non availability of carbon black from domestic source and price increase by domestic producers, who enjoy the benefit of anti dumping duty. Some capacity expansion has been announced but they move at snail’s pace and lack of sense of urgency is obvious.

India is now betting big on promotion of electrified vehicles and Government of India has fixed tall target for electrified vehicle population. One of the important components of electrified vehicle is lithium ion battery (LiB), which is not produced in India. There are a few units in India who import cells and make only battery management system . Inspite of huge demand potential for LiB in India, only some preliminary proposals for setting up LiB project has been announced. Lack of sense of urgency and inadequate entrepreneur enthusiasm for setting up LiB project in India is glaring.

Around 2 lakh tonne per annum of rutile grade TiO2 pigment made by chloride process is imported in India, for which ilmenite and chlorine are the feedstock and which are readily available in the country. No new project has been announced for rutile TiO2 pigment in India.

Now India is betting big on solar power projects. Polycrystalline silicon is the important raw material for making solar power cells and its import is increasing.Polycrystalline silicon is produced from silica sand and chlorine which are readily available in India. However, no polycrystalline silicon project is being set up in the country. No firm proposal has been announced.

R&D efforts should be targeted to produce the chemical products in eco friendly manner with optimized cost and process parameters. New grades are being developed across the world in the case of several chemicals with improved specification to meet consumer expectations and to ensure eco friendliness. High efforts are being made abroad for developing technologies for bio based products to replace synthetic route. Some significant achievements have already been seen abroad with Indian contribution for the global technology development efforts for the bio based products remaining at negligible level.

In several of such areas, Indian R&D efforts are conspicuous by inadequate achievements.

India is large importer of crude oil and natural gas with little prospects for boosting the domestic production significantly. India has to find appropriate alternate source for fuel. One appropriate area is algae based production of oil. Algae is a crop that can be cultivated in large areas in India due to the tropical climate. Algae needs only carbon dioxide and sun light and water that need not be pure. World over, lot of research are being carried out for the development algae based products including oil, as algae contains 30 to 35% of oil. Significant progress has been made abroad and commercial production has commenced. Little efforts has been put forth in India in developing algae based technology.

Whatever achieved in research and development efforts in the chemical sector in India show that the R&D commitments are not what it should be.

Indian chemical industry often complains about what is termed as lack of level playing ground, which Is not borne by the facts. There is need to be competitive in the global market and no chemical industry should think that it should get preferred treatment in India to operate in India and global market, which is no more possible considering the WTO regulations.

While the investment constraints are pointed out as stumbling block for setting up large capacity plants of global size, the fact is that there are many speciality chemicals which are now imported in increasing quantity in India, for which large investments are not required.

The issue is that often for setting up several chemical projects even of small size, Indian chemical industry is looking for technology from abroad. In several cases, it is seen that the investment in chemical industry are limited by the extent to which international organizations are willing to provide technology and global market support.

Another matter of concern is that corporate planning strategies are not given due importance that they deserve in Indian chemical industry. Corporate planning strategies imply the continuous tracking of developments with regard to demand supply trends and technologies on global scale and efforts to identify appropriate opportunities based on the strength of the individual units. This does not seem to be happening in adequate measures. There appear to be lack of knowledge accumulation efforts.

All said and done, it is necessary to recognize the serious attitudinal problem faced by the Indian chemical industry, which has to be taken note of and can not be ignored any more.

(RFE/RL) — The chief inspector of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has resigned from the agency that conducts inspections in Iran to verify compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made the announcement on May 11, but gave no reason for Tero Varjoranta’s unexpected departure.

The move comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal between Iran and world powers that provided Tehran with relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

It is not known whether the U.S. move played any role in Varjoranta’s decision.

Varjoranta, a Finn, had since 2013 been a deputy director-general of the IAEA and head of its Department of Safeguards, which verifies countries’ compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The IAEA said he will be replaced in an acting capacity by Massimo Aparo, head of the department’s Iran team.

Trump on May 8 pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal, signed under his predecessor, Barack Obama.

The president has called the accord a “terrible” deal for the United States and accused Tehran of violating the “spirit” of the pact by continuing to test ballistic missiles and by supporting militant activity in the region.

Tehran has said its nuclear program is strictly for civilian use and denies supporting extremists in the Middle East.

Co-signees Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China had urged Washington to remain a part of the deal, saying it was the best way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The IAEA has also repeatedly defended the agreement, saying it is a step forward in the global system of nuclear verification.

Vladimir Putin’s directive to the Russian government to dramatically increase over the next six years both life expectancy and the number of births, neither of which is achievable without the kind of investment unlikely to be forthcoming, have had the effect of refocusing Russian public attention of the country’s demographic problems.

They are both numerous and large, with some well-known like the shifting ethnic balance and the decline in overall population figures but with many others less obvious but with potentially equally serious consequences. Despite this having been a holiday week, three of these received more attention that has typically been the case.

First, Putin’s call to cut the number of poor in Russian by 50 percent may be far harder than he thinks. According to a new study by scholars a the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service, the number of poor is almost twice the figure that Rosstat gives (social.ranepa.ru/novosti/item/issledovanie-ranhigs-podhody-k-socialnoj-podderzhke-v-usloviyah-mnogokriterialnogo-opredeleniya-bednosti).

According to the state statistical agency, about 13 percent of Russians – some 20 million people – are poor; but according to the Russian Academy, the actual figures are 25 percent and 36 million, nearly twice as many. Consequently, if Putin’s goals were achieved, it would only mean that the real number of poor Russians would equal the number Moscow now gives out.

But these figures on poverty carry with them additional bad news as far as the country’s demographic future is concerned. They show that households with children are more likely to be poor than are those without and that the more children in the household, the greater its probability of being poor.

That means Putin faces a Hobson’s choice: if he pushes to eliminate poverty, he almost certainly will drive down the fertility rate of Russian women and hence the possibility of stabilizing the population; but if he decides to try to boost family size, given Russia’s current social support system, he will almost certainly increase the number of Russian poor.

