The sky sometimes has its limits, according to new research from two University of Chicago atmospheric scientists.

A study published May 24 in Science offers an explanation for a mysterious and sometimes deadly weather pattern in which the jet stream, the global air currents that circle the Earth, stalls out over a region. Much like highways, the jet stream has a capacity, researchers said, and when it’s exceeded, blockages form that are remarkably similar to traffic jams–and climate forecasters can use the same math to model them both.

The deadly 2003 European heat wave, California’s 2014 drought and the swing of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 that surprised forecasters–all of these were caused by a weather phenomenon known as “blocking,” in which the jet stream meanders, stopping weather systems from moving eastward. Scientists have known about it for decades, almost as long as they’ve known about the jet stream–first discovered by pioneering University of Chicago meteorologist Carl-Gustaf Rossby, in fact–but no one had a good explanation for why it happens.

“Blocking is notoriously difficult to forecast, in large part because there was no compelling theory about when it forms and why,” said study coauthor Noboru Nakamura, a professor in the Department of the Geophysical Sciences.

Nakamura and then-graduate student Clare S.Y. Huang were studying the jet stream, trying to determine a clear set of measurements for blocking in order to better analyze the phenomenon. One of their new metrics was a term that measured the jet stream’s meander. Looking over the math, Nakamura realized that the equation was nearly identical to one devised decades ago by transportation engineers trying to describe traffic jams.

“It turns out the jet stream has a capacity for ‘weather traffic,’ just as highway has traffic capacity, and when it is exceeded, blocking manifests as congestion,” said Huang.

Much like car traffic, movement slows when multiple highways converge and the speed of the jet stream is reduced due to topography such as mountains or coasts.

The result is a simple theory that not only reproduces blocking, but predicts it, said Nakamura, who called making the cross-disciplinary connection “one of the most unexpected, but enlightening moments in my research career–truly a gift from God.”

The explanation may not immediately improve short-term weather forecasting, the researchers said, but it will certainly help predict long-term patterns, including which areas may see more drought or floods.

Their initial results suggest that while climate change probably increases blocking by running the jet stream closer to its capacity, there will be regional differences: for example, the Pacific Ocean may actually see a decrease in blocking over the decades.

“It’s very difficult to forecast anything until you understand why it’s happening, so this mechanistic model should be extremely helpful,” Nakamura said.

And the model, unlike most modern climate science, is computationally simple: “This equation captures the essence with a much less complicated system,” Huang said.

MIT researchers have built an ingestible sensor equipped with genetically engineered bacteria that can diagnose bleeding in the stomach or other gastrointestinal problems.

This “bacteria-on-a-chip” approach combines sensors made from living cells with ultra-low-power electronics that convert the bacterial response into a wireless signal that can be read by a smartphone.

“By combining engineered biological sensors together with low-power wireless electronics, we can detect biological signals in the body and in near real-time, enabling new diagnostic capabilities for human health applications,” said Timothy Lu, an MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of biological engineering.

In the new study, appearing in the May 24 online edition of Science, the researchers created sensors that respond to heme, a component of blood, and showed that they work in pigs. They also designed sensors that can respond to a molecule that is a marker of inflammation.

Lu and Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of MIT’s School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, are the senior authors of the study. The lead authors are graduate student Mark Mimee and former MIT postdoc Phillip Nadeau.

Wireless communication

In the past decade, synthetic biologists have made great strides in engineering bacteria to respond to stimuli such as environmental pollutants or markers of disease. These bacteria can be designed to produce outputs such as light when they detect the target stimulus, but specialized lab equipment is usually required to measure this response.

To make these bacteria more useful for real-world applications, the MIT team decided to combine them with an electronic chip that could translate the bacterial response into a wireless signal.

“Our idea was to package bacterial cells inside a device,” Nadeau said. “The cells would be trapped and go along for the ride as the device passes through the stomach.”

For their initial demonstration, the researchers focused on bleeding in the GI tract. They engineered a probiotic strain of E. coli to express a genetic circuit that causes the bacteria to emit light when they encounter heme.

They placed the bacteria into four wells on their custom-designed sensor, covered by a semipermeable membrane that allows small molecules from the surrounding environment to diffuse through. Underneath each well is a phototransistor that can measure the amount of light produced by the bacterial cells and relay the information to a microprocessor that sends a wireless signal to a nearby computer or smartphone. The researchers also built an Android app that can be used to analyze the data.

The sensor, which is a cylinder about 1.5 inches long, requires about 13 microwatts of power. The researchers equipped the sensor with a 2.7-volt battery, which they estimate could power the device for about 1.5 months of continuous use. They say it could also be powered by a voltaic cell sustained by acidic fluids in the stomach, using technology that Nadeau and Chandrakasan have previously developed.

“The focus of this work is on system design and integration to combine the power of bacterial sensing with ultra-low-power circuits to realize important health sensing applications,” Chandrakasan said.

Diagnosing disease

The researchers tested the ingestible sensor in pigs and showed that it could correctly determine whether any blood was present in the stomach. They anticipate that this type of sensor could be either deployed for one-time use or designed to remain the digestive tract for several days or weeks, sending continuous signals.

Currently, if patients are suspected to be bleeding from a gastric ulcer, they have to undergo an endoscopy to diagnose the problem, which often requires the patient to be sedated.

“The goal with this sensor is that you would be able to circumvent an unnecessary procedure by just ingesting the capsule, and within a relatively short period of time you would know whether or not there was a bleeding event,” Mimee said.

To help move the technology toward patient use, the researchers plan to reduce the size of the sensor and to study how long the bacteria cells can survive in the digestive tract. They also hope to develop sensors for gastrointestinal conditions other than bleeding.

In the Science paper, the researchers adapted previously described sensors for two other molecules, which they have not yet tested in animals. One of the sensors detects a sulfur-containing ion called thiosulfate, which is linked to inflammation and could be used to monitor patients with Crohn’s disease or other inflammatory conditions. The other detects a bacterial signaling molecule called AHL, which can serve as a marker for gastrointestinal infections because different types of bacteria produce slightly different versions of the molecule.

“Most of the work we did in the paper was related to blood, but conceivably you could engineer bacteria to sense anything and produce light in response to that,” Mimee said. “Anyone who is trying to engineer bacteria to sense a molecule related to disease could slot it into one of those wells, and it would be ready to go.”

The researchers say the sensors could also be designed to carry multiple strains of bacteria, allowing them to diagnose a variety of conditions.

“Right now, we have four detection sites, but if you could extend it to 16 or 256, then you could have multiple different types of cells and be able to read them all out in parallel, enabling more high-throughput screening,” Nadeau said.

Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Cheng Xueyuan said that the Sri Lankan dream of national progress, economic development, ethnic amity and religious harmony is consistent with the aims of China’s Belt and Initiative.

The ambassador was speaking at a symposium held at Chinese Embassy in Colombo. The symposium held under the theme “From Millennium to the New Era: Jointly Build the Belt and Road and Embrace the Sri Lankan Dream”.

Speaking further, the Chinese ambassador explained the reasons behind his country’s willingness to help Sri Lanka. Both countries are combined with a history of friendship and exchanges, shared similar rough encounters in the past and BRI combines Chinese and Sri Lankan Dreams together in the new era, he added.

Minister Malik Samarawickrama praised the assistance provided by the China for the economic development of the country. A new LNG plant will be constructed in the Hambantota with an investment of 700 million. Relevant parties have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding for this BOI project, the minister added.

Chief Operational Officer of the Hambantota International Port Group Limited Tissa Wickramasinghe spelled out the details of job opportunities created by the port project. Out of 600 plus job opportunities, around 80 percent opportunities are provided to locals in the area. Many of them obtain training and skill transfers from Chinese experts, Mr.Wickramasinghe added.

Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Port City Colombo Private Limited Liang Thow Ming said that the project aims to transform Colombo a world class city in the South Asian region. He explained the details of future endeavors those are to be implemented through Port City Development Project. Among them are a conventional center with a seating capacity of 5000, a world class medical facility with 750 hospital beds, an international school and 2 kilo meter long beach with recreational options among others.

