By Alan Barber*

Employment in blue collar jobs rose by 49,000 in April, an increase of 0.2 percent. Since last April, employment in mining and logging (combined), manufacturing, and construction has increased by 561,000 or 2.8 percent. Together, these jobs accounted for 13.8 percent of jobs in April. In the Midwestern industrial belt, blue collar employment fell by 0.1 percent for a decrease in employment of 5,400 jobs, the second month without an increase in employment in a row. Blue collar jobs were 15.8 percent of total employment in the region in April.

Mining gained 8,000 jobs nationwide, mostly due to 7,000 new jobs in support activities for mining. The majority of these workers (259,900 in March, the most recent data available) are contract workers — both individuals and those employed by contracting companies, according to the MSHA — in oil and gas extraction as opposed to other mining (75,200). While coal mining saw a gain of 700 jobs in April nationwide, in the three states with available data, Kentucky added 100 coal mining jobs, while there was no change in Pennsylvania and Wyoming.

In manufacturing, 34 states experienced at least a modest increase in employment with the biggest gainers being Texas with 8,600 jobs (an increase of 1 percent), followed by Florida and North Carolina, each with increases of 2,900 jobs (0.8 percent and 0.6 percent increases respectively). Texas and Florida have seen the biggest increases in manufacturing employment of the past year, adding 28,000 (a 3.3 percent increase) and 12,300 (a 3.4 percent increase) jobs each. Wisconsin’s employment in the sector is up 13,700 or 2.9 percent over the last year, but it only added 500 jobs last month. Elsewhere in the Midwest, Illinois saw the largest increase in manufacturing jobs (1,600), while Michigan, New York and Ohio lost 1,000, 1,900, and 1,800 jobs each. After seeing increases in manufacturing for several months, Kentucky lost 3,500 jobs, a falloff of 1.4 percent.

The number of construction jobs continued to grow with an addition of 17,000 jobs nationwide last month. The Midwest, though, lost a total of 4,300 jobs on the whole, led by declines in construction jobs in Indiana (2,300 jobs, a 1.6 percent decrease), Wisconsin (2,000 jobs, a 1.6 percent decrease), and Michigan (1,100 jobs, a 0.6 percent decrease). Compared to last April, all states in the region have gained jobs, save Iowa, which has seen the total number of construction jobs in the state fall by 3.2 percent, or 2,500 jobs since last April.

*Alan Barber is Director of Domestic Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) in Washington, D.C.

As is the nature of his creepy totality, President Donald Trump has a habit of suffusing the obituaries of the famous and pampered. Tom Wolfe, it is said by such figures as Maggie Haberman in The New York Times, conceived of Trump as a formidable figure before Trump himself came to prominence.

The point is somewhat inaccurate: when The Bonfire of the Vanities made its debut on shelves in 1987, it had to share space with the banal exhortations of The Art of the Deal. “We catch glimpses,” suggests historian and squad leader of empire Niall Ferguson, “of Trump-like figures not in Bonfire but also in the equally engrossing, although less lauded, A Man in Full.”

As New Journalism’s primary advocate, Tom Wolfe headed the field with such experimental forces as Norman Mailer, Truman Capote and Hunter S. Thompson, all dedicated to enriching supposedly factual accounts with excessive flourishes that hurried out the beige in favour of the kaleidoscopic. One source of inspiration for Wolfe was Emil Ludvig’s biography of Napoleon. “It begins,” he recalled to fellow NJ aficionado George Plimpton in The Paris Review, “as the mother sits suckling her babe in a tent.” But formatively speaking, the Soviet grouping known as the Brothers Serapion (Eugene Zamiatin, Boris Pilnyak et al), fusing symbolism with raw historical events, encouraged a change of direction.

In a 1973 anthology of such writings gathered with fellow traveller E. W. Johnson, Wolfe identifies the novel going off in freedom land even as purple-prosed nonfiction was stealing its march. “I must confess that the retrograde state of contemporary fiction has made it far easier to make the main point of this book: that the most important literature being written in America today is in nonfiction, in the form that has been tagged, however ungracefully, the New Journalism.”

The American novelist, by the 1960s, had abandoned that “richest terrain of the novel: namely, society, the social tableau, manners and morals, the whole business of ‘the way we live now’, in Trollope’s phrase.” Such a tendency was in strident defiance of previous writers who wrote novels as social chronicles: Balzac in the context of France; Thackeray on London in the 1840s.

Wolfe’s artillery was also marshalled against old journalism itself, a concerted effort to remove objectivity’s throne and bring colour to description. While the traditional novelist had noted manners and society, the old journalist was still trapped in a refusal to accept the subtleties of the lived life. The newspaper in traditional guise, he claimed, was “very bad for one’s prose style.” Thus spawned the parajournalist, though its ancestry, with its seductive pitfalls, was traced by Dwight Macdonald as far back as Daniel Defoe with his masterful hoax in Journal of the Plague Year.

As Michael Wood would note in a review for The New York Times, the New Journalism extracts the piece of gossip, dreariness or schmaltz, moving it “to the centre of the stage while at the corners, at the edges, vast, scaring implications about American life quietly gesture to us, not really wishing to intrude.” Fact and fiction are no longer dogmatically partitioned, blurring instead into resemblance, which is far from saying that truth is undermined. “What it is suggesting is that fiction is the only shape we can give to facts, that all shapes are fictions.”

His journalism readied weapons as words, tipped with spears of wit and derision. He took aim at dogma in architecture in From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), critical of the “colonial complex” governing the American building that had its origins in Europe as a “compound” of ideologues. He launched missiles at Modern Art in The Painted Word (1975), noting it as a racket that was distinctly non-radical. “The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what happened.” Collectors would only ever gravitate to “highly abstract art unless it’s the only game in town” preferring more conservative “realistic art”.

Such writing was bound to miss the mark in some ways or, if it did, embed itself with mixed results. His fabrications could be sloppy, and, unshackled by the rigours of evidence imposed by the investigative journalist, distorting in their speculation. For the sharp Dwight MacDonald, specifically referencing the The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1965) Wolfe was a good observer who made “no pretence at factuality but sketching with humour and poignancy urban dilemmas one recognizes as real.” In his writing lay a certain “kultur-neuroses common among adult, educated Americans today: a masochistic deference to the Young, who are by definition, new and so in”. This was also accompanied by that “guilt-feeling about class – maybe they don’t deserve their status, maybe they aren’t so cultivated”.

Hip and new, then a studied reactionary, Wolfe’s career was a paradox of idealising pop culture trends and figures while turning on mouldering art and literary movements that had run their course and deserved euthanizing. Doing so gave him a certain eye for barometric readings of contempt straddling those three most American obsessions: money, race and sex. In that, we have Trump, a monster fusion of such interests, having a “real childish side” and adorable megalomania. “The childishness” claimed Wolfe in 2016, “makes him seem honest.” To the last, a chronicler of gossip, schmaltz and those scaring implications.

By Lamiya Adilgizi

One hundred years ago this month, the first secular democracy in the Muslim world was established, the short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The republic’s progressive credentials – it was the first Muslim country to allow women to vote – are often touted by the publicity-loving Azerbaijani government.

But as the centennial of the republic’s founding approaches, the same government is taking a low-key approach, offending some of the republic’s admirers and highlighting the complex attitude that current authorities hold toward their forebears.

During a speech last year about the upcoming centennial, President Ilham Aliyev paid a sort of tribute to the republic. But when he named several of the key figures in Azerbaijani history, he pointedly omitted Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh, the leader of the first republic.

And when Aliyev again discussed the republic at an economic forum in March, he suggested that “if the founders of the first Democratic Republic had a chance to see how Azerbaijan develops today, they would have definitely been proud of us,” a formulation that admirers of the republic found insulting.

The first republic was a well-established democracy which was based on liberal values, said Altay Goyushov, an Azerbaijani historian. “Today, Azerbaijan is at the bottom of all the rankings, and if the founders of the Azerbaijan Republic actually saw it, they would be very upset,” he said.

The republic was founded on May 28, 1918, emerging out of the collapse of the Russian Empire. It was the first state in history to use the name “Azerbaijan,” and ran the country on liberal, modernizing principles until the Soviet Union invaded and annexed it in 1920.