Second, like other countries in the industrialized world, Russia faces a cadres crisis, somewhat later than those in Western Europe but somewhat sooner than those elsewhere. That is, Russia soon won’t have enough people to fill key jobs in health care, education, scholarship and so on (ridus.ru/news/276070).

By 2030, experts at the Korn Ferry Hay Group say, Russia will have a shortage of people ready to fill high-skill jobs equal to 2.8 million people, 7.4 percent of the total number of specialists. Their absence, the experts continue, “will cost the Russian economy 297.1 billion rubles (4.8 billion US dollars) annually.

The shortage of such people will make it harder to boost economic growth, promote larger family size by providing more social support, and reduce the chances that any of Putin’s “directives” to the government this time around will be achieved.

And third, Russia faces a large and growing brain drain, in which its most talented people choose to move abroad to live and work. There are more than 2.7 million people abroad who were born in Russia, slightly more than half of whom have retained their Russian passports (iq.hse.ru/news/219087648.html).

Their absence too is a drag on the Russian economy, scholars say. In principle, some of them could be attracted back by higher wages or interesting career possibilities. But some will return, according to new research, only if the political system in Russia becomes more open and less repressive.

While moving in that direction would help Putin toward the achievement of his goals, it is probably the single direction one can say with near certainty that he is unlikely to choose to pursue.

Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Massoud Karbasian and the director general of the Russian Energy Agency (REA), Anatoly Tikhonov, agreed to enhance cooperation between the two sides in various projects, including the Garmsar-Inche Bouroun railroad.

“RZD International representatives as a part of the Russian delegation headed by Anatoly Tikhonov, Director General of the Russian Energy Agency (REA) of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, paid a working visit to Tehran on May 9, 2018,” the RZD said in a press release on Thursday.

During the visit, the delegation negotiated with Karbasian, who is also the co-chairman of the Intergovernmental Russian-Iranian Commission, and representatives of the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The parties discussed a number of topical issues of bilateral cooperation, including the project for electrification of 495 km-long Garmsar-Inche Bouroun line, which the Iranian side had earlier proposed to the Russian colleagues for implementation, according to the press release.

The RZD International representatives informed the minister about the completion of all formal procedures by the Russian side under the pre-contractual obligations of Garmsar-Inche Bouroun project.

During the meeting, Karbasian said that the official application for the acceptance of the contract worth 1.2 billion euro for financing was signed and would be forwarded to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation shortly.

In the session, Director General of RZD International Sergey Pavlov and representatives of Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development discussed preparations for the start of Garmsar-Inche Bouroun electrification project, which is scheduled for July 2018.

In addition, the Iranian side confirmed the interest in developing bilateral cooperation by outlining perspective projects and spheres in railroad sector, including initiatives mentioned in the Memorandum on strategic cooperation on railway electrification signed between the Russian Railways and RAI on March 28, 2017, the RZD said in the press release.

By Richard Wachman

US President Donald Trump’s decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran is forcing global shipping companies, traders, insurers and banks to look at pulling the plug on business with Tehran, it emerged yesterday.

Swiss-headquartered private shipping group MSC said it would “comply with the (sanctions) timetable set out by the US government.”

Denmark’s Maersk Line said it had ceased acceptance of the specific cargoes blacklisted by the US Treasury this week.

On May 9, President Donald Trump broke with his European allies to announce US withdrawal from the international nuclear agreement with Tehran brokered by President Obama. Trump disclosed a phased reimposition of punitive sanctions, which will further damage an already weakened Iranian economy.

Among other things, Washington is imposing sanctions on the direct or indirect sale, supply, or transfer to or from Iran of graphite and raw or semi-finished metals such as aluminium and steel, and coal, Reuters reported. The US will separately re-impose sanctions on the provision of insurance and reinsurance.

Reuters cited sources at global trading companies predicting an imminent drop in Iranian exports due to banking issues, such as availability of trade finance.

A potential decline in oil volumes due to the sanctions could add to upward pressure on oil prices, which have gained almost 20 percent to around $78 per barrel since January.

The price rise has also been bolstered by a decision by OPEC and Russia to cap production to reduce inventories that had built up during the boom that came to a halt in 2014.

Middle Eastern oil-producing countries have benefited this year from rising oil revenues, giving them headroom to increase spending to stimulate economies that faced austerity in the wake of the collapse of the crude price four years ago.

Saudi Arabia’s first-quarter statement revealed increased government spending and a jump in central government receipts from new taxes, including VAT.

(RFE/RL) — The Turkish prime minister has said his country is willing to consider an offer by new Armenian leader Nikol Pashinian to establish diplomatic relations and ease tensions between the longtime bitter rivals.

“If Armenia gives up its hostile attitude which it has had for several years, its attitude toward Turkey’s territorial integrity and borders, if it is giving up all its wrong attitudes…and it wants to open a new page, we will give the response looking at the details relating to this,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters in Ankara on May 11.

“Let’s see first,” he added. “We are going to increase the number of our friends, and reduce the number of our enemies. We do not desire to be hostile with anyone, especially our neighbors.”

Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations, and the tense border between the two countries is closed, with Russian troops based in Armenia guarding the frontier.

On taking office, Pashinian said that “we are keeping with our position, and we are ready to establish relations [with Turkey] without conditions.”

“Along with this, we are set to push for recognition of the Armenian genocide at the global level,” he added.

The major issue facing Ankara and Yerevan is Armenia’s insistence on Turkey’s recognition of the killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during the World War I era as “genocide.”

At least 28 countries and the majority of U.S. states have joined Armenia in formally considering the killings to be genocide.

But Turkey rejects the term, claiming the death toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest rather than a systematic plan to exterminate the Armenian population in Ottoman Turkey.