Replying to a query post by journalists, the Chinese Ambassador told that around six thousand Chinese workers are working here in the affiliated projects. He asked to reject unfounded allegations and rumors targeted Chinese intervention in Sri Lanka.

In the presence of the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, Total has signed an agreement with Novatek outlining the terms upon which Total shall acquire a direct working interest of 10% in Arctic LNG 2, a giant liquefied natural gas project lead by Novatek on the Gydan Peninsula in the north of Siberia.

Taking account of Total’s approximate 19% stake in Novatek and Novatek’s intention to retain 60% of the project, the Group’s overall economic interest in this new LNG project will be approximately 21.5%. Should Novatek decide to reduce its participation below 60%, Total will have the possibility to increase its direct share up to 15%.

Novatek and Total have also agreed that Total will have the opportunity to acquire a 10 to 15% direct interest in Novatek’s future LNG projects in Yamal and Gydan.

“Total is delighted to be part of this new world class LNG project alongside its partner Novatek, leveraging the positive experience acquired in the successful Yamal LNG project. This project fits into our strategic partnership with Novatek and also with our sustained commitment to contribute to developing the vast gas resources in Russia’s far north which will primarily be destined for the strongly growing Asian market.” said Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO of Total. “Arctic LNG 2 will contribute to our strategy of growth in LNG by developing competitive projects based on giant low costs resources.”

With a production capacity of approximately 19.8 million tons per year (Mt/year), or 535,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), Arctic LNG 2 will unlock more than 7 billion boe of hydrocarbons’ resources in the onshore Utrenneye gas and condensate field. The project will involve the installation of three gravity-based structures in the Gulf of Ob on which will be installed the three liquefaction trains of 6.6 Mt/year capacity each.

In the same way as for Yamal LNG, Arctic LNG 2 production will be delivered to international markets by a fleet of ice-class LNG carriers that will be able to use the Northern Sea Route for cargoes destined for Asia.

The final investment decision is expected in 2019, with plans to start up the first train by end 2023.

The decision by US President Donald Trump to cancel the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is “not in line with the world’s wishes,” the government in Pyongyang has announced.

Kim has made the “utmost efforts” to hold a summit with Trump, said the North Korean first vice minister for foreign affairs, Kim Kye-gwan, according to the state news agency KCNA. The meeting between two leaders was scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.

Pyongyang is “still willing to resolve issues with the United States,” the official said, holding onto the hope that the meeting could still be rescheduled.

Our goal and will to do everything for peace and stability of the Korean peninsula and mankind remains unchanged, and we are always willing to give time and opportunity to the US side with an open mind,” Kim Kye-gwan said. “We reiterate to the US that there is a willingness to sit down at any time, in any way, to solve the problem.”

Trump canceled the planned summit on Thursday morning, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” in the most recent statement from North Korea, in a letter personally addressed to Kim Jong-un.

The announcement came just a few hours after North Korea destroyed its nuclear testing site at Punggye-ri.

Trump was referring to the statement by North Korea’s vice-foreign minister Choe Son-hui, who called Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” over his comparison of North Korea to Libya.

“I think I understand why that happened,” the US president said cryptically about North Korea’s change of tone. Earlier in the week, in a meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump brought up Kim’s second trip to China as the point where rhetoric began to escalate, but he said he did not want to blame Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

North Korean officials took offense at the comparisons with Libya, first made by National Security Adviser John Bolton, pointing out that the North African country accepted the US’ offer to denuclearize in 2003, only to be subjected to a US-backed regime change and plunged into chaos in 2011.

Russia reacted to the summit’s cancellation with regret, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

“We were very much anticipating a significant step to be taken to de-escalate the situation on the Korean Peninsula that would become the beginning of the process of denuclearization,” he said after talks with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in St. Petersburg.

A team from the Université libre de Bruxelles’s centre for archaeological research (CReA-Patrimoine) has completed a significant excavation in Pachacamac, Peru, where they have discovered an intact mummy in especially good condition. Pachacamac’s status as a Pre-Colombian pilgrimage site under the Inca empire. is confirmed by further evidence.

Peter Eeckhout and his team’s latest campaign of archaeological excavations has concluded with an exciting surprise: after nine weeks spent exploring the Pre-Colombian site of Pachacamac, in Peru, the researchers from CReA-Patrimoine (ULB Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences) have unearthed a mummy in especially good condition.

“The deceased is still wrapped in the enormous funeral bundle that served as a coffin,” said professor Peter Eeckhout. “Discoveries like this one are exceptionally scarce, and this mummy is incredibly well preserved. Samples were collected for carbon-14 dating, but the area in which it was discovered and the type of tomb suggest this individual was buried between 1000 and 1200 AD.”

The excavation was carried out as a part of the ‘Ychsma’ project, named after the region’s native people, under the supervision of professor Eeckhout. Three monumental structures were explored during the campaign, including a sanctuary dedicated to the local ancestors. Under Inca rule, in the late 15th century, it appears to have been transformed into a water and healing temple.

The archaeologists have discovered many offerings left by worshippers, such as Spondylus shells imported from Ecuador; these are associated with the influx of water during El Niño, and they symbolise fertility and abundance.

Before the Inca settled in the area, the sanctuary included large funerary chambers and numerous mummies, most of which were looted during the Spanish conquest.

Miraculously, though, one of the chambers was found intact during the latest round of excavations: this is the funeral chamber that held the mummy. Due to how well it was preserved, the researchers will be able to study it without needing to unwrap the bundle.

Together with Christophe Moulherat (Musée du Quai Branly, Paris), they will soon examine the mummy using the latest techniques in medical imaging (X-ray scans, axial tomography, 3D reconstruction, etc.). This will enable them to determine the individual’s position, any pathologies they might have suffered from, but also what offerings might be inside the bundle.

The other structures that were excavated are also related to worship: the first one, an Inca monument intended to host pilgrims and rituals, was built in several phases, each identified with a series of offerings such as seashells and precious objects. The last structure explored was probably one of the ‘chapels’ for foreign pilgrims, referred to by Spanish monk Antonio de la Calancha in his 17th-century description of the site. There, the excavations also uncovered many ‘foundation’ offerings, including vases, dogs, and other animals, as well as a platform with a hole in the centre, where an idol was likely placed. The complex appears to have been designed around this idol, involved in religious activities with pilgrims.

According to researchers, all these discoveries indicate that Incas made considerable changes to the Pachacamac site, in order to create a large pilgrimage centre on Peru’s Pacific coast.

“Deities and their worship played a major part in the life of Pre-Colombian societies,” said Peter Eeckhout. “The Inca understood this very well, and integrated it into how they wielded their power. By promoting empire-wide worship, they contributed to creating a common sense of identity among the many different peoples that made up the empire. Pachacamac is one of the most striking examples of this.”

South Carolina’s nationally-popular GOP House member, Rep. Trey Gowdy, has decided to delve into a probe of the FBI’s handling of the so-called Trump-Russia collusion investigation that appears to be causing problems for the Deep State and its supporters in the mainstream news media.

On Thursday, May 24, 2018, Congressman Gowdy, who made a name for himself as an excellent prosecutor and trial lawyer, is scheduled to attend an important pow-wow with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-California, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Ed O’Callaghan, the assistant to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the Justice Department. The subject of “Spygate” — allegations of FBI/CIA infiltration of Trump Campaign Trump’s and White House transition — is expected to be included it the yet-to-be-announced classified meeting.

Both congressmen — Gowdy of the Oversight Committee and Nunes of the Intelligence Committee — met with top members of the Justice Department earlier this month to go over suspected abuse of the FISA surveillance court.

While the news media is reporting that the meeting fails to allow Democratic Party congressmen from participating, a source in Washington, DC, claims there were Democrats invited.

Senate Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia claims he is wary of the meeting. “Chairman [Richard] Burr and I have been pretty clear that we don’t think that information should even be shared with us,” Warner said Tuesday. However, there has been friction in the Senate between Burr, a Trump-supporting Republican, and Democrats including Warner.