“The republic’s leaders were the most successful in Azerbaijani history,” said Jamil Hasanli, a historian and opposition politician.

The admiration of the republic and its leader Rasulzadeh, however, comes at the expense of the man the current government prefers to see as the father of the nation: Heydar Aliyev, president of the country from 1993 to 2003 and the father of the current president, Ilham.

For Ilham Aliyev, “the current republic is the heir of Soviet Azerbaijan under Heydar Aliyev,” rather than of the 1918-1920 republic, said Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus expert at Carnegie Europe, in an interview with Eurasianet. That means that “the first republic, with its Musavat government, language of democracy and rights, does not fit so well into this legacy,” he said. (Musavat was Rasulzadeh’s political party; one of today’s embattled opposition parties, of the same name, sees itself as that party’s heir.)

Baku, indeed, has sought to steadily erase Rasulzadeh from the public sphere. Monuments and statues to him have been taken down over the past two decades, and his picture was removed from the country’s currency.

The way the history of the republic is taught today is a direct result of the government’s political directives, said Nigar Maxwell, head of a department dedicated to studying the first republic at Azerbaijan’s National Academy of Sciences.

“Each statement by the authorities, starting with the president and then down the organizational ladder is a signal to public organizations and scientific institutions as a guideline for building a definite direction for them,” Maxwell told Eurasianet.

Formal events celebrating the centennial are few: a handful of museum exhibits and scholarly conferences have taken place, but they have been overshadowed by other events like the recently held Formula 1 race in Baku.

In the absence of larger events, republic admirers are marking the centennial online, by changing their social media profile photos to include a frame honoring the republic, setting up Facebook pages to raise awareness about the founding fathers, or organizing volunteering projects to commemorate the centennial.

The opposition political party ReAL has organized a commemoration on May 28, involving a number of Azerbaijan’s most prominent government critics including Anar Mammadli and Khadija Ismayilova. The invitation to the event makes a veiled but clear reference to today’s political situation: “The path to freedom is not easy. One hundred years ago our ancestors accomplished this in spite of all the obstacles. We urge you to celebrate the proud page of our history – the 100th anniversary of our republic.”

Some government loyalists have complained about Rasulzadeh’s admirers, including Zahid Oruj, who ran in April’s presidential elections while asking his supporters to vote for Ilham Aliyev.

“Why is Rasulzadeh, a person who created Azerbaijan during the first republic, accepted by everybody, but Heydar Aliyev, who is the founder of the modern Azerbaijani state, is not accepted by the opposition and they don’t hang his photo in their offices?” Oruj asked in a pre-election interview with the BBC’s Azerbaijani service. “Let’s change this mindset. If they accept the Heydar Aliyev model, these parties might participate in the future development of the country.”

“Right now there is a narrative struggle between these two camps,” said Erkin Gadirli, a ReAL board member. “The government takes this [Rasulzadeh commemoration] seriously because the opposition made Rasulzadeh into an icon. If not, they would never have tried to put Aliyev ahead of Rasulzadeh.”

The government’s recent rhetoric about Yerevan and other parts of current-day Armenia being Azerbaijan’s “historical lands,” which sparked an international backlash, is part of its attempt to denigrate the first republic, Maxwell said.

“Today’s Azerbaijan cannot be compared with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, because at that time there were difficulties and our independence did not allow Azerbaijan to pursue an independent policy,” Aliyev said in a January speech. “We had economic difficulties, land losses, and our historical city [Yerevan] was given to Armenia.”

“Unfortunately, the republic is remembered only from anniversary to anniversary, and so is easily used by both powerful and opposition figures as a card in their political games,” Maxwell said.

By Arushi Vig

India and Vietnam recently signed a three-part deal that includes nuclear cooperation, agriculture and trade, and economic association. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed in 2018 to strengthen cooperation in the atomic energy field for peaceful purposes, extending till research on nuclear reactors, in the field of nuclear science and engineering, and nuclear fuel and material. The agreement was decided on in 2016 during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit when both countries resolved to working jointly for an open and prosperous Indo-Pacific with a rules-based regional security architecture. India and Vietnam also expressed interest in strengthening cooperation in the field of cyber security, oil and gas exploration, maritime security, military domain, and across many other sectors.

Background 

Vietnam and India have always served as important fulcrum for each other. Both countries share a long history of association: India supported Vietnam’s independence from France, supported Vietnam’s opposition to US involvement in the Vietnam War, and eventually, the unification of Vietnam. Eventually, both countries established good bilateral ties in trade and economic cooperation, education, agriculture, oil and gas, and manufacturing. Vietnam also serves as India’s country coordinator in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), a focus of India’s Act East Policy. India helps Vietnam through credit support. For example, India recently extended a US$ 500 million credit line to Vietnam to purchase military equipment, in addition to the US$ 100 million extended in 2014 to purchase four offshore patrol vessels that are currently being built in Indian yards. In terms of defence, since India possesses the world’s fourth largest army, just one rank short of China, partnering with India is to Vietnam’s benefit. Vietnam is important for India for trade and the trilateral highway project- a part of India’s Look East Policy – between India, Myanmar and Thailand which is in talks to be extended till Vietnam.

There remains ambiguity regarding the nuclear deal. Firstly, there are very few details in the public domain regarding the specific aspects of cooperation. As per the conditions of the deal, until India acquires membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), research on nuclear reactors will not start. If there are indeed many stumbling blocks to India-Vietnam nuclear cooperation, the question remains, why are they being struck at all?

First, both India and Vietnam share the common objective of strengthening their positions in the Indo-Pacific when it comes to China’s increasingly growing power and presence in the region. Both India and Vietnam also object to China claims the South China Sea (SCS) as its own territory. China’s opposition to India’s Oil and Natural Gas cooperation (ONGC) exploration in the Vietnamese-claimed wells in the SCS are well-documented. Beijing has refused to accept the international tribunal verdict on the dispute, and continues to be in favour of a bilateral framework with the involved countries. Although Vietnam maintains strong trade ties with China, the decades-long territorial dispute has made Vietnam also push for stronger bilateral ties with India as a counter-balance. Vietnam supports India’s assertion that there should be freedom of navigation and overflight in the region of the SCS. The growing cooperation between India and Vietnam could thus be viewed as a contribution to their bulwark against Chinese domination.

Second, as India’s country coordinator for ASEAN, Vietnam serves as an important cogwheel for India’s reinvigorated Act East Policy. The Act East Policy seeks to boosts India’s relations with ASEAN countries and Japan. With its crucial strategic location and the image of a “strong” willed state, a partnership with Vietnam will be beneficial for India.

Third, Vietnam could fill act as India’s linchpin in the region; a similar, though not identical, role to the one played by Pakistan for China in South Asia. Vietnam practices smart diplomacy – after all, it has not hesitated to befriend the US even after the brutality of the Vietnam War as a way to keep Beijing in check. Although Vietnam will not forego its ties with China, it will look to strengthening relations with strong states in the region – such as India – to act as a counter balance to Beijing’s prominence and bullying.

By Terri Moon Cronk

In Operation Roundup, Syrian Democratic Forces continue to defeat remnants of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters in Syria’s Middle Euphrates River valley, Army Col. Rob Manning, the Pentagon’s director of press operations, told reporters Monday.

The SDF has also gained ground through offensive operations and occupies the majority of the ground along the border since beginning Operation Roundup on May 1, Manning said.

The SDF has cleared the Baghuz area of Syria and continues to reinforce battle positions there, he said, adding that the troops are also preparing for future clearance operations in the Dashiba vicinity.

“Coalition forces support the SDF’s efforts by conducting air, artillery and mortar strikes against ISIS targets,” the colonel said.

In the past 48 hours, coalition military forces conducted strikes against ISIS fighters and equipment near Abu Kamal, engaging ISIS tactical units, command and control, supply routes and fighting positions there, Manning noted.

Since the beginning of Operation Roundup, the SDF has continued to gain ground through offensive operations and occupies the majority of the Iraq-Syria border, he said.