Another source of tension between Ankara and Yerevan rests in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan — a Turkish ally — that is under the control of ethnic Armenian forces.

Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a conflict over the mountainous region for years. Armenia-backed separatists seized control of the mainly ethnic-Armenian populated region during the early 1990s in a war that started in the late 1980s and killed some 30,000 people.

The region declared independence, but it has not been recognized internationally. Intermittent fighting has continued since a 1994 cease-fire, and diplomatic efforts to resolve the territorial dispute have brought little progress.

On his first full day in office, Pashinian visited Nagorno-Karabakh, a traditional stop for Armenian leaders on May 9, the date on which many ex-Soviet countries mark the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Pashinian, in a speech to parliament before his election on May 8, said his revolution would lead to the “recognition of realizing the right of Karabakh to self-determination.”

He later said he was prepared for talks, but only if the separatists were involved. Azerbaijani officials insist they will only negotiate with officials in Armenia and not with leaders of the breakaway region.

Pashinian said Turkey was imposing “illogical” conditions ahead of talks on restoring diplomatic ties.

“It is illogical to make conditions referring to a third country [Azerbaijan] when you want to establish relations,” he said during his visit to Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Ankara and Yerevan signed a deal in 2009 to establish diplomatic ties and open their common borders.

However, the agreement collapsed before being implemented over Turkey and Azerbaijan’s insistence that Armenia withdraw from disputed Nagorno-Karabakh regions.

Erdogan’s ambition to reconstitute elements of the Ottoman era should have a chilling effect on any country with which Erdogan seeks active bilateral relations. There are always sinister intentions behind his overtures, especially now that most of the countries in the Balkans are in the process of negotiating entry into the European Union.

By Gilles Pargneaux, Alon Ben-Meir, and Arbana Xharra*

The summit held in Ankara on April 4 between Putin, Erdogan, and Rouhani provides an eye-opening depiction of the rapidly changing discourse of 2018’s geostrategic international rivalry. The Syrian conflict, the center of global attention for more than seven years, is now in the hands of three actors – Russia, Turkey, and Iran. Europe appears to be incongruously helpless in the face of this geopolitical environment, the consequences of which bears directly on the Western alliance.

Here, the case of Turkey is worrisome. President Erdogan’s horrifying human rights violations, his blind regional ambitions, the Islamization of Turkey, and exploitation of the Syrian refugees in Turkey (wielding them against Europe), coupled with his military incursion into Syria, demand that the EU immediately reconsider its relations with Turkey. The relationship must be redefined, given the changing regional and international geopolitical dimension that has a direct effect on the EU’s national security.

Bad news for Europe and the West The fact that the EU has been excluded from deliberations between Russia, Iran, and Turkey is a bad omen for the EU and the West in general. Much of the blame, however, rests with the EU in particular, as it has permitted Erdogan to pursue policies domestically and internationally which are diametrically against EU interests and democratic principles, even though Turkey was going through the EU ascension process.

To be sure, the Ankara-Tehran-Moscow axis is marked by the growing triangular economic-military relations. Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defense missiles and the construction of a nuclear power plant by Russian company Rosatom in Turkey are only a few examples reflecting the deepening ties between the two sides. The summit in Ankara provided Erdogan the platform he needs to project himself as the “leader of the Muslim world”, sending a clear message to the West that the “troika alliance” does not need the West’s input in solving Syria’s problems.

The EU must not underestimate the implications of this message. Kept unchallenged, this will have serious implications on the West’s regional allies in the Middle East.

Between reconstruction of the Ottoman Empire and new Turkish strategic depth The 2016 failed military coup in Turkey further cemented Erdogan’s authoritarian regime. The coup, which Erdogan considered a “gift from God”, gave him the excuse to go on a rampage against his real or perceived enemies, targeting the press, the academia, the Kurds, and anyone who is suspected of having any affiliation with the Gülenists.

He was able to do that through changes to the Turkish Constitution and the use of Islam as Turkey’s new national identity, which could not be questioned without one being accused of blasphemy. Erdogan’s express purpose is to rebuild a regional neo-Ottoman power, which directly contradicts the Kemalist – secular, democratic – nature of Turkey, and is certainly against Western values.

The policy of “zero problems with neighbors”, envisioned by former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, was thrown out of the window. Today Turkey has problems with every neighbor, as Erdogan is bent on spreading Turkey’s influence and Islamic doctrine on many of its neighbors with the clear objective of acquiring strategic depth in the region.

Outlook for a new EU-Turkey relationship The authoritarian and strategic turn of Turkey calls for the EU to develop a new diplomatic strategy toward Turkey. Under Erdogan’s leadership, Turkey obviously is no longer what it was hoped to be—a model of Islamic democracy that meets the principal requirements of the EU. Turkey’s diplomatic and military trajectory under Erdogan will remain the same for years to come, and thus the process of Turkey’s accession to the EU must end. Moreover, the EU must not expand its commercial ties with Turkey unless human rights are fully respected in Turkey.  There cannot be such a thing as a double standard policy in Europe’s relationship with Turkey.

Therefore, the growing influence of Turkey in the Balkans cannot be ignored, where Turkey is systematically entrenching itself by increasing its commercial and cultural presence. The arrest of six Gülen-affiliated Turks residing in Kosovo on March 29, the detention of Greek border guards to force the extradition of the Turkish military, the Turkish promotion of Islamic studies, and the building of new or the rehabilitation of old mosques in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia represent the latest avatars of this neo-Ottoman influence, tinged with political Islam, from Turkey to Europe.

Erdogan’s ambition to reconstitute elements of the Ottoman era should have a chilling effect on any country with which Erdogan seeks active bilateral relations. There are always sinister intentions behind his overtures, especially now that most of the countries in the Balkans are in the process of negotiating entry into the European Union.

Gilles Pargneaux is a Member of the European Parliament

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

Arbana Xharra authored a series of investigative reports on religious extremists and Turkey’s Islamic agenda operating in the Balkans. She has won numerous awards for her reporting, and was a 2015 recipient of the International Women of Courage Award from the US State Department.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of TransConflict.