“We’ve turned down the opportunity to have that kind of briefing, because, because of the threat of leaking. Because there are other bodies on the Hill that get information, and very quickly afterward that information appears in the press. We wanted to make sure that weren’t going to be subject to any, even those kind of allegations,” Warner said.

“What Burr failed to mention was the fact that the leakers have been identified as Democrats with information going to their friends and comrades in the nation’s newsrooms,” said former police detective and military intelligence operative Mike Snopes. “Even James Comey, who was still FBI director, admitted he leaked documents to a friend who in turn gave them to a reporter,” Snopes noted.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted the meeting claiming no Democrats are invited to Thursday’s meeting, even though Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was invited but turned down the invitation.

Schumer’s dishonest response may be a sign that something big will come out in a news story about the intelligence/law enforcement meeting with Gowdy and Nunes.

“When I served as a New York police officer, the last politician I trusted to be honest and patriotic was Chuck Schumer, who first served as a member of the House of Representatives and then as a Senator. He’s a known liar and would be exposed by the news media if he weren’t part of the Democratic Party and the Deep State,” said former drug enforcement officer Richard Keener.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is said to be the official who setup the important meeting and he most probably made certain that President Trump is apprised of the meeting, since it entails an examination of the FBI’s role in the 2016 campaign.

When asked about the latest reports on the FBI spying on his campaign, President Trump said, “If an FBI agent or any “Deep State” informant was embedded within his campaign for the express purpose of spying on it, that would be a scandal Bigger than Watergate.”

Prehistoric people of the Mississippi Delta may have abandoned a large ceremonial site due to environmental stress, according to a new paper authored by Elizabeth Chamberlain, a postdoctoral researcher in Earth and environmental sciences, and University of Illinois anthropologist Jayur Mehta.

The study, published online May 18 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, used archaeological excavations, geologic mapping and coring, and radiocarbon dating to identify how Native Americans built and inhabited the Grand Caillou mound near Dulac, Louisiana. The work stemmed from research begun by Mehta and Chamberlain when they were graduate students at Tulane University.

The researchers found that construction of the Grand Caillou mound began around 800 years ago, when Bayou Grand Caillou was a major and active river channel. The site appeared to have been abandoned around 600 years ago, the same time Bayou Grand Caillou stopped carrying a significant portion of Mississippi River water and sediment.

“Dating an abandonment event can be challenging,” said Chamberlain. “Within our suite of radiocarbon ages at Grand Caillou, there were none younger than 600 years. This suggests that people may have moved on to a new site at that time.”

“The abandonment of the river channel would have caused a number of changes to the ecology and landscape at the Grand Caillou mound,” added Mehta. “This may be an early example of people responding to changes in Mississippi Delta landscape by relocating.”

The researchers also found that the location and architecture of the mound–it stands 20 feet tall–indicated a great degree of environmental and engineering expertise among the people who built it.

“This region is naturally high elevation, and offered access to waterways for transportation and hunting,” said Mehta.

Geologic coring showed that the mound was built in alternating layers of sand and mud. While sand is a common deposit near the mound, mud must have been imported from farther away.

“This demonstrates a high level of geotechnical knowledge by native people, and a big group effort in mound construction,” said Chamberlain. “Waterlogged mud is heavy, and all this material was moved by hand.”

The study also used artifacts recovered from the mound to identify the culture of the people who lived there. This helped to connect the Grand Caillou inhabitants with mound-building groups farther upstream in the Mississippi River Valley and along the Gulf Coast.

“Research such as this is especially important in light of recent published work showing that net land loss will continue in the Mississippi Delta,” said Chamberlain.

“Archaeological sites are a non-renewable resource,” added Mehta. “With the loss of coastal land, we also risk losing these valuable records of how prehistoric people lived in the Mississippi Delta. It is critical to recover and document archaeological records before they slip beneath the sea.”

Total global alcohol consumption grew slightly in 2017, increasing by 3.5m nine-litre cases versus 2016, according to data just released by the IWSR, the world’s leading authority on global beverage alcohol data and analysis.

Though 2017’s growth is very modest at 0.01%, it follows a decline of -1.25% in 2016, which is a positive turnaround for the industry as a whole. Wine contributed to the largest gain in global volume, followed by cider. Spirits declined marginally due to losses in the CIS. Beer and mixed drinks consumption continued to decline.

After a static year in 2016, still wine staged a comeback in 2017, gaining 12m cases (+0.5%). Italy, Russia and the US were the top growth markets for still wine, while the UK and France saw the largest declines. These mature wine markets are losing out to generational shifts in drinks choices; cider and sparkling wine growth in the UK counteracted the decline of still wine, and in France beer consumption rose strongly.

The fastest-growing regions for spirits were Asia-Pacific and the Americas. The continued growth of baijiu in China is the main contributor to the Asia-Pacific volumes, but whisky also performed well in the region, adding 2.7m cases between 2016 and 2017 (+1.2%). Similarly, whisky grew by 2.7m cases in the Americas (+3.2%), and vodka adding 1.7m cases (+1.8%). Agave-based spirits were the best-performing category in the region by percentage growth, growing 5.3%, adding 1.4m cases. The CIS was the only region to see a decline in spirits consumption, falling -7.6% (25.2m cases), due to the decrease of vodka consumption in Russia and Ukraine. Government pressures and generational shifts contribute to these ongoing declines.

In percentage terms, agave-based spirits were the fastest-growing category globally (+5.2%), followed by gin and genever (+4.5%) and whisky (+2%). The US was the largest-growth market for agave-based spirits and whisky, and the UK was the largest-growth market for gin.

Beer returned to growth in the Americas, led by Mexico and Argentina, despite continued declines in the US. Positive results in the Americas along with strong growth in Africa, the Middle East and Europe helped to slow the global decline of beer consumption.

Though cider growth in Europe has slowed, momentum in Africa and the Middle East helped spur a 2.5% global volume increase. The mixed drinks market declined by -1%, led by a slowdown in Asia-Pacific and further category negative trends in the CIS and the Americas.

By Madalin Necsutu

Moldova’s pro-Russian President Igor Dodon on Thursday met Igor Chaika, son of Russian General Prosecutor Yury Chaika, and a wealthy businessman, to discuss business opportunities for Russian investors in Moldova. The duo met at the economic forum in St Petersburg.

“Russian businessmen are willing to invest large sums in our economy and create new businesses and jobs. To that end, however, entrepreneurs need to create an enabling environment,” Dodon wrote on his Facebook page.

But what has most interested both the Moldovan and Russian media about this meeting is Chaika’s interest in investing in “mining farms” to produce the cryptocurrency Bitcoin in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

Mining farms are hardware that help create cryptocurrency by using the computing power of PC systems. This requires a lot of electrical energy, while Transnistria provides cheap prices using natural gas from Russia’s Gazprom to produce electricity.

Chaika visited Moldova in September 2017 for talks with Dodon. The Moldovan President then wrote on Facebook about the prospects for business development with Russian investors.

Immediately after the meeting, Chaika went to Tiraspol to meet the Transnistrian leader, Vadim Krasnoselsky.

In December 2017, Chaika then signed an agreement on behalf of the business association “Delovaya Rossiya” [Russian business] with the Transnistrian authorities to secure an easy pass for Transnistrian goods to the Russian markets.

Since 2013, Moldova has been under a Russian embargo for exports of foods and wine, but many companies from the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria and the autonomous region of Gagauzia in Moldova are exempted from the rule.

After this meeting, in January 2018, Transnistria’s assembly quickly adopted a law exempting Russian investors from taxes. They also benefit from the region’s special electricity prices.

Chaika then told the Russian daily Kommersant that he wanted to move on with the bitcoin plans.

“Now there are the prerequisites to move on,” he told the paper.

“We agreed with the head of the Tiraspol executive that after the law came into force, the authorities would provide us with the infrastructure for the project. We will expect their proposals regarding the locations for the creation of mining farms – the ball is in their court,” he said.