The SDF, Manning said, has cleared more than 19 square miles of territory, bringing the total liberated area in the Euphrates River valley to more than 1,900 square miles.

As the SDF liberates territory, he added, coalition forces are working with local military and civil councils to assist in establishing security conditions on the ground, so that ISIS cannot return to terrorize the local population and reestablish safe havens to plot and carry out terror attacks.

NATO Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan

And in Afghanistan, “the Resolute Support-NATO mission continues to train, advise and assist the Afghan National Defense and security forces, and is focused on implementing the U.S. South Asia strategy in securing Afghanistan,” Manning said.

The Afghan government remains firmly in control of Farah city, he said, noting that in addition to corps level and commando advising, an expeditionary advisory package and security forces assistance brigade advisers arrived last week to advise at the brigade, and if necessary, the battalion level.

“Afghan tactical air controllers coordinated the Afghan air force’s strikes near Farah,” Manning said, and A-29 Super Tucano aircraft conducted 20 hours of support to the Afghan-led offensive.

“Additionally,” the colonel said, “this was the first time A-29s [were] flying from both Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, conducted airstrikes, returned to those bases, were rearmed and refueled by Afghan air force maintainers and then returned to conduct strikes against Farah city. This speaks to the growing capabilities of the Afghan air force.”

By Jay Syrmopoulos*

At least a dozen Google employees have resigned in protest over the company collaborating with the Department of Defense by supplying artificial intelligence for a controversial military pilot program for the DoD known as Project Maven, after thousands of employees signed a letter last month asking the company to cancel the Pentagon contract and institute a policy against working for the military.

‘We can no longer ignore our industry’s and our technologies’ harmful biases, large-scale breaches of trust, and lack of ethical safeguards. These are life and death stakes,” the petition read.

Project Maven, developed to scan images in drone footage and identify targets and classify images of objects and people— was launched in April 2017, and according to a Pentagon memo, aims to “augment or automate Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in support of the Defeat-ISIS campaign” in order to “reduce the human factors burden of [full motion video] analysis, increase actionable intelligence, and enhance military decision-making.”

More than 1,000 academics and researchers penned an open letter in support of the Google employees and calling on the company to cease work on Project Maven. The letter touches on the implications of Google working with the Pentagon:

With Project Maven, Google becomes implicated in the questionable practice of targeted killings. These include so-called signature strikes and pattern-of-life strikes that target people based not on known activities but on probabilities drawn from long range surveillance footage.

While the reports on Project Maven currently emphasize the role of human analysts, these technologies are poised to become a basis for automated target recognition and autonomous weapon systems. As military commanders come to see the object recognition algorithms as reliable, it will be tempting to attenuate or even remove human review and oversight for these systems. According to Defense One, the DoD already plans to install image analysis technologies on-board the drones themselves, including armed drones. We are then just a short step away from authorizing autonomous drones to kill automatically, without human supervision or meaningful human control. If ethical action on the part of tech companies requires consideration of who might benefit from a technology and who might be harmed, then we can say with certainty that no topic deserves more sober reflection – no technology has higher stakes – than algorithms meant to target and kill at a distance and without public accountability.

The DoD contracts under consideration by Google, and similar contracts already in place at Microsoft and Amazon, signal a dangerous alliance between the private tech industry, currently in possession of vast quantities of sensitive personal data collected from people across the globe, and one country’s military. They also signal a failure to engage with global civil society and diplomatic institutions that have already highlighted the ethical stakes of these technologies.

A few of the Google employees that chose to resign in protest spoke to Gizmodo anonymously about the reasoning behind their decision.

“At some point, I realized I could not in good faith recommend anyone join Google, knowing what I knew. I realized if I can’t recommend people join here, then why am I still here?” one resigning Google employee told Gizmodo.

“I tried to remind myself right that Google’s decisions are not my decisions. I’m not personally responsible for everything they do. But I do feel responsibility when I see something that I should escalate it,” another said.

“Actions speak louder than words, and that’s a standard I hold myself to as well. I wasn’t happy just voicing my concerns internally. The strongest possible statement I could take against this was to leave,” a resigning employee added.

About the author:
*Jay Syrmopoulos is a geopolitical analyst, freethinker, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs and holds a BA in International Relations. Jay’s writing has been featured on both mainstream and independent media – and has been viewed tens of millions of times.

Source:
This article was published by Truth in Media.

The “new” Medvedev cabinet Vladimir Putin has approved both by its large number of holdovers and by a smaller number of new people represents a significant move toward the establishment of an obscurantist autocracy with few chances of any technological breakthrough, according to Aleksandr Golts.

The first “signal” the formation of the government provides is that all talk about Russia making some technological breakthrough is just talk, the Moscow commentator argues in today’s Yezhednevny zhurnal. Neither the old nor the new people are capable of that, and Aleksey Kudrin who could has been isolated in the Audit Chamber (ej.ru/?a=note&id=32490).

The second “signal,” Golts says, is that the obscurantism that has characterized the Russian government is only going to get worse. Not only have Vladimir Medinsky and Olga Vasilyeva retained their positions where they will continue their unfortunate work; and they have been joined by Vitaly Mutko, notorious for his role in the Russian doping scandal.

And the third “and main signal” is that “the regime not only by content but also by form is being transformed into an autocratic monarchy.” The appointments of FSB chief Nikolay Patrushev’s son as agriculture minister and of Yevgeny Zinichev, Putin’s chief guard, as emergency services minister show the formation of an ever narrower charmed circle of cronies rather than competent managers.

If Russia has a real parliament or a genuinely free press, such things would not be allowed to happen without withering criticism. “However, neither the parliament nor the media control the Kremlin at all.” And there is no reason to make any reference to the judiciary which is anything but independent.

According to Golts, “Russia in fact already today is an autocratic monarchy with an unchanged boss whose decisions are not in any case subject to doubt. The only distinction is the absence of the Putin elite of the right to hand over to their heirs not only capital but also titles and positions.”

There also isn’t a system of monarchical succession at the top, the commentator says; but the signs point to a future in which people may look back to the developments of the last week as “the first signs” of returning Russia to an autocracy with all its attributes, “including Cossacks with whips on Moscow streets.”

The guaranties of Ukraine’s autocephaly lie not in the legal agreements between Kyiv and Constantinople but in human psychology: the status of the attacker affects the fight’s outcome. Nevertheless, for a judge violence remains violence, and even the winner can be convicted.

On April 28, Razumkov Center published the results of a poll on religious and confessional preferences of Ukrainians in 2010-2018. According to the report, atheists make up only 5 per cent of the country’s population while 72 per cent claim to be faithful. The majority of Ukrainian citizens (67.3 per cent) belong to Orthodoxy and 9.4 per cent are Greek Catholics. The research confirmed that the level of religious commitment is one of the highest in former Soviet countries.

Unlike in most European states, the coexistence of major Ukrainian denominations can’t be called peaceful. The list of the largest religious organizations there includes three Orthodox Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate (UOC-KP), the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC) and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). Each of them fiercely competes with one another already engaged in direct confrontations. The antagonism between the Orthodox and Catholics roots deep in history. The conflict of the UOC-MP and the UOC-KP and UAOC, which separated from it, originates from the notorious heritage of the Soviet Empire.

It’s not surprising that president Poroshenko’s statements on the intention to unite the Ukrainian Orthodoxy in a Single United Church recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarch caused a massive public outcry. UOC-KP and UAOC hierarchs, the president and Ukrainian parliament have already appealed to Patriarch Bartholomew for the bestowal of independency to the single Ukrainian Church.

According to the authorities, such step should strengthen the unity of the country, which is in a deep social and political crisis. The autocephaly bestowed by the Patriarch is expected to undermine the influence of the UOC-MP and then will force it to sever the links to Russia and join Poroshenko’s project.

Meanwhile the plan is risky as if the UOC-MP refuses to dissolve, no unity will be reached, and Poroshenko will lose the votes of millions of faithful. Launching this project without additional guarantees would be too thoughtless in the president’s current tough political situation.