Trump promised to rein in drug prices. It was his only sensible campaign promise.

But the plan he announced Friday does little but add another battering ram to his ongoing economic war against America’s allies.

He calls it “American patients first,” and takes aim at what he calls “foreign freeloading.” The plan will pressure foreign countries to relax their drug price controls.

America’s trading partners “need to pay more because they’re using socialist price controls, market access controls, to get unfair pricing,” said Alex Azar, Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, who, perhaps not incidentally, was a former top executive at the drug maker Eli Lilly and Company.

By this tortured logic, if other nations allow drug companies to charge whatever they want, U.S. drug companies will then lower prices in the United States.

This is nonsensical. It would just mean more profits for U.S. drug companies.

While it’s true that Americans spend far more on medications per person than do citizens in any other rich country – even though Americans are no healthier – that’s not because other nations freeload on American drug companies’ research.

Big Pharma in America spends more on advertising and marketing than it does on research – often tens of millions to promote a single drug.

The U.S. government supplies much of the research Big Pharma relies on through the National Institutes of Health. This is a form of corporate welfare. No other industry gets this sort of help.

Besides flogging their drugs, American drug companies also spend hundreds of millions lobbying the government. Last year alone, their lobbying tab came to $171.5 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That’s more than oil and gas, insurance, or any other American industry. It’s more than the formidable lobbying expenditures of America’s military contractors. Big Pharma spends tens of millions more on campaign expenditures.

They spend so much on politics in order to avoid price controls, as exist in most other nations, and other government attempts to constrain their formidable profits.

For example, in 2003, Big Pharma got a U.S. law prohibiting the government from using its considerable bargaining clout under Medicare and Medicaid to negotiate lower drug prices. Other nations with big healthcare plans routinely negotiate lower drug prices.

During his campaign Trump promised to reverse this law. But the plan he revealed Friday seeks only to make it easier for private health insurers to negotiate better deals for Medicare beneficiaries.

In reality, private health insurers don’t have anywhere near the clout of Medicare and Medicaid – which was the whole point of Big Pharma’s getting Congress to ban such negotiations in the first place.

In the last few years, U.S. drug companies have also blocked Americans from getting low-cost prescription drug from Canada, using the absurd argument that Americans can’t rely on the safety of drugs coming from our northern neighbor – whose standards are at least as high as ours.

Trump’s new plan doesn’t change this.

To put all this another way, when Americans buy drugs in the United States, they really buy a package of advertising, marketing, and political influence-peddling. Consumers in other nations don’t pay these costs. Which explains a big part of why drug prices are lower abroad.

Trump’s so-called plan to lower drug prices disregards this reality.

Trump’s plan nibbles at the monopoly power of U.S. pharmaceutical companies, but doesn’t deal with the central fact that their patents are supposed to run only twenty years but they’ve developed a host of strategies to keep patents going beyond then.

One is to make often insignificant changes in their patented drugs that are enough to trigger new patents and thereby prevent pharmacists from substituting cheaper generic versions.

Before its patent expired on Namenda, its widely used drug to treat Alzheimer’s, Forest Labs announced it would stop selling the existing tablet form of in favor of new extended-release capsules called Namenda XR. Even though Namenda XR was just a reformulated version of the tablet, the introduction prevented generic versions from being introduced.

Other nations don’t allow drug patents to be extended on such flimsy grounds. Trump’s plan doesn’t touch this ploy.

Another tactic used by U.S. drug companies has been to sue generics to prevent them from selling their cheaper versions, then settle the cases by paying the generics to delay introducing those cheaper versions.

Such “pay-for-delay” agreements are illegal in other nations, but antitrust enforcement hasn’t laid a finger on them in America – and Trump doesn’t mention them although they cost Americans an estimated $3.5 billion a year.

Even after their patents have expired, U.S. drug companies continue to aggressively advertise their brands so patients will ask their doctors for them instead of the generic versions. Many doctors comply.

Other nations don’t allow direct advertising of prescription drugs – another reason why prices are lower there and higher here. Trump’s plan is silent on this, too.

If Trump were serious about lowering drug prices he’d have to take on the U.S. drug manufacturers.

But Trump doesn’t want to take on Big Pharma. As has been typical for him, rather than confronting the moneyed interests in America he chooses mainly to blame foreigners.

Bangladesh blasted its way into the space age Friday after U.S. company SpaceX launched Dhaka’s Bangabandhu-1 satellite into orbit, in a social-media event described by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina as a “glorious day” for the South Asian country.

The French-made communications satellite, which cost U.S. $250 million, took off at 4:14 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on top of a SpaceX rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., atop a reusable Falcon 9 Force 5 rocket. The emblem of Bangladesh’s government decorated the exterior of the capsule holding the satellite.

“From now on, we become a proud member of the satellite club,” a beaming Hasina said in a pre-recorded address that was broadcast on national television and social media minutes after the successful launch. “We entered into a new era.”

The 3.9-ton satellite traveled to a path 22,000 miles above Earth and went into orbit at 4:52 p.m.

SpaceX, a privately-owned California-based space transportation firm, said in a statement that the satellite would provide telecommunications coverage for Bangladesh and surrounding nations, and would also allow Bangladeshis living in remote, previously-unreached areas to receive internet and phone service.

About eight minutes after lift-off, the first stage of the rocket safely landed on an autonomous drone ship floating more than 300 miles off the Atlantic coast.

The SpaceX rocket tried to take off on Thursday, but the launch was aborted just one minute before its lift-off time of 5:47 p.m. due to a problem with ground systems that automatically triggered the vehicle’s abort sequence, according to a press statement from SpaceX.

“This is a historic occasion, which is a matter of great pride for the people of Bangladesh within the country and beyond,” said Mohammad Ziauddin, Bangladesh’s ambassador to the United States, in a statement on Thursday.

The satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, of Cannes, France, was named after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding father and Hasina’s father who was assassinated in 1975.

It is expected to have a 15-year lifespan and will help save money for the Dhaka government, which currently spends $14 million annually to rent from the services of foreign satellites, government officials said.

SpaceX’s newest rocket, the Falcon 9 Force 5, propelled the satellite into orbit. If all goes as planned, SpaceX would fly the same rocket twice in a single day in 2019, which would be another first for the company.

The satellite’s coverage area includes Bangladesh and other countries, including India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Indonesia, according to a Thales statement.

“The Bangabandhu satellite will help to make Bangladesh an advanced country,” Shahjahan Mahmood, chairman of the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, which will manage the satellite, told the Dhaka Tribune.

“It would also speed up many aspects of our daily life.”

By Perry West

After a New York judge said that courts must seriously consider whether animals deserve some legal protections afforded to people, Catholic philosophers say that human beings are unique, and that, when it comes to law and ethics, that matters.

“Chimps are amazing living beings… and it could be a big mistake to just think of the chimps as things or instruments,” said Dr. John Crosby, a philosophy professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

“Undeniably, there is something there mysterious [about them]. There is something of worth, but there is not a person. And therefore, because they are not a person, there are no real rights the chimp has,” he told CNA.

Nonhuman Rights Project has sought to release two New York-based chimpanzees, Tommy and Kiko, from the cages of private owners, and into a wild animal sanctuary. Steven Wise is the lawyer in charge of the animals’ defense.

In March 2017, Wise filed for habeas corpus relief, citing the similarities between mankind and primates. The filing alleged that chimps’ captivity constituted a kind of unlawful imprisonment.

On May 8, New York’s highest court rejected an appeal from Wise aimed at freeing the chimpanzees. The Court of Appeals voted 5-0 in favor of an intermediate appellate court in Manhattan that denied the chimps’ legal status in June 2017. The appellate court ruled that chimps are not legal persons.

“The asserted cognitive and linguistic capabilities of chimpanzees do not translate to a chimpanzee’s capacity or ability, like humans, to bear legal duties, or to be held legally accountable for their actions,” wrote Justice Troy Webber last year, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Judge Eugene Fahey, who voted against the chimps’ rights to habeas relief on Tuesday, argued that while a chimp might not be considered a person, animals might have the right to legal redress.

“While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a ‘person,’ there is no doubt that it is not merely a thing,” he said in an opinion statement. “In elevating our species, we should not lower the status of other highly intelligent species.”

“The Appellate Division’s conclusion that a chimpanzee cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is not entitled to habeas relief is in fact based on nothing more than the premise that a chimpanzee is not a member of the human species,” Fahey wrote.

There are a lot of similarities between chimps and people, Fahey said, drawing attention to chimps’ advanced cognitive skills, ability to self-recognize, and a high percentage of shared DNA with humans, at least 96 percent.

He asked whether some animals should have the right to readdress wrongs committed against them. Animals are not morally culpable or legally responsible, he said, but neither are infants and some ill people, and therefore they might enjoy similar legal rights.

“Even if it is correct, however, that nonhuman animals cannot bear duties, the same is true of human infants or comatose human adults, yet no one would suppose that it is improper to seek a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of one’s infant child.”

Dr. Crosby agreed that animals should not be treated poorly, and he lamented over the mistreatment of animals by farms and luxury product testing. However, he disagreed with the judge’s argument about babies and comatose adults, noting chimpanzees permanently lack moral culpability.

Babies grow into morally responsible adults and comatose patients may potentially get better, he said. Even if the patient does not get better, he added, people “are the kind of being that in the normal instance has moral agency and something is blocking exercise of it.”

Animals do not have moral agency or free will, he said, while highlighting a few major differences between chimpanzees and people.

“A person is a being that possesses himself and is capable of originating action, where he freely determines himself,” said Crosby. “It’s very difficult to claim that any chimp, however amazingly skilled, is a free agent.”

Cautioning against conferring upon them the status of persons, Crosby said people should instead remember their moral obligations towards animals.

“These animals merit a certain reverence. We ought to think of ourselves not just as users of them, but somehow custodians of them,” he said. “There are right and wrong ways of acting towards chimps and other animals, but they are not the subject of rights since they are not persons.”

Father Brian Chrzastek, a philosophy professor at the Dominican House of Studies, also reflected on the difference between chimps and people. He said that humans have a higher potential for abstract thought and originality. While animals act by instinct, he said people engage rationally with the world.

“Humans are different in kind. It’s not like we are just smart chimpanzees or something. We’re an entirely different level of thought, an entirely different kind of species,” he told CNA.

Operation IceBridge, NASA’s longest-running airborne mission to monitor polar ice change, concluded this year’s springtime survey of Arctic sea and land ice on May 2. The flights, which began on March 22, covered the western basin of the Arctic Ocean and Greenland’s fastest-changing glaciers.

“This campaign achieved most of our primary objectives in surveying the state of Arctic ice,” said IceBridge’s acting project scientist Joe MacGregor. “We’ve now flown many of these missions ten years in a row, a period that has included continued rapid change in both Arctic glaciers and sea ice.”

The image above was taken during a research flight carried on April 21 near Vestfjord Glacier in Scoresby Sund, along the eastern coast of Greenland. The photo shows a large iceberg that has broken the surrounding layer of consolidated sea ice. Flat floes of sea ice with fresh snow on top, areas of open water that are beginning to refreeze and neighboring smaller icebergs are visible.

During the first weeks of the campaign, IceBridge was based in Thule Air Base, in northwest Greenland, and in Fairbanks, Alaska. From these two bases, IceBridge mapped sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas and in the central Arctic Ocean as well as the quickly evolving Petermann Glacier in northeast Greenland. On Apr. 20, the IceBridge team relocated to Kangerlussuaq – just north of the Arctic Circle in central west Greenland – from where it launched flights to measure land ice.