Ever since the war between Moldova and Tiraspol 26 years ago created the breakaway region on the left bank of Dniester river, Gazprom has charged Moldova for the gas that the national energy company Moldovagaz flows into this territory.

Moldovagaz is owned 51 per cent by Gazprom and 49 per cent by the Moldovan Minister of Economy.

Meanwhile, Dodon also noted on Thursday that he had talked to Chaika about organising a Moldovan-Russian business forum in September in Chisinau, before the campaign for the parliamentary elections starts.

On May 14, Dodon Moldova’s accession to observer status in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, although both the pro-EU government and most experts doubt this will being Moldova much benefit as it now exports most of its goods to Europe.

(RFE/RL) — Iran has kept its nuclear program within the main restrictions imposed by the 2015 nuclear deal with major powers despite the U.S. pullout from the agreement, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on May 24.

In its first such report since U.S. President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal earlier this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had complied with limits on the level to which it can enrich uranium, its stock of enriched uranium, and other items.

The IAEA said Iran’s stock of enriched uranium has stayed within the 300-kilogram limit set out in the deal under which Iran limited its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

The IAEA, however, rebuked Tehran for dragging its feet over so-called “complementary access” inspections under the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, which Iran is implementing under the deal.

The report said, “timely and proactive cooperation by Iran in providing such access would … enhance confidence.”

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Thursday, May 24 that their intelligence forces arrested one of the “most dangerous” European members of the Islamic State (IS) group, Al-Masdar News says.

According to a statement from the official SDF website, their intelligence units arrested the French terrorist Adrian Lionel Kayali (AKA “Abu Usama) on Sunday, May 19.

The SDF claimed Kayali was arrested along with his wife after their intelligence units conducted a special operation to capture him.

Kayali was reportedly trying to escape to Turkey before he was apprehended by the US-backed forces this past weekend.

The IS terrorist was wanted by the European authorities for his connection to the 2016 Nice terrorist attack in France.

Some nuances can be captured from the opening remarks made in Sochi. Modi thanked Putin for helping India get a permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In turn, Putin noted: “Our defence ministries maintain very close contacts and cooperation. It speaks about a very high strategic level of our partnership.”

By Manoj Joshi

Reportage from Sochi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday has been sparse. This is, of course, by design. Modi has been innovative if not anything else in his foreign forays. He has patented the use of official visits abroad to drum up support for his agenda at home.

Now Modi has come up with a new feature: informal summits to reach out to key foreign leaders. Like his meeting in Wuhan with China’s President Xi Jinping in April, his meeting with Putin was “agenda-less.” Unlike Wuhan, which was spread over two days and featured delegation-level talks, the Sochi meeting was held over nine hours, and remained an interpersonal interaction between the two leaders.

The Indian statement on Sochi spoke of the special and privileged strategic partnership between the two countries, the words “special and privileged” signifying its uniqueness as a category among scores of strategic partnerships. A suggestive point was made about the importance of “building a multi-polar order” and the significance of the long-term partnership between the two countries “in the military, security and nuclear energy fields.”

Some nuances can also be captured from the opening remarks made in Sochi, according to news reports. Modi thanked Putin for helping India get a permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In turn, Putin noted that “our defence ministries maintain very close contacts and cooperation. It speaks about a very high strategic level of our partnership.”

Modi made sure to make the point that India is in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an outfit championed by China, courtesy the Russians. For his part, Putin seemed to remind Modi of the important business they had on the defence front, at a time Russia’s share of the Indian arms market was declining.

The Russian view, revealed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the meeting, said that the two sides focused on economic cooperation. This is a major area of weakness between the two countries whose relationship is dangerously dependent on the arms and energy trade. The decision to institute a Strategic Economic Dialogue between India’s NITI Ayog and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development is a welcome step in this direction.

Lavrov claimed that the two sides were against a bloc architecture for security in the Asia-Pacific. Bloc here means a grouping like the Quadrilateral — consisting of Australia, India, Japan and the US — which China and Russia are not part of.

It is unlikely that India would have criticised a group of which it is a member. Though, New Delhi, a member of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, would hardly support any group that excludes its partners in that grouping either.

Looking ahead

Action on substantive issues, both economic and military, could come up in the formal annual bilateral summit between India and Russia in October. This could include discussions on a free trade zone between the Eurasian Economic Union and India, further movement in the International North South Transportation Corridor (to move freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia), and further cooperation in the energy sector. This area has been boosted by the reworking of the Liquefied Natural Gas supply agreement with Gazprom and the purchase of Essar oil by the Russian giant Rosneft. As for the military side, the major issues relate to the purchase of the S-400 air defence system and the Russian proposal for the manufacture of Ka-226T utility helicopters for the military. There are a number of other offers, such as that for the Project 75I submarines, and the more sensitive Indian quest for nuclear-powered attack submarines.

Modi referred to the India-Russia cooperation on BRICS — the association of major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — and the International North–South Transport Corridor. First conceived of nearly 18 years ago, the transport corridor, involving ship, rail and road routes, is an ambitious venture whose time has come. But it is not clear whether the three partners behind it — India, Iran and Russia — are ready to create a multi-modal system that will link Indian ports like Kandla and Mumbai with Russia and Europe through the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. While test cargoes have been run, much more needs to be done to operationalise what could be a means of enhancing the weak non-military bilateral trade between India and Russia. But even as the three countries procrastinate, the Iran nuclear issue is casting its shadow on the region.

The shadow of CAATSA

India’s ties with Russia have been under strain for a while. The Ukraine issue and the resulting western sanctions have been steadily pushing Russia into the arms of China. On the other hand, New Delhi had made clear its interest in developing stronger ties with the US. This was manifested by the Joint Strategic Vision on Asia Pacific and Indian Ocean that it worked out with the US in 2015. This has been accompanied by greater acquisitions of military equipment from the US and the cancellation of important deals such as that relating to the India-Russia Fifth Generation Fighter.

The Russians are not too concerned about the Indo-Pacific, where in a way, their position as supporters of Vietnam is not very different from India. But as Lavrov noted, Russia is concerned about blocs that exclude them.

But now there is a bigger shadow looming — the US law called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. This law imposes sanctions on three countries, including Russia, Iran and North Korea and includes a section under which any country trading with Russia’s defence sector can face sanctions. More than 60% of India’s defence inventory comprises of Russian-origin equipment, many like submarines and missiles that the US itself is reluctant to provide. Under this Act, all this could be imperilled. There is talk of a waiver, but India needs to consider defence ties with a country that is wont to issue sanctions at the drop of a hat.

From the 1960s to 1980s, an antagonistic posture towards China cemented India and Russia’s ties with each other. But things have changed in recent years. India has become a significant customer of American weapons systems, while Russia has begun supplying its cutting edge fighters like the Su-35 to the Chinese. Beijing has also become the lead customer for Russia’s S-400 air defence systems.

In the past five years, the Sino-Russian embrace has tightened. The two countries have signed deals worth half a trillion dollars for the supply of oil and gas from Russia to China over the next quarter century. China has become an important source of Foreign Direct Investment to Russia and it is not surprising that Moscow has lined up with Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative and even agreed to coordinate its Eurasian Economic Union activities with the Chinese. Last December, in a visit to New Delhi, Lavrov publicly called on India to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

Russia and Pakistan

Another visible shift has been in Russia’s approach to Pakistan. Last month, Russia began supplying Mi-35M assault helicopters to Pakistan, fulfilling a deal that was originally reached in 2015. Russian goals in Pakistan relate to its Central Asian commitments. Though it is under Chinese pressure in the region, it remains the region’s principal security provider and would like to retain its status there as its principal economic partner. In this, Russia views access to the Middle East through Pakistan as a major step. There has been a flurry of Russian investments in Pakistan, and the more Moscow is isolated in Europe, the more it turns East.

India and Russia have a relationship that has been tested by time and has served both countries well. But global relations are going through a period of unusual disruption. It was therefore useful for the leaders of India and Russia to put aside their other cares and focus for a brief while on the need to shore up their relationship.

This article originally appeared in Scroll.