The only guaranty can be forcing the UOC-MP to cooperate. The clergy and faithful in East Ukraine would unlikely agree to voluntarily disrupt their ties with Russia as even decades-lasting agitation, violence and threats of the “Uniates” and “schismatics” haven’t induced them to leave the Moscow Patriarchate. Although, if not the schismatics stand against the UOC-MP laity but the Orthodox recognized by Constantinople, it can weaken their sense of rightness and will to defend their rights. And clashes for churches in Ukraine are quite a common thing.

In the early 1990s, the UGCC regained hundreds of its churches in the country’s western regions, taken from it after its elimination in 1946. The churches had already possessed established Orthodox communities, so the regions saw a wave of violence: the faithful beat and killed each other for a right to pray in churches. In those years, the UOC-KP emerged to oppose Moscow: it also had to seize its churches. After that, the UOC-KP tried to subdue the UAOC, which again led to violence. In the 2000s, the decade of the “all-out” war ended, and a fragile peace came. But the mutual contempt remained, and local conflicts between the UOC-MP and UOC-KP have never halted.

Sure, if Poroshenko’s plan is successfully implemented, more churches could be captured and clashes for them could become less bloody and violent. Now everything can be in a more democratic way because all that will be needed is to convert from one church to another. Although the legal aspect will remain unchanged. A seizure is a seizure. Violence is violence. If the majority of the UOC-MP remains loyal to Moscow, even deprived of all churches and driven “underground”, can the Ukrainian president consider it a victory?

Unfortunately, Ukraine is not a leading country in the matters of political culture and governance model. Its authorities have chosen an archaic approach – to solve religious arguments by the state’s direct interference. In medieval Europe this approach led to wars lasting for many years. Maybe Ukrainians have to go through this again to grow up at last.

*Nadia Bazuk is a freelance journalist from Ukraine with a MBA degree, self-employed retailer. Her writings have been published by ModernDiplomacy.eu, OCP Media Network, GolosPravdy.com, Union of Orthodox Journalists and other media.

Conventional wisdom has it that China stands to benefit from the US withdrawal from the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran, particularly if major European companies feel that the risk of running afoul of US secondary sanctions is too high.

In doing so, China would draw on lessons learnt from its approach to the sanctions regime against Iran prior to the nuclear deal. China supported the sanctions while proving itself adept at circumventing the restrictions.

However, this time round, as China joins Russia and Europe in trying to salvage the deal, things could prove to be different in ways that may give China second thoughts.

The differences run the gamut from an America that has Donald Trump as its president to a Middle East that is much more combative and assertive and sees its multiple struggles as existential, at least in terms of regime survival.

Fault lines in the Middle East have hardened because of Israel, Saudi and United Arab Emirates assertiveness, emboldened by both a US administration that is more partisan in its Middle East policy, yet at the same time less predictable and less reliable.

Add to this Mr. Trump’s narrow and transactional focus that targets containing Iran, if not toppling its regime; countering militancy, and enhancing business opportunities for American companies and the contours of a potentially perfect storm come into view.

That is even truer if one looks beyond the Gulf and the Levant towards the greater Middle East that stretches across Pakistan into Central Asia as well as China’s overall foreign trade.

China’s trade with the United States stood last year at $636 billion, trade with Iran was in that same period at $37.8 billion or less than five percent of the US volume.

The recent case of ZTE, one of China’s largest IT companies, tells part of the story.

Accused of having violated sanctions, the US Department of Commerce banned American firms from selling parts to ZTE, bringing the company to near bankruptcy. Mr. Trump appears to be willing to help salvage ZTE, but the incident significantly raises the stakes, particularly as China and the United States try to avoid a trade war.

That is but one consideration in China’s calculations. Potentially, other major bumps in saving the nuclear agreement lurk around the corner and could prove to be equally, if not more challenging.

Tensions in the Middle East are mounting. The fallout of Mr. Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and seemingly unqualified backing of Israel in its almost certainly stillborn plan for peace with the Palestinian is reverberating.

Discontent across the region simmers just below the surface, magnified by youth and next generations in countries like Syria and Yemen who have little to look forward to.

The bumps fall into three categories: the degree to which China feels that it can continue to rely on the US defence umbrella in the Gulf; pressure on China by Middle Eastern states to shoulder the responsibility that comes with being a great power, if not take sides; and change in a region that is in a process of transition that is volatile, violent and could take decades to play out.

Yet, as China takes stock of the Middle East’s volatility and China’s strategic stake in regional stability, it appears ill-equipped to deal with an environment in which its traditional policy tools either fall short or no longer are applicable.

Increasingly, China will have to become a geopolitical rather than a primarily economic player in competitive cooperation with the United States, the dominant external actor in the region for the foreseeable future.

China has signalled its gradual recognition of these new realities with the publication in January 2016 of an Arab Policy Paper, the country’s first articulation of a policy towards the Middle East and North Africa.

But, rather than spelling out specific policies, the paper reiterated the generalities of China’s core focus in its relations with the Arab world: economics, energy, counter-terrorism, security, technical cooperation and its Belt and Road initiative.

Ultimately however, China will have to develop a strategic vision that outlines foreign and defence policies it needs to put in place to protect its expanding interests; its role and place in the region as a rising superpower, and its relationship and cooperation with the United States in managing, if not resolving conflict.

To be sure, China is taking baby steps in that direction with its greater alignment with international moves to combat Islamic militancy even if its campaign in north-western China risks straining relations with the Islamic world, the creation of a military facility in Djibouti, work on a naval base in Pakistan’s Jiwari peninsula, and cross-border operations in Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Those may be the easier steps. Dealing with partners like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates that seek to establish regional hegemony by imposing their will on others at whatever cost may be more difficult. So far, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have not pressured China to choose in their rivalry with Iran.

But it can only be a matter of time before they do, particularly if Chinese investment in Iran and trade were able to offset the impact of US sanctions to the degree that the Islamic republic is not forced to compromise. To evade that situation, China has offered to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran, an offer the kingdom was unwilling to take up.

China is not immune to Saudi pressure. To protect their Saudi and UAE interests, Chinese alongside Hong Kong and Japanese banks refused earlier this year to participate in a one-year extension of a $575 million syndicated loan to Doha Bank, Qatar’s fifth-biggest lender.

Similarly, Saudi Arabia in April forced major multi-national financial institutions to choose sides in the Gulf spat with Qatar. In response to Saudi pressure, JP Morgan and HSBC walked away from participating in a $12 billion Qatari bond sale opting for a simultaneous Saudi offering instead.

The stakes for Saudi Arabia in Iran are far greater than those in Qatar. Iran poses an existential threat to the House of Saud for reasons far more intrinsic than the accusations Riyadh lobs at Tehran. The more Iran is able to defeat US sanctions, the more Saudi Arabia is likely to push China and to reduce their support of the nuclear agreement.

That pressure can take multiple forms. With US-backed efforts at regime change in Tehran potentially on the horizon, Saudi Arabia has put building blocks in place over the last two years.

Large sums originating in the kingdom have found their way to militant, virulently anti-Shiite, ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim madrassas or religious seminaries in the Pakistani province of Balochistan that borders on the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan.

A Saudi thinktank allegedly backed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has developed plans to stir unrest among the Baloch minority in Iran, partly in a bid to complicate operations at the Indian-backed port of Chabahar, a mere 75 kilometres up the coast from Gwadar, a crown jewel of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, China’s $50 billion plus Belt and Road stake in Pakistan.

China, moreover, has so far relied on its economic clout as well as Saudi Arabia to remain silent about a crackdown in Xinjiang that targets Islam, putting the kingdom as custodian of Islam’s two most holy cities in an awkward position.

The long and short of all of this is that, in an environment in which the Middle East views conflicts as zero-sum games, China is likely to find it increasingly difficult to remain aloof and straddle both sides of the fence. Salvaging the Iranian nuclear deal could come at a cost China may not want to pay.

By Jamal Laadam*

Back in the year 1958, the kingdom of Morocco become the second African country to recognize the People’s Republic of China. Basically, bilateral ties between the two countries set up last year when King Mohamed VI made an official visit mainland China. It was the second trip to China during his reign in 2006. The royal visit to China resulted in signing up very important treaties and agreements especially the agreement named “China-Africa Investment Fund” and plans for a $10 billion industrial city to be located and built in Tangier, Morocco’s North Hub.