This Arctic season, IceBridge completed most of its sea and land ice baseline flights — surveys that are repeated year after year to monitor regions that have been changing rapidly over the last decades. In total, the campaign included 20 eight-hour flights: Eight flights focused on surveying sea ice, while the remaining 12 flights targeted land ice. Several flights included collaborations with international missions, such as underflights of the ESA’s (European Space Agency) Sentinel-3A and CryoSat-2 satellites over sea ice, overflights of the U.S. Navy’s 2018 ICEX campaign over sea ice north of Alaska and of Danish PROMICE meteorological stations in Greenland, and an intercomparison of radar systems in northeast Greenland with Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute. IceBridge also flew over an unusual polynya — an opening in the midst of the sea ice pack — north of Greenland shortly after it had frozen up, and the measurements it collected will help unravel the evolution of sea ice there.

For this field campaign, IceBridge flew on NASA’s P-3 Orion, which is based at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The plane carried a comprehensive instrument suite: a dual-color laser altimeter that measures surface elevation by transmitting both infrared and green laser pulses, three types of radar systems to study ice layers and the bedrock underneath, a high-resolution camera to create color maps of ice, a hyperspectral imager that takes measurements over hundreds of wavelengths, and infrared cameras to measure surface temperatures of sea and land ice.

“This was the last IceBridge campaign to occur before the expected launch of ICESat-2 [Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2]”, said Nathan Kurtz, who is IceBridge’s outgoing project scientist and the new deputy project scientist for ICESat-2. “We achieved good coverage of the Arctic sea ice pack, fast changing glacier areas and overflights of 4,550 miles of future ICESat-2 tracks to ensure continuity between multiple altimetry missions over a long time period.”

A member of the Iranian Council of Experts, Ahmad Khatami, said following the Friday prayer in Tehran that if Israel acts ‘foolishly’, Tel Aviv and Haifa will be destroyed, Al-Masdar News says.

“We do not deal with a nuclear bomb, but on the contrary, our policy is a deterrent policy, in this direction, every day Iran’s missile power is growing so that Israel can not fall asleep from this force,” Khatami stated as quoted by IRIB radio.

“If he (Israel) acts foolishly, then we level with the ground of Tel Aviv and Haifa, “Khatami added.

Prior to Khatami’s statement, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman called on the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to ‘kick’ the Iranian forces out of Syria.

The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that this situation is of concern, and called on all parties to restraint.

We know that Twitter is littered with misinformation. But how good are the social media platform’s most active users at detecting these falsehoods, especially during public emergencies?

Not good, according to new University at Buffalo research that examined more than 20,000 tweets during Hurricane Sandy and the Boston Marathon bombing.

The study, published in the journal Natural Hazards, examined four false rumors — two each from the marathon and hurricane, including an infamous falsehood about the New York Stock Exchange flooding.

Researchers examined three types of behavior. Twitter users could either spread the false news, seek to confirm it, or cast doubt upon it. Researchers found:

• 86 to 91 percent of the users spread false news, either by retweeting or “liking” the original post.
• 5 to 9 percent sought to confirm the false news, typically by retweeting and asking if the information was correct.
• 1 to 9 percent expressed doubt, often by saying the original tweet was not accurate.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate how apt Twitter users are at debunking falsehoods during disasters. Unfortunately, the results paint a less than flattering picture,” says the study’s lead author Jun Zhuang, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Even after the false news had been debunked on Twitter and traditional news media outlets, the study found that:

• Less than 10 percent of the users who spread the false news deleted their erroneous retweet.
• Less than 20 percent of the same users clarified the false tweet with a new tweet.

“These findings are important because they show how easily people are deceived during times when they are most vulnerable and the role social media platforms play in these deceptions,” says Zhuang, who is conducting similar research concerning Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma.

On a more positive note, the study found that while Twitter users are likely to spread false news during disasters, Twitter and other media platforms move quickly to correct the misinformation.

Additionally, Zhuang says it’s important to note that the study does not consider Twitter users who may have seen the original tweets with false news and decided to ignore them.

“It’s possible that many people saw these tweets, decided they were inaccurate and chose not to engage,” says Zhuang, who was recently awarded a $392,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to work on additional studies, including understanding what factors prompt Twitter users to ignore certain posts during emergencies, and the best ways to debunk false news.

By Andre Ishii

Nearly five years into its celebrated roll out, some in the European Union (EU) leadership class seem to have finally taken the proverbial ‘red pill’ and awoken to the substance of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – formerly known as One Belt One Road (OBOR).

The ambitiously massive economic-infrastructural connectivity project, officially unveiled in 2013 by now president-for-life Xi Jinping, seeks to hyper-connect Eurasian states via the continental Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and oceanic Maritime Silk Road (MSR).  Morgan Stanley has noted that project will exceed $1 trillion in various infrastructural constructions through to 2027, spanning territories that are ruled by corrupt autocratic regimes as well as those that are junk or non-rated in regard to their sovereign debts. In January 2018, Beijing announced that it will consider establishing a ‘Polar Silk Road’ as well, extending its networks into the Arctic region – a natural resource gold mine.

While Zhang Ming, PRC ambassador to the EU, has passionately preached as though the cooperation of EU states with the BRI is only natural and even destined, there have been strong voices of criticism, including the former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel this past February at Munich Security Conference. He noted that the BRI project is being used as an instrument to promote values which are at odds with values of the West, and asserted that Beijing was creating divisions inside the EU and potentially undermining its domestic security. Gabriel was not under any illusions; he saw the BRI project as a dry, calculated geopolitical project to enhance China’s international status, despite its rhetoric of cooperation and mutual economic benefits for the participating states.