A recent upsurge in insurgent activity in Kashmir likely explains Pakistani and Chinese reluctance to crackdown on internationally designated militant Hafez Saeed and the network of groups that he heads.

So does the fact that Mr. Saeed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, an outlawed, India-focused ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim group widely seen as one of South Asia’s deadliest, have assisted Pakistani intelligence and the military in countering militants like Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban, that have turned against Pakistan itself.

Lashkar-e-Taiba has also been useful in opposing nationalist insurgents in Balochistan, a key node in China’s Belt and Road initiative. The China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a $50 billion plus China investment in Pakistani infrastructure and energy, is the initiative’s single largest cost post with the Baloch port of Gwadar as its crown jewel.

The United States has put a $10 million bounty on the head of Mr. Saeed, who is believed to lead Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) as well as Jamaat-ud-Dawa, an alleged LeT front, and is suspected of being the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which 166 people were killed.

Lashkar-e-Taiba is “not only useful, but also reliable. (Its)…objectives may not perfectly align with the security establishment’s objectives, but they certainly overlap,” says international security scholar Stephen Tankel.

The links between Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani security establishment are reflected in the fact that the group has recruited in some of the same areas as the military and that some former military officers have joined the group.

The relationship is reinforced by a fear in parts of Pakistan’s security establishment that the group’s popularity, rooted partly in social services provided by its charity arm, would enable it to wage a violent campaign against the state if the military and intelligence were to cut it loose.

So far, Pakistan with tacit Chinese backing appear to see mileage in the group’s existence as a pinprick in India’s side even if creating the perception of greater distance to the security establishment has become a more urgent necessity because of international pressure.

One way of doing so, is the apparent backing of Pakistani intelligence and the military of Mr. Saeed’s efforts to enter the political mainstream by securing registration of a political party in advance of elections expected in July. Pakistan’s election commission has so far held back on the application.

Speaking to the Indian Express, Major General Asif Ghafoor, a spokesman for Pakistan’s intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence, said that “anything (Mr. Saeed) does, other than violence, is good. There is a process in Pakistan for anyone to participate in politics. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has its rules and laws. If he (Mr. Saeed) fulfils all those requirements that is for the ECP to decide.”

Indian officials are not so sure. In a world in which demarcations between various militant groups are blurred, Indian intelligence expects a spike in attack in Kashmir this summer as a result of Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives joining groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).

Twenty-two security personnel and six civilians were either killed or injured in seven attacks in Kashmir in the first five weeks of this year. India said Lashkar-e-Taiba was responsible for an attack in March on soldiers and policemen in which three Army personnel, two policemen, and five militants were killed. Another 20 were killed in clashes in April between Lashkar-e-Taiba and security forces.

Lashkar-e-Taiba’s utility notwithstanding, Pakistan and China are discovering that engagement with militants is never clean cut. Decades of Pakistani support of often Saudi-backed ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim militants has woven militancy into the fabric of militancy into segments of the military, intelligence, bureaucracy and the public.

“A military–mullah–militant nexus has existed for several decades in Pakistan. During this time, the Pakistani military has used religious and political parties connected, directly or indirectly, to various militant outfits as political proxies,” Mr. Tankel said.

National security expert S. Paul Kapur and political scientist Sumit Ganguly noted that “the Pakistan-militant nexus is as old as the Pakistani state. From its founding in 1947 to the present day, Pakistan has used religiously motivated militant forces as strategic tools… Supporting jihad has been one of the principal means by which the Pakistani state has sought to produce security for itself.”

Decades later, the strategy is backfiring. Concern of increased domestic violence if Pakistan were to cut its links to militants and crackdown on them irrespective of their utility is heightened by the fact many of the groups operate either with no regard for the concerns of the security establishment or with the unsanctioned support of individual military and intelligence officials.

That is believed to have been the case in a string of sectarian attacks in Balochistan by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), ultra-conservative, anti-Shiite Sunni Muslim militants, in which hundreds of Shiites have been killed. China has also been a target of militants in Balochistan.

The spike in sectarian attacks prompted a military crackdown earlier this month. “While such intelligence-based operations are vital, they deal with the symptoms rather than the disease,” cautioned Dawn newspaper.

Speaking in September last year in New York when he was still foreign minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif acknowledged that Mr. Saeed and other Pakistani-backed militants have become liabilities. But even so, Mr. Asif appeared to be looking for wiggle room.

“I accept that they are liabilities but give us time to get rid of them because we don’t have the assets to match these liabilities,” Mr. Asif said.

Arsenal midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan says that if former coach Arsene Wenger decided to stay, no one would have been against it.

The Armenia international hopes new Arsenal head coach Unai Emery will bring some fresh “tactical ideas and spirit” to the club, The Daily Mail reports.

Spaniard Emery has succeeded Arsene Wenger, who was manager for 22 years, and set out his positive vision for the future when speaking at a media conference on Wednesday, May 23 afternoon.

Attacking midfielder Mkhitaryan joined the Gunners from Manchester United in January as part of the deal which saw Alexis Sanchez head to Old Trafford.

The Armenian feels Emery, who left Paris St Germain at the end of the season having won the French domestic treble, can make a real impact at the Emirates Stadium.

“I still haven’t had an opportunity to meet him. We didn’t have time to talk with each other. I hope he will bring new tactical ideas and spirit to Arsenal, and I hope he will succeed,” Mkhitaryan said.

“I haven’t talked to my team-mates about him. I would like to meet him. Everyone at the club is a professional. Everyone knows what he should do and what he is expected to do.”

Mkhitaryan admits it will be a different club he heads back to for the start of pre-season training, with Wenger having been in charge for so long.

“Not only the players, but the staff overall were sad. It’s not that easy to handle the exit of a man who was managing the team for 22 years,” he added.

“You can’t imagine how everyone was amazed with the atmosphere he had created. If he decided to stay for 10 more years, no one would have been against it.”

Mkhitaryan feels Emery’s Arsenal must target a swift return to the elite of European football.

“Our priority (last season) was qualification for Champions League, but unfortunately we didn’t manage that,” he said.

“We wanted to do it and we fought for it, but everything can happen in football, so we should focus on next season and return to the Champions League in two years.”

Currently in Yerevan, Mkhitaryan said earlier there is no old and new Armenia for him, “but only one Armenia.”

A new study published in Preventive Medicine shows that African Americans and Latinos are significantly more likely to experience serious depression than Whites, but chronic stress does not seem to explain these differences. Dr. Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) was the senior author of the study, which also found that African Americans and Latinos were more likely to have higher levels of chronic stress and more unhealthy behaviors. NIMHD is part of the National Institutes of Health.

To examine the relationship between unhealthy behaviors, chronic stress, and risk of depression by race and ethnicity, researchers used data collected on 12,272 participants, aged 40 to 70 years, from 2005 to 2012. These data were part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative health interview and examination survey of U.S. adults. This age range population was selected for this study to capture the effects of chronic stress over the lifetime of the participants.

“Understanding the social and behavioral complexities associated with depression and unhealthy behaviors by race/ethnicity can help us understand how to best improve overall health,” said Pérez-Stable.

The unhealthy behaviors examined were current cigarette smoking, excessive or binge drinking, insufficient exercise, and fair or poor diet. The researchers measured chronic stress using 10 objective biological measures, including blood pressure, body mass index, and total cholesterol. The researchers assessed risk for depression using results from the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).

Chronic stress during adulthood may be an important factor in depression. This effect may be worse among racial and ethnic minorities due to the stress experienced from social and economic inequalities, but the relationships between race/ethnicity, stress, behavior, and depression are not well understood. A theoretical framework called the Environmental Affordances model has been proposed to explain how chronic stress and risk behaviors interact to affect health. This model proposes, for example, that engaging in unhealthy behaviors actually reduces the effects of chronic stress on depression in African Americans.

The investigators designed this research to gain a better understanding of the relationship between chronic stress and chance for depression by race and ethnicity. The study asked whether unhealthy behaviors (current smoking, excessive or binge drinking, insufficient exercise, and fair or poor diet) reduce the chance for depression due to chronic stress in African Americans but increase the chance for depression due to chronic stress in Latinos, compared with Whites.