Indeed, China looks at Morocco as fruitful opportunity area to develop factories for export to the European Zone, and easy up way to the other African State especially across Gibraltar.

At the political Approach, Morocco China mutual ties were strongly adhesive and cemented and also have shared the same current key issues, most so-called “Non-Intervention Policy” in State affairs. While the Moroccan news media has sometimes questioned on the oppression and depression of faith in China, the Moroccan government has predominantly declined from commenting on issues concerning to China’s “Key Interest”: Xinjiang, Taiwan, or Tibet. In return, China has not mentioned on the Moroccan position concerning the “Western Sahara Issue” According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs “Nasser Bourita” said: “I think the Chinese position on the South is very pragmatic, the Chinese overlooked at Dakhla and South and taken economic opportunities where they exist “.This relating to one of Southern Morocco’s largest cities in Western Sahara.

Yet, China has bestowed a lot of troops to the operation, China got no interest concerning the “Western Sahara”, said a Senior UN official based in Western Sahara. United Nations figures from August 2016 certify that just 10 of the 2639 Chinese Soldiers deployed on the United Nations Missions abroad were in Western Sahara.

Currently, the experience there has been remarkable, somehow some Chinese officers’, “In addition to the visible white bones everywhere, the black wind of the Sahara Desert is also impressive”. a Chinese officer wrote in reminisces issued by Global Times online.

China’s relationship with Taiwan is still complex and intricate by geopolitical rivalry with the United State and China’s territorial aspirations, similarity; the devotion of Western Sahara is closely tied to Morocco’s long-standing relationship with Algeria. In fact, Algeria always has long _advocated ” Polisario Front”, a socialist party that brought off an arm conflict campaign against the Kingdom of Morocco until a cease-fire in the year of 1991.

China, for its side, has traditionally had stronger mutual ties with Algeria than any other country in North Africa.

All the same, The Western Sahara Conflict and Twain Issue similarly can be taken same territorial issues. In Morocco, anyone can freely access and explore websites linked to “Polisario Front”; it is far difficult in China to access or seek about Xingjian or Tibet. That’s the fact indicates that Kingdom of Morocco is liberalized society and since, reforms enacted by King Mohamed VI, an increasingly democratic one. For its side, the Moroccan News has often published on China’s lack of religious freedom and restriction opposed by the Chinese Muslims.

In June 2015, The kingdom of Morocco lifted out visa requirements for Chinese tourists, making a new pointing start in the long history of travel between both countries. For instance, some 160,000 Chinese tourists have visited Morocco in 2016, an enlarge of 300 percent year a year. This kind of figure is specifically impressive given the visa requirement was in place for much of 2016. Before the visa requirements were lifted out, Morocco welcomed more than 1,000~600 Chinese tourists a month, that number has been reached as high as 7,000 per month back to visa requirements was dropped. Actually, Morocco’s aim to welcoming 100,000 Chinese tourists in 2017 seems more achievable. So far, Global Times in February named Morocco the ” Best potential destination ” in the world in an opening ceremony attended by a representative of the Moroccan Government.

At the Ancient era, by 13th Century 1325, the well-known traveler “IBEN BATTUTA” left Morocco all the way for China, which he reached 20 years later after traveling far and wide. nowadays, the journey would be less indirect, but there are still no direct commercial flight links between China and Kingdom of Morocco. which is the absence of a direct flight link makes the sudden increase in Chinese tourism to Morocco altogether.

About the author:
Jamal Laadam, Ph.D. student in Jilin University majoring in International relations.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

One more royal wedding has now taken place in United Kingdom, as Prince Harry married Meghan Markle with the pomp, show and glamour that has been associated with such royal weddings in the past.

It is reported that while around 600 guests were invited for the royal wedding, thousands of uninvited common citizens camped out all night, huddling in blankets and clutching hot water bottles, in the hope of making eye contact with the royal couple, when they left the chapel after the ceremonial wedding. The report further says that along the main street of Windsor, the uninvited common citizens leaned precariously from the windows to catch a glimpse of the royal couple.

Many of those lining the streets to see the pomp and show associated with the couple as they moved out of the chapel are reported to have said that they have come to express their support for the royal couple.

Now, the upper most question that come to one’s mind is whether the majority of the citizens of UK accept the concept of monarchy and the glamour associated with the royal wedding at the cost of the exchequer, as an acceptable process in a vibrant democracy, where all citizens are supposed to be equal, making no difference between one citizen and the other with regard to the opportunities and rights and privileges.

The question is as to whether anyone has cared to conduct a survey amongst the citizens of UK as to whether they approve the monarchy and such extravaganza associated with the monarchy.

The King or Queen in the UK happens to be in their positions by virtue of their birth in a particular family which is traditionally known as monarchy and which was gradually eliminated or challenged around the world by evolution of democratic process and the exhibition of people’s power.

The advocates of democracy as the best form of governance may be of the view that a particular person occupying the position of King or Queen or Prince or Princess should be considered as an anachronism in a democratic society and it cannot be in tune with the basic concept of democracy.

The United Kingdom is hailed as the mother of democracy in the world and certainly Britishers are proud of this view. Countries like India have modeled their democratic structure largely based on the model developed over the years in United Kingdom.

Countries like India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and several others who were ruled once by United Kingdom now have a democratic form of governance that have no king or queen. Presidents in these countries are elected periodically and they stay in power for a specific period only.

It is true that there are still number of countries in the world where kings rule the country. Should we view United Kingdom also in the same way that such countries are looked upon?

It is high time that the citizens of UK should be asked to vote in a referendum as to whether they think that it is appropriate to recognize members of royal family as privileged section of the country, by virtue of their birth in a particular family or wedded to this family.

No doubt, it is the fact that no visible protest have taken place in UK by the citizens in recent time against monarchy and such royal weddings.

But, should silence of the people be taken as the approval of the prevalent monarchy cum democracy in UK?

Certainly, the world wants to know what the citizens of UK think.

Last week the Supreme Court struck down provisions of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PAPSA) that prohibit state authorization and licensing of sports gambling schemes. SCOTUS held that this statute violates the Constitution’s anticommandeering rule. The New York Times sums up the import of the decision as follows:

The decision seems certain to result in profound changes to the nation’s relationship with sports wagering. Bettors will no longer be forced into the black market to use offshore wagering operations or illicit bookies. Placing bets will be done on mobile devices, fueled and endorsed by the lawmakers and sports officials who opposed it for so long. A trip to Las Vegas to wager on March Madness or the Super Bowl could soon seem quaint.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the Times take, but what most of the media has missed or ignored is the lofty principles of federalism discussed in the opinion.

At issue in the case was whether states and localities can legalize sports gambling if they so choose. The Court properly described this prohibition as follows: “It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.” Congress cannot force to states to enact a regulatory scheme or refrain from enacting a regulatory scheme. No such power has been given to the federal government.

Here’s some of my favorite passages from the opinion:

The anticommandeering doctrine may sound arcane, but it is simply the expression of a fundamental structural decision incorporated into the Constitution, i.e., the decision to withhold from Congress the power to issue orders directly to the States. When the original States declared their independence, they claimed the powers inherent in sovereignty—in the words of the Declaration of Independence, the authority “to do all . . . Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.” ¶32. The Constitution limited but did not abolish the sovereign powers of the States, which retained “a residuary and inviolable sovereignty.”

….

The legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable, but they are not unlimited. The Constitution confers on Congress not plenary legislative power but only certain enumerated powers. Therefore, all other legislative power is reserved for the States, as the Tenth Amendment confirms. And conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States. The anticommandeering doctrine simply represents the recognition of this limit on congressional authority.

Of course, under current Court precedent if Congress wanted to enact a comprehensive scheme regulating interstate sports betting, it probably could under broad power the Court has conferred to it under the Commerce Clause. But Congress has not done so and thus cannot claim that a federal scheme preempts a state scheme.

Nonetheless, its nice to read an opinion that rings with the lofty principles of federalism!

This article was published by The Beacon.