The strategy of a hegemonic state integrating transportation (particularly railroad networks) and trade corridors to extend domination is a principle formulated by the famed pioneer of classical geopolitics, Halford Mackinder.  Beijing is engaging in this strategy unabashedly, with support being extended by 67 sovereign states to its core financial institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). According to testimony given before a US-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing by Jonathan Hillman, fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 89 percent of companies contracted in the infrastructure projects are Chinese (while 7.6 percent are local to the area and 3.4 percent are foreign non-Chinese), expressing bluntly that BRI is a “China-centric effort.”

A warning regarding BRI-related danger to EU security has been issued in a report produced jointly by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) and Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi), both based in Berlin. In the February 2018 report Authoritarian Advance: Responding to China’s Growing Political Influence in Europe, five contributing analysts outline an entrenchment of Beijing’s policy making influence in the EU that is nothing short of astounding.

The report states: “China commands a comprehensive and flexible influencing toolset, ranging from the overt to the covert, primarily deployed across three arenas: political and economic elites, media and public opinion, and civil society and academia” and as a consequence “political elites within the European Union (EU) and in the European neighborhood have started to embrace Chinese rhetoric and interests, including where they contradict national and/or European interests.”

Certainly, such self-serving attitudes and positions of many figures in the insular Brussels bureaucracy was a major factor in the wide-spread revolt against the EU establishment unleashed in the wake of Brexit nearly two years ago. Unfortunately, however, the quest for autonomy, local sovereignty, or outright separatism under the veneer of nationalism – healthy nationalism or otherwise – by EU populist parties have themselves been the targets of influence operations by Eurasian revisionist powers attempting to secure their own interests. While popular discourse focus on Russian attempts at influencing EU groups (and West more in general, most notably Moscow’s attempt to influence 2016 US presidential election), the report notes that far less attention is being given to Beijing’s policy-influencing strategies within the EU.

As US organizations have aided “Color Revolutions” in the former Soviet Republics and the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ to facilitate the toppling of Middle East and North African (MENA) regimes via US-manufactured social media tools, some may even be tempted to describe the phenomenon as a blowback ‘European Spring’ – a fire that was lit by Brexit, its flames are now being fanned covertly by Moscow and Beijing with a goal of upending regional systems supported by a US elite establishment.

The approaches taken by Moscow and Beijing bear some similarities.  According to the report, Beijing has also been attempting to foment US/EU division to its own strategic benefits. The report explains that “Beijing realized early on that dividing the U.S. and the EU would be crucial to isolating the U.S., countering Western influence more broadly, and expanding its global reach.”

The strategies used in China’s EU operations include:

1) Weaponizing economic investments to court political support for Beijing’s policies (a strategy implemented particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, regions that were hit hard after the 2008 financial crisis). Even former prime ministers of Great Britain – David Cameron and Gordon Brown – have actively taken major roles in the BRI project.

2) Propagating the belief that authoritarian/illiberal policies are not contrary to fostering economic growth. The report asserts that the Czech Republic has turned from a harsh critic of PRC’s human rights abuse to it de-emphasizing the issue since the 2014 ascent of the Zeman administration. Xi Jinping has received the key to the city of Prague in March 2016. Kremlin-leaning President Milos Zeman – the former Czech Social Democrat Party (ČSSD) leader who began his second term in March 2018 – has previously noted that Xi Jinping is an ally in the fight for independence from Brussels bureaucracy.

3) Supporting EU candidates and staff that are friendly to the CCP policies and interests while ignoring or indirectly attempting to silence those who are critical of Beijing’s policies, especially regarding Tibet. Prominent EU figures have been retaliated against (often by means of downgrading level of diplomatic relations) by Beijing for meeting with the Dalai Lama.

4) Influencing EU public opinion by promoting historical-political narratives that are convenient to Beijing, which can take form of (but are not limited to) providing newspaper inserts reflecting CCP’s official position, improving media relations for content exchange, and financially supporting or buying up struggling EU media outlets to make them more amicable to China’s policies.

5) Just as the modern establishment media has become in many instances not only an information outlet but a consensus-building and mobilizing influence in civil society, academia is also increasingly functioning in a similar manner via the modern education system. According to the report, Beijing has also capitalized on this by attempting to exert influence in universities and think tanks to make these institutions bend to its interests. This strategy manifests in ways such as investing and creating scholarship programs for academic environments that are friendly to Beijing’s official positions, limiting freedom of speech by sanctioning ‘offenders’ and curtailing the range of debates, and establishing Confucius Institutes (which have been described as “an arm of the Chinese state” and the FBI has recently recognized them as an infiltration mechanism and thus a national security concern).

6) Exploiting Chinese diaspora communities in the EU by feeding them propaganda and attempting to turn them into agents to promote Beijing’s interests.

As one can easily recognize from these elements noted in the report, the attempt to mold the EU into a political entity conducive to Beijing’s interests mirror Moscow’s strategy of weakening the EU in order to promote its own geopolitical interests.  The warnings provided by the report come at a time when the post-Cold War order has already been in flux for a decade, with the shifts accelerating after the 2008 financial crisis, which many strategists around the globe view as the dusk of US global dominance. Crises have broken out on key points of the Eurasian continent, and resurgent revisionist powers have taken advantage of them to start building a new and still-emerging multipolar order.

Beijing’s intervention in EU policies seems to be yet another manifestation of our current geopolitical convulsions. This certainly should receive wider public attention by the very media outlets that wear the mantle of ‘guardians of democracy.’ This is especially true when the major topic broadcasted by the establishment media is that of Russian meddling attempts. Yet according to the report: “Beijing’s political influencing efforts in Europe are bound to be much more consequential in the medium- to long-term future than those of the Kremlin.” The establishment media’s coverage of this issue is next to negligible. If this doesn’t change, it would be yet another moment in history when the common citizenry of the West, who should have been alerted by the so-called ‘gatekeepers of liberty’ (currently on the receiving end of numerous accusation of ideological bias and politicization), are tossed and swayed in what could become an irreversible geopolitical course in the near future.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect any official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com.