On average, Latinos and African Americans had more chronic stress, more unhealthy behaviors, and more chance for depression. However, the study found that engaging in more unhealthy behaviors was strongly associated with greater chance for depression only in African Americans and Whites.

The study also found that for all three groups: the level of chronic stress did not affect the relationship between unhealthy behavior and chance for depression unhealthy behaviors did not alter the association between stress and chance for depression more education offered more protection against depression

Contrary to previous research, this study found that in all three racial/ethnic groups, chronic stress levels were inversely related to excessive or binge drinking (i.e., more stress, less excess drinking). This study also found no evidence–as some previous research has suggested–that African Americans engage in unhealthy behaviors as a way to cope with chronic stress and reduce depression or that unhealthy behaviors interact with chronic stress in Latinos to increase depression. According to the researchers the Environmental Affordances model was not supported for any of the racial/ethnic groups analyzed.

The scientists point to differences in their research design and their use of physiological measures of chronic stress instead of self-reported measures as possibly contributing to their different findings. They note that their results highlight the complex relationships between chronic stress, unhealthy behaviors, and mental health among different racial and ethnic groups.

The US exit from the Iran nuclear deal hurts Europe; US plans for sanctions won’t work without allies.

By Dilip Hiro*

In addition to effectively tearing up the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, President Donald Trump announced re-imposition of American sanctions in place before the landmark agreement. These covered the Islamic Republic’s energy, banking and other sectors, with a provision for penalizing foreign businesses worldwide trading with or investing in Iran. This act of economic and diplomatic unilateralism undermining the Western alliance is welcome news for Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The premise of the nuclear deal – officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA – signed by Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany and the European Union – was to let Iran rejoin the global economy in exchange for denuclearization. Trump’s decision undermines the JCPOA’s foundation. Before his rash move on Iran, Trump had angered the 28-member EU by refusing to grant it exemption from the tariffs he imposed on steel and aluminum imports in March. An American president is authorized to take such action to protect national security. EU officials argued that their bloc is a US ally – all members but Sweden are members of Washington-led NATO – but to no avail.

“We are witnessing today a new phenomenon: the capricious assertiveness of the American administration,” said Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, on the eve of the EU summit in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 16 May. “Looking at the latest decisions of President Trump, some could even think, ‘With friends like that, who needs enemies?’” After the summit Tusk announced that EU members agreed unanimously to stay in the agreement as long as Iran remains fully committed: “Additionally, the [European] Commission was given a green light to be ready to act whenever European interests are affected.” Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, said that to protect EU companies doing business with Iran, he would turn to a plan last used to shield European businesses active in Cuba facing sanctions: “the ‘blocking statute’ process, which aims to neutralize the extraterritorial effects of US sanctions in the EU.” He did so on May 18.

The 1996 statute prohibits EU companies and courts from complying with foreign sanctions laws and stipulates that foreign court verdicts based on these laws are null and void in the EU. Juncker added that the European Investment Bank will also provide a funding stream for businesses working in Iran. This has reassured small- and medium-sized EU companies since most have no presence in the United States. Large multinationals doing business in the United States are seeking specific exemption from Washington. Their chances of success, though, are slim.

By happenstance, on 16 May the National Iranian South Oil Company signed an agreement with London-based Pergas International Consortium to develop the Keranj field in the oil-rich Khuzestan province over the next decade.

Though in his election campaign Trump had attacked the JCPOA as a “bad deal,” he granted waivers from re-imposing sanctions thrice because his three senior advisers – secretaries of state and defense, and the national security adviser – urged him to do so. But following his sacking of Rex Tillerson and the resignation of H.R. McMaster, Trump appointed Mike Pompeo and John Bolton secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively. Both are super-hawks against Iran. And Secretary of Defense James Mattis may have decided against pushing too hard his argument that exiting the JCPOA would cause serious rupture with European allies and tarnish Washington’s credibility in the world.

The other important factor was Trump’s imminent meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Along with Bolton, Trump reckoned that withdrawal from the Iran deal would make Kim realize that he did not issue empty threats, thus easing his path to get what he wants. Overall, when dealing with a foreign regime that refuses to kowtow to Washington, the policymakers advocate either changing its behavior through economic and diplomatic pressure, or overthrowing the offending government through relentless destabilization or military force. Within that frame, Mattis belongs to the behavior camp and Bolton firmly to the regime-change camp.

Trump’s 11-minute address on May 8 explaining his exit from the Iran deal had Bolton’s imprint. After that speech Bolton told the reporters that the United States ceased to accept UN Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsing the JCPOA. As an official in the George W. Bush administration, Bolton advocated invading Iraq and remained unapologetic about his stance. In his 25 March 2015 op-ed in The New York Times, Bolton summarized as argument pithily: “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran.” In a July 2017 speech to the conference of the Paris-based anti–Islamic Republic organization, Mujahedin-e Khalq, or People’s Mujahedin – listed as a terrorist organization from 1997 to 2012 by the US State Department – Bolton expressed hope that the Iranian regime would be overthrown “by 2019,” that year being the 40^th anniversary of the Islamic Republic.

Bolton and his supporters seem to have a particular scenario in mind. Economic pressure applied by US sanctions and military pressure by Israel, starting with its attacks on Iranian military targets in Syria, will generate momentum for overthrow of the regime. Such a scenario is untethered to reality.

The most effective tool in former President Barack Obama’s economic armory was to slash Iranian oil exports by isolating Iran’s Central Bank from the global banking system – and the fact that Iranian oil prices are quoted in US dollars. At present, of the 2.6 million barrels per day of oil that Iran ships to foreign destinations, compared to 1.1 million per day before 2015, almost half goes to China and India, with China in the lead. Both countries were main buyers of Iran’s petroleum before 2012. They managed to circumvent harsh US and EU sanctions. During 2012 to 2015, Chinese oil companies used a domestic bank, Bank of Kunlun, to settle petroleum transactions with Iran, worth tens of billions dollars, in euros and Chinese renminbi.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, in the wake of Trump’s May 8 decision, Beijing was the first foreign capital visited by Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif along with top oil officials. After meeting with his counterpart, Wang Yi, both sides stated they would remain in the JCPOA.

In the case of India, a rupee-rial mechanism was put in place after 2012, whereby almost half of India’s oil imports from Iran were paid in exchange for such items as rice, wheat and medicines not under sanction. According to Ram Upendra Das, head of the Centre for Regional Trade, US sanctions are unlikely to have any material impact on Indian exports to Iran since there are several mechanisms through which payments can be made for bilateral trade.

About 37 percent of Iran’s oil exports go to European destinations. All told, the EU is Iran’s number one trading partner. The value of trade between the EU and Iran soared from $9.2 billion in 2015 to $25 billion in 2017. Given EU leaders’ resolve to nullify the extraterritorial application of US sanctions on Iran, trade between their bloc and the Islamic Republic is unlikely to dip. The angry parting of the EU from the Trump administration over the Iran nuclear deal is set to become a milestone in the weakening of the Western alliance forged 70 years ago in the form of NATO.

*Dilip Hiro is the author of A Comprehensive Dictionary of the Middle East (Interlink Publishing Group, Northampton, MA). His forthcoming, 37^th book is Cold War in the Islamic World: Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Struggle for Supremacy (Oxford University Press, New York/ Hurst & Co, London/ HarperCollins India, Noida).

The United States Senate should not approve two proposed arms sales totaling nearly US$1 billion to Bahrain given its government’s dismal record on human rights and relentless persecution of dissidents, according to Human Rights Watch.

HRW said the proposed arms sales, already approved by the US State Department, come amid the continued downward spiral of human rights since anti-government demonstrations in 2011, and Bahrain’s continued participation in the Saudi-led Yemen conflict that has contributed to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. In the past year, Bahrain has sharpened its crackdown on activists, lawyers, and journalists. It has arbitrarily revoked a record number of citizenships of nationals, carried out unfair trials of civilians in military courts, and harassed, intimidated, imprisoned, and prosecuted rights defenders and their family members. This is in addition to widespread ill treatment and torture by security forces and deadly dispersal of peaceful protests, since anti-government protests erupted in 2011.