By Lee Friday*

Living beyond our means requires us to borrow money to cover the difference between our income and our spending. Many Canadians now understand the financial consequences of this practice and regret the choices they’ve made. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Trudeau is not one of them, as evidenced by his government’s budget deficits which are further eroding the financial wellbeing of Canadians. He has broken a campaign promise, ignored basic economic principles, and seems hell-bent on setting an ignominious record.  According to the Fraser Institute: “Justin Trudeau is the only prime minister in the last 120 years who has increased the federal per-person debt burden without a world war or recession to justify it.”

The Broken Promise

The Liberals had won the 2015 federal election with a pledge to run annual shortfalls of no more than $10 billion over the first three years of their mandate, and to eliminate the deficit by 2019-20.

The deficit for 2016-17, Trudeau’s first full fiscal year, was $17.8 Billion. The forecast for 2017-18 is $19.9 Billion, and for 2018-19, the forecast is $18.1 Billion.

And now, from the government’s 2018 budget, we read this:

While austerity can come from fiscal necessity, it should not turn into a rigid ideology about deficits that sees any investment as bad spending.

The government says deficits are economically beneficial, and compares deficits to loans taken out by entrepreneurs and business owners. But here’s the rub: in order to spend, the government must first raise money by taxing or borrowing (deficits). This deprives the private sector of money which would otherwise be available for businesses to borrow and invest in new production, thereby creating jobs and raising our standard of living.

Moreover, government ‘borrowing and spending’ imposes a financial burden on future taxpayers who must pay pay back both the loan and the interest payments.  In contrast, repayment of private business loans imposes a burden on the entrepreneurs — and because entrepreneurs are held personally liable, they are incentivized to be prudent decision makers. Politicians, on the other hand, lacking personal liability, tend to be fickle, reckless, arbitrary, and wasteful.

Why Government Spending is Bad

When a private business earns a profit by converting various resources (labour, raw materials etc.) into products which consumers voluntarily buy, this means it has made efficient use of the resources. Wealth is created. In contrast, a private business incurs losses when it fails to persuade consumers to voluntarily buy its products, which means it is wasting resources. If the firm cannot improve, it will discontinue operations, thereby conserving resources for entrepreneurs who can use them efficiently.

Economic progress (wealth creation, rising living standards) comes from efficient allocation of resources through profitable enterprises, where consumers determine what gets produced. These are the basic economic principles which Justin Trudeau ignores.

Politicians can pander to special interest groups because profit/loss calculations do not exist within government. This prevents consumers (taxpayers) from expressing their preferences as they do in the marketplace, where they “vote with their dollars.” The government forces taxpayers to subsidize whatever it supplies, at a price it dictates, whether we want it or not. Thus, the government’s coercive taxing and spending tends to waste resources, which is economically counterproductive. And, as noted earlier, government spending reduces private investment.

As Charles Lammam and Hugh MacIntyre wrote in the Financial Post (emphasis added):

business investment in Canada has declined by a staggering 18 per cent (after accounting for inflation) since the end of the third quarter of 2014.”

Crucial to any plan to improve our country’s long-term economic prospects is encouraging private-sector investment, innovation and entrepreneurship … on this front, federal policy choices have been counterproductive.

And Morneau’s fiscal update makes clear that the government will continue to run persistent deficits and rack up more debt, which signals potentially higher taxes in the future (since debt is simply deferred taxation), creating yet more uncertainty today among investors and entrepreneurs.

… 64 per cent of CEOs said Canada’s investment climate had worsened in the last five years, noting growth in the tax and regulatory burden.

Does Justin Trudeau Live in an Alternate Reality?

That is the economic reality to which the Prime Minister seems oblivious. Private business investment is limited by government spending and regulations, but Trudeau’s government thinks everything is fine. From their 2018 budget, we read this:

… Canadians are feeling more optimistic about the future. Everyday dreams — whether it’s paying down debt, saving for a first home or going back to school to train for a new job — are closer to reality.

I’m not sure what reality Justin is living in, but here is the reality on Earth:

One third of Canadians have stretched themselves so thin that they can no longer cover monthly bills and debt payments, according to a survey …

Thirty-three per cent of respondents … admitted to being stretched beyond their means on a monthly basis, marking an eight-point increase since MNP’s last survey in September …

… almost four in 10 respondents … admitted they regret the amount of debt they’ve taken out in their lifetime.

… Forty-two per cent of respondents … said they’ll be in financial trouble if rates rise much higher. Moreover, nearly one-third said they could be forced into bankruptcy because of rising interest rates.

Trudeau’s government is either out of touch with reality or they simply don’t care about economic growth and the financial plight of Canadians. Either way, the lack of personal accountability among politicians is a concern.

Accountability

If I break my neighbour’s window, accident or not, I pay for the replacement. The compensation comes out of my own pocket. I am accountable for my actions.

If the Liberals lose the federal election next year, there are many who will say they have been held accountable for various mistakes. In fact, this is what we are always told, “If you don’t like the government, then don’t forget to vote, because this is your opportunity to hold them accountable.”

Really? That’s how we define accountability in politics? Does our anger disappear simply because we kicked the bums out of office? Is it enough to see teary-eyed politicians deliver concession speeches on election night?

If I walk around the neighbourhood and break all the windows in all the houses, then lose my job, do my neighbours forgive and forget? I think not.

What about the financial hardship that government spending inflicts on Canadians? The private investments not made. The wealth and jobs not created. The products not manufactured. The debt incurred. These are real financial consequences which individual Canadians are forced to absorb. Who will compensate them?

If politicians knew they would be held personally accountable for the damage they inflict — they would inflict far less damage.

Conclusion

Many ‘experts’ have encouraged the government to balance the budget, but the size of the budget is the real problem. Government spending, and taxes, must be slashed. How much? The sky is the limit. There is nothing the government does that the private sector can’t do better, at far less cost.

A drastic reduction in the size and scope of government would trigger massive private investment and economic growth. But until voters learn some basic economic principles, they will continue to get the government they deserve, whether it be the Trudeau regime, or a different party of con artists.

About the author:
*Following a 23-year career in the Canadian financial industry, Lee Friday has spent many years studying economics, politics, and social issues. He operates a news site at www.LondonNews1.com

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute.

The mechanism our immune cells use to clear bacterial infections like tuberculosis (TB) might also be implicated in Parkinson’s disease, according to a new collaborative study led by the Francis Crick Institute, Newcastle University and GSK.

The findings, which will be published in The EMBO Journal, provide a possible explanation of the cause of Parkinson’s disease and suggest that drugs designed to treat Parkinson’s might work for TB too.

Parkinson’s protein

The most common genetic mutation in Parkinson’s disease patients is in a gene called LRRK2, which makes the LRRK2 protein overactive.

Drugs that block LRRK2 are a promising new treatment for Parkinson’s, with many pharmaceutical companies developing drugs to target LRRK2 and clinical trials underway. But how overactive LRRK2 causes Parkinson’s and why LRRK2 blockers work was a mystery.

The biological causes of Parkinson’s remain largely unknown, making it more difficult to develop and improve treatments. Discovering a mechanism that causes Parkinson’s and how drugs affect it could significantly advance efforts to improve treatments.

Insights from TB

By studying what LRRK2 does in immune cells called macrophages that are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) – the bacterium that causes TB – researchers believe they have uncovered a potential cause of Parkinson’s.

Macrophages recognise and engulf Mtb securing it within tight-fitting internal compartments called phagosomes. Another part of the cell called the lysosome then fuses with the phagosome to destroy the bacterium inside.

Using a combination of experimental approaches, Crick and GSK researchers, in collaboration with proteomics specialist Matthias Trost from Newcastle University, found that LRRK2 prevents phagosomes from fusing with lysosomes in both human and mouse macrophages, making them less efficient at clearing bacteria. Deleting the LRRK2 gene or treating the cells with an LRRK2 blocker significantly reduced levels of Mtb.

These findings in cells were supported by experiments in mice. When the researchers deleted the gene for LRRK2 in mice, they found that they exhibited an enhanced early immune response to TB infection, and had significantly lower levels of Mtb in their lungs than control mice up to two weeks after infection.