By Ninon Bulckaert

(EurActiv) — Carles Puigdemont, the former president of Catalonia who organised the illegal independence referendum in October 2017, nominated on Thursday (10 May) a pro-independence politician as his successor at the head of Spain’s rebellious region.

The Catalan separatist figurehead fled from Spain to Belgium after Madrid overruled the referendum and charged him with rebellion and is currently in exile in Germany. Spain asked Berlin to extradite him but a court in Schleswig-Holstein refused to do so last month. It argued that he was not involved in violence during the referendum on Catalan independence.

Renouncing the presidency, Puigdemont might be offering Catalonia a chance to form a government after months of political instability and an election in December, but his successor is known to share the same pro-independence agenda.

Joaquim Torra Pla, as known as Quim Torra, is widely seen as Catalonia’s best chance to form a regional government. A former president and publisher of the Catalan pro-independence association Omnium Cultural, he is the first candidate who has not been jailed, exiled or prosecuted in the aftermath of the independence referendum.

Quim Torra, an MP from Puigdemont’s pro-independence party, Together for Catalonia (JxCat), shares the political line of his exiled friend. Known for his anti-Spanish tweets, his radical nationalist stance makes him a worthy successor of Puigdemont.

However, he remains a political novice, since he only entered Catalonia’s parliament in January 2018. Despite this, a majority of separatist MPs should vote for him – except for four MPs from the Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP), a left-wing pro-independence political party, who already declared that they will abstain.

His possible election and the formation of a new Catalan government is a condition set by Madrid to reenact Barcelona’s autonomy – the Spanish government dissolved the Catalan parliament after the referendum, thus using for the first time article 155 of the Constitution, which allows it to do so.

Madrid made it impossible for Puigdemont to hold any office in Catalonia. The Spanish government spokesman Iñigo Méndez de Vigo announced on Wednesday (9 May) that any candidate for the Catalan parliament must be present at the plenary session.

Madrid reacted to Torra’s nomination in a statement, reminding him that he has the “obligation to comply with the law”. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told Antena 3 that a “dialogue” will only be possible with a functioning Catalan government, whose formation is now more likely.

Inés Arrimadas, a leader of opposition in the Catalan parliament and member of Ciudadanos, the unionist party, criticised Puigdemont’s choice, arguing that Quim Torra will only continue the climate of “confrontation and social division” in Catalonia.

By Jose Torres Jr.

The Philippines’ Supreme Court has kicked out the country’s chief justice in an unprecedented decision handed down on May 11.

With eight justices voting in favor and six against, the Supreme Court granted a “quo warranto” petition to remove Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno from office.

A “quo warranto” is a special legal action to resolve a dispute over whether a person has the right to hold a public office he or she occupies.

Sereno’s supposed failure to declare her assets and liabilities before she was named head of the judiciary in 2012 was cited as the reason for initiating the proceedings.

The justices who voted to oust her said the chief justice violated the requirements on the submission of Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth.

They ruled the “quo warranto” was the proper remedy to remove Sereno.

The court decision was “immediately executory without need for further action,” said court spokesman Theodore Te.

Sereno attended the court session, but was asked to step out of the room when the other justices deliberated on the “quo warranto” petition.

It was the first time in Philippine history that the highest court has removed its own chief.

In 2012, Chief Justice Renato Corona was ousted after being found guilty of betraying the public trust in an impeachment trial.

Sereno is expected to appeal the ruling through a “motion for reconsideration.”

Mockery of the democratic process

A Catholic bishops’ conference official condemned the decision, saying it made a “mockery of our democratic process.”

Father Edwin Gariguez, executive secretary of the social action secretariat, said the decision only showed that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte “has succeeded in controlling the judiciary.”

“The decision was expected because the accusers are themselves the judges. The wily manipulation by the Duterte administration was so effective,” said the priest.

Father Gariguez said the issue was not only about Sereno but also about “creating a rubber stamp Supreme Court subservient to the whims and caprices of a tyrannical president.”

“We condemn in the strongest terms the desecration of our constitution and democratic institutions,” said the priest.

In a separate statement, the bishops’ National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice, and Peace, said Sereno’s removal could be part of a grand plan to impose totalitarian rule.

“The chief justice was an impediment to Duterte’s plan to make all his efforts legal and constitutional, thus she had to be removed,” said the church organization.

The influential Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines issued a statement supporting groups that oppose efforts “to destroy the country’s judicial system.”

“Together with other concerned citizens of our country, we feel that the process of unseating the chief justice is not right,” read the statement.

The group said Sereno’s removal via a “quo warranto” petition was a “wrongful way of action.”

“Shortcuts are inimical to what our justice system stands for. Why not follow proper and legal procedures which may take a longer time?” the organization’s statement said.

“Haste makes waste. Shortcuts cause short circuits and damage the whole system,” it added.

Call for protests

Hours after the court decision, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers called on judges and lawyers “to step-up protests against the breakdown of the rule of law and the erosion of judicial independence.”

The group described the decision as “deplorable, contemptuous, and a contortion of the constitution.”

In a statement, the lawyers’ group said it was “abhorring to see the Supreme Court majority surrender its independence” to political pressure.

“The present dispensation has practically crippled all the democratic institutions that supposedly ensure checks and balances within the government,” the group said.

The lawyers said the Supreme Court’s decision “literally sprawled the red carpet for dictatorial rule.”

Students and youth organizations across the country also called for protests.

They described the ouster as “an attack on judicial independence and the consolidation of President Duterte’s power and complete control over the government.”

Duterte earlier declared himself Sereno’s “enemy” and vowed to throw her out of the Supreme Court.

Sereno accused Duterte’s administration of trying to orchestrate her ouster without having to resort to an impeachment trial.

She said the government was persecuting her for trying to protect the judiciary from Duterte who wanted to pursue a crackdown on alleged drug addicts, dealers and their protectors without due process.