“These two weapons sales make clear that the Trump administration intends nothing short of a free pass on human rights for Bahrain” said Sarah Margon, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “The US Senate should block all arms sales to Bahrain until, at a minimum, they release all unjustly imprisoned human rights defenders and dissidents, and make clear that a key US ally should not continue in such mass human rights abuses.”

On April 27, 2018, the State Department approved the sale of AH-1Z attack helicopters, missiles, and other military equipment to the kingdom, for an estimated cost of US$911.4 million. This deal comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s revised policies for conventional arms transfers and drone exports, signed on April 19, that place greater emphasis on US economic interests than human rights.

On May 17, the State Department approved a second weapons’ deal with Bahrain worth up to US$45 million, which included 3,200 bomb bodies to arm Bahrain’s F-16 fighters fleet. In both cases, the Senate was notified of the sales and, under the Arms Export Control Act, has 30 days from the notification date to oppose the deal.

There are significant human rights concerns in both Bahrain’s behavior domestically and its participation in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, Human Rights Watch said. The US should hold off on all arms sales to Bahrain until authorities show they are serious about addressing human rights concerns. That should include releasing all human rights defenders and dissidents serving long jail terms for peaceful expression, and holding accountable officials and security officers who participating in or ordered the widespread torture during interrogations since 2011.

In an early demonstration of the Trump administration’s policy toward human rights and arms sales, in March 2017, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lifted the human rights conditions that the Obama administration had attached to a sale to Bahrain of F-16 fighter jets worth US$2.8 billion.

In June 2017, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker announced that he would hold up all newly announced arms sales to Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations until the council found a path to reunification in a dispute between Qatar and other countries. Corker lifted that hold eight months later, in February 2018, allowing for these two sales to Bahrain to proceed, and has said that he does not believe that human rights conditions should be attached to weapons sales as a matter of US policy.

The Saudi-led coalition and party to the conflict in Yemen, has since 2015 conducted thousands of airstrikes in Yemen – including scores that appear to violate the laws of war – contributing to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The coalition has failed to credibly investigate potential war crimes, and coalition members, including Bahrain, have provided insufficient or no information about their role in alleged unlawful attacks.

Available information shows that Bahrain has participated in the military campaign. In March 2015, the Emirati State news agency reported that Bahrain had deployed 15 aircraft to take part in coalition operations and, in December 2015, a Bahraini F-16 jet carrying out coalition operations crashed in Saudi Arabia, the coalition said in a statement.

The human rights situation in Bahrain continues to deteriorate as the government increased a crackdown on critics. The country’s preeminent human rights defenders were either jailed or exiled as the judicial authorities handed down long prison sentences to dissidents accused of speech crimes in trials that did not meet basic due process standards. The government failed to credibly investigate and prosecute officials and police officers who allegedly committed violations, including torture since 2011. Authorities also use excessive and deadly force to disperse peaceful protests, and forcibly disappear people, and hold them in incommunicado detention.

On May 25, 2017, security forces apparently violently raided a sit-in in the village of Diraz. Five demonstrators died and dozens more were injured.

Bahraini authorities have, since 2012, arbitrarily revoked the citizenship of at least 728 citizens, including human rights defenders, political activists, journalists, and religious scholars, and subjected some of them to arbitrary deportations, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), a nongovernmental organization. The vast majority of Bahraini citizens stripped of their citizenship are left effectively stateless and are not given adequate opportunity to meaningfully appeal these rulings.

Authorities in 2017 shut down the country’s only independent newspaper and suspended the activities of the leading secular-left opposition political group Wa’ad. On May 13, 2018, Bahrain’s parliament approved a law barring members of dissolved opposition groups from running in general elections planned for the end of 2018.

The Bahraini government also reversed two of the few previously implemented substantive recommendations of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI), was established after the 2011 anti-government demonstrations. Authorities in January 2017 restored arrest and investigation powers to the National Security Agency, despite its record of torture during interrogation. And in April 2017, Bahrain’s ruler signed legislation authorizing the trial of civilians before military courts, which contravenes international law.

“Bahrain’s backsliding on human rights should not be rewarded with arms sales that could further entrench repression in Bahrain,” Margon said.

By Katy Puiman Chan*

As the trade war between China and the United States heats up, some worry about a potential rise in Chinese nationalism which would then lead to protectionism. The Sino-American tension may stir up the patriotic sentiment of Chinese people, hence driving the Chinese government to close its door for world trade as well as foreign investment.

However, I argue that Chinese nationalism is always guided by economic pragmatism. While Chinese nationalists celebrate for China’s list of tariffs against American soybeans, ginseng, cars, whiskey etc., and while they look much forward to fight off Western Imperialism, China does not has much bargaining power in this trade war. Losing the US as its trading partner would hamper the economic growth of the country. Hence, as a rational move, the Chinese government may channel the patriotism of the angry populace, and the public concern with the rise of Chinese nationalism/protectionism is unnecessary.

In the historian and sociological studies of Chinese nationalism, it is well established that the state and the populace share a different nationalistic understanding. In 2012, Chinese nationalists wrecked Japanese stores and car dealerships and boycotted Japanese cars because of the territorial dispute of Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. Gustafsson (2014) investigated the patriotic sentiment of these nationalists and found that actually their destructive acts were condemned by the Chinese government. The state-controlled newspaper, China Youth Daily, criticized that it was necessary for the demonstrators to exercise ‘cool-headed restraint’ and ‘stay rational’. It further pinpointed, ‘sometimes there is only a single step between loving the country and harming the country’; a ‘healthy’ patriotism must not harm the Sino-Japanese friendship. The government then successfully softened the anti-Japanese sentiment of the nationalists. During that time, the government was seeking economic cooperation with Japan and such ‘patriotically’ hostile acts were not ideal1. Not only Gustafsson, in general researchers in the field have agreed that Chinese nationalism is rational and pragmatic, that it would not sacrifice the materialistic interest of China for the symbolic ‘national pride’/‘national emotion’2. By definition, pragmatism is behavior disciplined neither by a set of values or established principles, but the actual benefits and needs (Zhao, 2004)3.

On top of the rational character of Chinese nationalism, China is more vulnerable to the trade war than it admits.

First, China has fewer goods to tariff than the US does. Trump started the trade war not because he is a crazy man but because he is a businessman. The trade war is expected to increase the freedom of the Chinese market. More precisely, in my understanding, it is a combat to minimize the trade deficit between China and the US. Therefore, as a matter of fact, China does not have an import value from the US that is comparable to the US import value from China. In 2016, the US good trade with China totaled US$578.2 billion. The US goods export to China were US$115.6 billion while China’s goods export to the US were $462.6 billion4. Of no surprise, fighting back with an equal size of trade value is an unavailable option to China.

Second, China needs American goods more than the US needs Chinese goods. If we look at the lists of tariffed items of the two countries in details, we can see that China mainly taxes agricultural and food goods as well as manufactured goods which require no advanced tech for production, while the US taxes metals, machinery, agricultural equipment, and tech goods. The US is tariffing the goods that China has yet known how to make, and this is disastrous to the development of electronic and tech industry of China. For instance, when American tech companies were banned from selling semiconductors to the Chinese telecom giant ZTE; the market now expects ZTE to bankrupt in days5. The American developers such as Qualcomm, Intel etc. are truly on the top of the tech game, and we all know the ‘made-in-China’ stuff often involves copying and even stealing the tech of others. Unfortunately, the manufacturing and service sectors always need the support of the electronics and tech for growth; so, the trade war would limit the economic prospect of China. On the contrary, the impact of China’s tariffs on American goods is moderate. Take soybean as an example: When China announced a tariff on American soybeans, the price of the beans immediately went down. However, the beans then became cheaper than that offered by Brazil, the biggest soybean exporter in the world; so buyers turned from Brazil to the US. The price and transaction volume of American soybeans were scooped up again 6. In short, the global electronics and tech market is an oligarchy but the global agricultural/manufacturing market is close to complete competition. As the two superpowers are competing in different markets, they are not battling on an equal ground.