“We think that this mechanism might also be at play in Parkinson’s disease, where abnormal masses of protein called ‘Lewy bodies’ build up in neurons in the brain and cause damage,” said Susanne Herbst, joint first author of the paper and post-doctoral fellow at the Crick.

The team suspect that LRRK2 might be preventing immune cells in the brain from degrading cell debris properly, leading to a build-up of protein in neurons that disrupts their function.

Susanne added: “By studying TB, we have found a possible explanation for why LRRK2 mutations are a genetic risk factor for Parkinson’s disease. It’s exciting when different fields of research connect up in unexpected ways like this!”

Co-author Patrick Lewis, Associate Professor in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Reading, said: “The dogma in the Parkinson’s field has been to focus almost exclusively on what is happening to neurons in the brain to make them degenerate. But over the last few years, there has been a growing appreciation of the integral role of other cells in the brain and particularly the immune system in keeping neurons healthy. This study reinforces why we should think more broadly about the events that cause neurodegeneration, and that some of the answers to Parkinson’s disease might come from immunology.”

New TB treatments

The findings also suggest that LRRK2 inhibitors could be a powerful new way of combating TB, which kills 1.67 million people every year.

“Drug-resistant TB is a serious emerging problem, and boosting the body’s own immune defence against TB is an important step in the battle against antibiotic resistant strains,” said Max Gutierrez, Group Leader at the Crick and senior author of the paper.

“LRRK2 inhibiting drugs are already being developed to treat Parkinson’s disease and we’re trying to see if we can repurpose them as a potential new TB therapy. This should be relatively straightforward because TB infects the lungs, so the LRRK2 inhibitors wouldn’t need to cross the blood-brain barrier like they do in Parkinson’s disease.”

One of the consequences of globalization is the introduction of invasive species. Giant hammerhead flatworms, or land planarians, up to 40 cm (over 1 foot) in length, are reported from France and overseas French territories by an international team led by Jean-Lou Justine of ISYEB (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France). This is the first study of this invasion, reported in an article to be published in the open-access journal PeerJ.

Several invasive flatworms, including the New Guinea flatworm, Platydemus manokwari, have already been reported from France. Most of these species, however, are small animals, less than 5 cm (2 in) in length. The hammerhead flatworms are giants among flatworms, with some species reaching up to 1 m in length. Based on contributions from citizen science, five species of hammerhead flatworms are reported from metropolitan France in Europe and from French overseas territories in the Caribbean, South America, Africa and Oceania.

Hammerhead flatworms are predators of soil animals, including earthworms, and thus are a possible threat to the biodiversity of native animals and to soil ecology, although the ecological impact has yet to be studied.

Two species reported from France, Bipalium kewense and Diversibipalium multilineatum, are giant species, up to 40 cm in length. One relatively small species, Bipalium vagum, was found in most tropical French territories, including Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthélemy, French Guyana and La Réunion. One species, Diversibipalium sp. “blue” reported from Mayotte, a French island off the African East Coast, displays an impressive turquoise glitter colour.

Observations were mainly based on citizen science, with more than 100 contributions received, including some dating as back as 1999.

Molecular studies, based on the Cytochrome Oxidase Type 1 sequences, show that the species show no genetic variation. Bipalium kewense had a single haplotype, found in 5 continents. The species are clonal (genetically identical) and reproduce asexually.

The authors were amazed to discover that conspicuous 40-cm long worms could invade a developed European country for more than two decades without any response from scientific authorities.

Coyotes now live across North America, from Alaska to Panama, California to Maine. But where they came from, and when, has been debated for decades. Using museum specimens and fossil records, researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University have produced a comprehensive (and unprecedented) range history of the expanding species that can help reveal the ecology of predation as well as evolution through hybridization. Their findings appeared in ZooKeys in May.

The geographic distribution of coyotes has dramatically expanded since 1900, spreading across much of North America in a period when most other mammal species have been declining. Although this unprecedented expansion has been well documented at the state/provincial scale, the continent-wide picture of coyote spread was coarse and largely anecdotal. A more thorough compilation of available records was needed.

“We began by mapping the original range of coyotes using archeological and fossil records,” said co-author Dr. Roland Kays, Head of the Museum’s Biodiversity Lab and Research Associate Professor in NC State’s Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources. “We then plotted their range expansion across North America from 1900 to 2016 using museum specimens, peer-reviewed reports, and game department records.” In all, Kays and lead author James Hody reviewed more than 12,500 records covering the past 10,000 years for this study.

Their findings indicate that coyotes historically occupied a larger area of North America than generally suggested in the literature. Previous maps, as it turns out, had ancient coyotes only located across the central deserts and grasslands. However, fossils from across the arid west link the distribution of coyotes from 10,000 years ago to specimens collected in the late 1800s, proving that their geographic range was not only broader but had been established for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, which also contradicts some widely-cited descriptions of their historical distribution.

It wasn’t until approximately 1920 that coyotes began their expansion across North America. This was likely aided by an expansion of human agriculture, forest fragmentation, and hybridization with other species. Eastern expansion in particular was aided by hybridization with wolves and dogs, resulting in size and color variation among eastern coyotes.

Before too long, coyotes may no longer be just a North American species. Kays noted that coyotes are continually expanding their range in Central America, crossing the Panama Canal in 2010. Active camera traps are now spotting coyotes approaching the Darien Gap, a heavily forested region separating North and South America, suggesting that they are at the doorstep of South America.

“The expansion of coyotes across the American continent offers an incredible experiment for assessing ecological questions about their roles as predators, and evolutionary questions related to their hybridization with dogs and wolves,” added Hody. “By collecting and mapping these museum data we were able to correct old misconceptions of their original range, and more precisely map and date their recent expansions.

“We hope these maps will provide useful context for future research into the ecology and evolution of this incredibly adaptive carnivore.”

We must not forget the economic frustrations that helped fuel Trump’s election.  For too long, too many Americans have faced lousy jobs or no jobs. One answer: A guaranteed job at a living wage.

The Republican answer won’t work

Republicans continue to push for work requirements for recipients of Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing benefits.  But the real problem is there aren’t enough adequately-paying jobs to go around.

Even today, with a low official unemployment rate, millions who work part-time jobs want full-time work. Millions more are too discouraged to look for work, having endured the brutalities of job discrimination for far too long, or unable to move to where the jobs are.

And a large and growing number of jobs don’t pay enough to get people out of poverty.

A federal jobs guarantee would work

At the same time, a lot of work needs to be done – “greening” our nation’s infrastructure, caring for the elderly, teaching in our public schools, adequately staffing national parks, you name it.

So why shouldn’t the federal government create jobs and connect them directly to people who can’t otherwise find one, with decent, predictable hours and at a living wage?

An added plus: The availability of such jobs would give more bargaining power to many low-wage workers to get better hours and wages – because if they don’t get them from their employer, they’d have the option of a public job. In this way, a federal job guarantee would raise the floor for job quality nationwide.

And a job guarantee would act as a giant economic stabilizer during downturns, when the first to lose their jobs are usually the most economically marginalized.

We can afford it

Can we afford a job guarantee today? Yes. It’s estimated to cost around $670 billion in its first year – $30 billion less than the defense budget.

But that tab would quickly shrink. With more people working at better wages, Americans would have more purchasing power to buy goods and services. This would lead to more hiring by the private sector, and eventually, less need for the federal job guarantee.

More people working would also generate more tax revenue, partially offsetting the direct cost of the job guarantee.

Additional savings would come from fewer people needing public assistance. The Center for Labor Research and Education at Berkeley estimates that the federal government now spends over $150 billion a year because workers aren’t earning enough to get out of poverty. Doesn’t it make more sense to use this money to create guaranteed jobs at a living wage?

So, let’s think beyond Trump – to what Americans need. Few things are more important than a decent job. Full employment through a federal job guarantee makes sense – for workers, for the economy, for America

EU Member States approved Tuesday a set of ambitious measures to make EU waste legislation fit for the future, as part of the EU’s wider circular economy policy.

The new rules – based on Commission’s proposals part of the Circular Economy package presented in December 2015 – will help to prevent waste and, where this is not possible, significantly step up recycling of municipal and packaging waste. It will phase out landfilling and promote the use of economic instruments, such as Extended Producer Responsibility schemes.

The new legislation strengthens the “waste hierarchy”, i.e. it requires Member States to take specific measures to prioritize prevention, re-use and recycling above landfilling and incineration, thus making the circular economy a reality.

Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella said, “The final approval of new EU waste rules by the Council marks an important moment for the circular economy in Europe. The new recycling and landfilling targets set a credible and ambitious path for better waste management in Europe. Our main task now is to ensure that the promises enshrined in this waste package are delivered on the ground. The Commission will do all it can to support Member States and make the new legislation deliver on the ground.”

The Commission had originally presented proposals for new waste rules in 2014, which were withdrawn and replaced by better designed, more circular and more ambitious proposals on December 2015 as part of the Circular Economy agenda of the Juncker Commission. These proposals were then adopted and are now part of the EU rule book.

The new rules adopted represent the most modern waste legislation in the world, where the EU is leading by example for others to follow.

(EurActiv) — Europe’s energy and climate chief sought to reassure Iran’s top ministers on Saturday (19 May) that the European Union wants to keep trade open despite the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

Miguel Arias Cañete, European Commissioner for energy and climate, met with five top Iranian ministers over two days, including the Islamic Republic’s nuclear chief, oil minister and foreign minister.

Cañete wrote on Twitter: “The normalisation of trade and economic relations with Iran is an essential part of the Iran deal, which should be upheld by the international community.”

EU leaders have united behind the 2015 accord, with Brussels considering banning EU-based firms from complying with the sanctions that President Donald Trump has reimposed and urging governments to make money transfers to Iran’s central bank to avoid fines.

But EU officials admit there is a limit to what they can do to parry sanctions as a wave of European companies quit business with Tehran, fearing the global reach of US sanctions.
Europe offers no guarantees but vows to keep Iran deal alive

European powers vowed to keep the 2015 nuclear deal alive without the United States by trying to keep Iran’s oil and investment flowing, but admitted they would struggle to provide the guarantees Tehran seeks.

“There is no magic wand beyond trying to offer Iran a bit of reassurance,” a senior EU official involved in Iran talks told Reuters.

The mission led by Cañete is a symbolic gesture to urge Iran’s leadership to stick to the nuclear deal and shore up support for the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani against hardliners looking to constrain his ability to open up to the West, EU officials said.

“The mission is very important to us because it shows the EU’s determination to stand by its commitment,” a senior Iranian official said.

Europe sees the pact, limiting Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the relaxation of economic sanctions, as vital for international security.

Trump denounced it as “the worst deal ever” for failing to curb Iran’s separate ballistic missile programme and its influence in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon.

Payoff

With the reimposition of US sanctions threatening the accord’s economic payoff for Tehran, EU diplomats worry they will lose what little sway they have in the Islamic Republic.

Cañete raised with Tehran the possibility of EU governments bypassing the US financial system by making direct payments to Iran for oil exports and to repatriate Iranian funds in Europe – though the move will be up to member states.

In other efforts to shield European firms, the EU’s “blocking statute” would ban EU companies from complying with US sanctions and does not recognise any court rulings that enforce American penalties.

The EU is also seeking to allow the European Investment Bank to do business in Iran and to scale up euro-denominated credit lines from EU states.

But some big names are already heading for the door. French energy group Total said it may quit a multi-billion-dollar gas project that Tehran had repeatedly hailed as a symbol of the nuclear accord’s success.

The first sanctions to snap back into place are limits on Iranian oil exports that choked off more than half of Iran’s oil exports after 2012 – largely due to European and Asian buyers cutting back.

“One of the big factors for how the Iranians will react is what oil importers will do and how well the energy system can cope,” another EU official said.

“It will be difficult for us to deliver on the benefits the Iranians are expecting.”

The inevitable stop, start and stuttering of the Korean peace process was bound to manifest itself soon after the hugs, expansive smiles and sympathetic back rubs.  Dates have been set – the Kim-Trump summit is slated to take place in Singapore on June 12, though there is much time for disruptive mischief to take place.

One field of possible disruption lies in air exercises between the US and South Korea known as Max Thunder.  Such manoeuvres have been of particular interest to the DPRK, given their scale and possible use as leverage in talks.

The latest irritation was occasioned by claims in Pyongyang that the US had deployed B-52 Stratofortress bombers as part of the exercise despite denying that this would take place.  This was construed, in the words of Leon V. Sigal, “as inconsistent with President Trump’s pledge at President Moon’s urging to move toward peace in Korea.”

The position against using such nuclear-capable assets had been outlined in Kim Jong Un’s 2018 New Year’s Day address. The South, he insisted, should “discontinue all the nuclear war drills they stage with outside forces,” a point reiterated in Rodong Sinmun, the Party newspaper, ten days later: “If the South Korean authorities really want détente and peace, they should first stop all efforts to bringing in the US nuclear equipment and conduct exercises for nuclear warfare with foreign forces.”

While these matters were unfolding, President Donald Trump’s national security advisor was being his injudicious self, doing his bit for global insecurity.  Never a diplomat in the true sense of the term, John Bolton remains a traditional head kicker for empire, the rustler of discontent.

Bolton, history teacher incarnate, wants to impress upon the North Koreans certain jarring examples.  A favourite of his is the so-called Libyan solution. How well that worked: the leadership of a country maligned but convinced in its international rehabilitation to abandon various weapons programs in the hope of shoring up security.  More specifically, in 2003, Libya was convinced to undertake a process US diplomats and negotiators parrot with steam and enthusiasm: denuclearisation.

“We should insist that if this meeting is going to take place,” claimed Boltonon Radio Free Asia with characteristic smugness, “it will be similar to discussions we had with Libya 13 or 14 years ago: how to pack up their nuclear weapons program and take it to Oak Ridge, Tennessee.”

The problem with this skewed interpretation lies in its false premise: that US threats, cajoling and sanctions has actually brought North Korea, tail between legs, to the diplomatic table.  Being firm and threatening, according to Bolton, has been rewarding.  This reading verges on the fantastic, ignoring three years of cautious, informal engagement.  It also refuses to account for the fact that Pyongyang made firm moves in Washington’s direction after the insistence on firm preconditions was abandoned by Trump.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also been rumbling on the issue of a firm line, suggesting that he, like Bolton, has a preference for the stick approach.  Despite speaking about “warm” and “substantive” talks with Kim, he claims that any agreement with Pyongyang must have a “robust verification program” built into it.

The suggestion of the Libyan precedent was enough to sent Pyongyang into a state, given their developed fears about becoming the next casualty of unwarranted foreign intervention.  Libya did denuclearise, thereby inflicting what could only be seen subsequently as a self-amputation.  As missiles rained down upon Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, launched by the British, French and the US ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, a sense of terrible regret must have been felt.  Soon, the mad colonel would be butchered, and his state torn asunder in a sectarian reckoning.

As the air assault was taking place, the North Korean foreign ministry identified the problem: the bargain between Libya and the western powers to surrender its nuclear weapons program was “an invasion tactic to disarm the country”.  The intervention “is teaching the international community a grave lesson”.

The state news agency KNCA took note of Bolton’s remarks, issuing an official rebuff highlighting the status of the DPRK as a true, fully fledged nuclear weapon state: the “world knows too well that our country is neither Libya nor Iraq, which have met a miserable fate.  It is absolutely absurd to dare compare the DPRK, a nuclear weapon state, to Libya, which had been at the initial stage of nuclear development.”

The DPRK’s vice foreign minister, Kim Kye Gwan, was unequivocal in warning.  “If the US is trying to drive us into a corner to force our unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-US summit.”  Bolton received specific mention: “We do not hide a feeling of repugnance toward him.”

The Trump White House preferred to give different signals.  Sarah Huckabee Sanders is claiming that the president will be his own man on this, though Trump’s own reading of the “Libya model” has proven confusingly selective.  In any case the leverage brought by US ultimatum to disarm without genuine concessions is hardly likely to gain traction. The response from Pyongyang will be simple: resume missile testing and further enlarge the arsenal.