One may say—OK, China can still shame America by selling US treasury bonds. The problem is, after selling the bonds, what China would do with the money? China will probably buy RMB for domestic spending. Hence, the price of RMB will increase, and this is exactly what I would like to see if I were Trump. If RMB becomes more expensive, the trade deficit will decrease.

Hence, no matter China ‘avenges’ with trade or bond, the US still wins. After all, paradoxically, Trump started the trade war for facilitating free trade with China. The tariffs are a temporary measure in a long game for the ‘greater good’ of the free market. Above all, the seemingly strong attitude of China in face of the trade war challenge can be considered as a necessary political gesture. A trade war is not only about economics but politics—China has to present to its people that their government and country are unbreakable and proud. In my view, patriotism is unlikely to take over China’s determination for modernization and prosperity as economic pragmatism is elementary of Chinese nationalism. Under-table negotiations between the two world powers can be expected.

About the author:
*Katy Puiman Chan is a PhD student at the School of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Melbourne.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute.

Notes:

• 1. Detailed analyses can be found in Gustafsson, K. (2014). Is patriotism distinct from nationalism? The meaning of ‘patriotism’ in China in the 2000s.Sweden: Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University.
• 2. Economic pragmatism has been identified as one of the major characteristics of Chinese nationalism, which involves elements of Marxism. More discussions can be found in Zheng, Y. (1999). Discovering Chinese nationalism in China: Modernization, identity, and international relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 3. The definition comes from Zhang, S. (2004). A Nation-state by Construction: Dynamics of Modern Chinese Nationalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
• 4. The numbers come from the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Available at https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china
• 5. A news report on the potential bankruptcy of ZTE is available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/04/17/how-the-u-s-export-ban-effectively-bankrupts-chinas-telecom-giant-zte/#4721950f720c
• 6. A news report on the change in price of American soybean is available at https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-china-trade-tariff-barbs-120814218.html

I was in JNU at the moment of writing this piece. Something that had to come as an utter surprise to the varsity was the proposal by the current administration of JNU to introduce a course on “Islamic terrorism”. As learnt through several media reports, the JNU administration has given in-principle approval to the study of ‘Islamic Terrorism’ by a new centre on national security, in an Academic Council.

Obviously, it was not supposed to go down well with the overwhelming number of Muslims, leftists and ‘liberals’ enrolled and employed at JNU. The representative views of the PhD students from different research centres and departments of the related discipline unravel it. They all acknowledged that there is, of course, ‘terrorism’ being perpetrated under the false grab of ‘religions’ and that people are increasingly falling victims to the terrorist ideologies.

But the question they pose to the academic council of the proposed Centre for National Security Studies (CNSS) at JNU is: does any particular religion exclusively preach terrorism? “If Islam was a terrorist religion, then the millions of people who believe in it must have turned into terror-mongers and creators of chaos in the world, but that has never happened”, says Mohammad Shameem, a doctoral researcher in International Relations at JNU, who has also pursued classical Islamic studies at South India’s largest Sunni seminary–Markaz Saqafa Sunniya (centre for Sunni culture).

The dominating view that echoes in the JNU campus—both in the theistic and even agnostic and ‘liberal’ circles—is that ‘it is not religion that radicalizes the people, but rather it is people who radicalize the religion’. Thus, they premise that Islam, like any other established faith tradition, is not essentially a religion propagating terrorism. Then what’s happening in the academic council of the university?

“A few people interpret the religion in their own way for their personal gains and thus create troubles with Islamic labels and identities. But the mainstream Muslims condemn their actions and atrocities and side with the victims”, says Mohammad Imran Misbahi, who hails from Jammu & Kashmir, and is doing his second-year PhD candidate at the JNU’s Centre of Arabic and African Studies (CAAS).

Mr. Misbahi adds that this case holds true for all other religions; people misuse their own religions to achieve ulterior political motives and thus cause the greater defamation to them in consequence, which sometimes results into Islamophobia. He makes his point citing the example of how the founder-ideologue of the political Islamist party—Jama’at-e-Islami—Maulana Maududi never let his children read his books or allowed them to involve in the Jama’at politics. He was reminded of an excerpt from an interview of Maulana’s son Syed Haider Farooq Maududi with The Daily Star in which he was reported to have stated:

“On the creation of Jamaat-e-Islami in 1941, Farooq said his father’s political ideology was a result of the era he was born in. ‘In the era he [Maududi] was born, there was communism, imperialism, and he had made Islam also a system of ism, a system of life’.

‘Religion is for the people and people are not for religion. Religion makes a human being a good human being.’ However, religious sentiment is so deeply rooted in this region that no one is ready to listen to the right thing’.

‘If he [Maulana Maududi] ever saw us in a rally or demonstration, he would later call us and ask what business we had standing there. He totally kept us away from all these.’ ‘This is a tragedy of all our religious politics, that we use people’s children, but keep our own away from it as we all know about its negative impacts’.

Bearing this in mind, will it not be injustice to label the narrative of terrorists with Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism per se, asked another PhD scholar of the JNU who was paying heed to our conversation for long. Then, a graduate of Darul Uloom Deoband currently enrolled at JNU also opened up: “We are not against warning people against terrorism and teaching them the mechanisms to cope with that. Instead, our concern is in labeling that terrorism with Islam, or any other religion.” Following this conversation, a number of questions were raised by the JNU students who participated in my questionnaire. Beginning with the oversimplified question as to why does the JNU administration specifically open a course on ‘Islamic Terrorism’ and why not on ‘Hindu Terrorism’, ‘Buddhist Terrorism’ or ‘Sikh Terrorism’, the conversation headed towards the quest for a more nuanced understanding of the religious texts that are translated and interpreted to legitimize terror and fear in the name of God’s sovereignty (al-Hakimiyyah).

I also tried hard to talk to the Academic Council and committee of the proposed Centre for National Security Studies (CNSS) at JNU, but to no avail. Inevitably, the most important question that remains unanswered is: has the JNU administration considered the implications of introducing this subject in the secular intellectual circles or on the Muslim community outside? What’s noteworthy is the Islamic organisations’ reactionary take on this. While the non-religious parties like the CPI (M) have lambasted it as ‘an attempt to communalise the varsity’s syllabus’, the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has threatened a legal action against the JNU administration. In a letter to the JNU vice chancellor, the Jamiat has strongly condemned the decision to introduce ‘Islamic Terrorism’ as a subject under the newly approved ‘Centre for National Security Studies’ in the varsity.

In this letter which I have got hold of, Maulana Mahmood Madani, general secretary of the JUiH says that this ‘ill-conceived’ decision would hurt the feelings and sentiments of not only Muslims but all those who believe in respecting all religions as the mark of a civilized society. Thus, Maulana urges upon the concerned academic authority of JNU to reconsider the decision specifically linking Islam with terrorism. “If JNU administration fails to do so Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind will be compelled to take legal recourse for penal action”, he writes.

Maulana Madani further elaborated that if a leading university like JNU will launch a course on terrorism clubbing with Islam, it will hurt billions of Muslims across the world who not only pride themselves in peace, but have also played pivotal role in counter-terrorism. Maulana proclaims: “In India, alone our organization, Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind has been playing active role in the jihad against terrorism. We came up with fatwa against terrorism signed by 6000 Islamic scholars which was followed by more than 250 conferences and rallies consecutively all over the country. We raised voice universally that Islam is helpful in routing out terrorism not that it colludes in any way with its perpetrators”.

However, Maulana Madani has left a scope for this course, if it is revised. He has asked the university to ‘genuinely engage’ in counter-terrorism in place of any slugfest to spread ‘Islamophobia’. He clarifies his position in his letter: “At this stage, we are not against your proposal to establish Centre for National Security Studies and its related courses and would be ready to offer help and support for any genuine and sincere initiative against terrorism”.

But what many Muslim leaders like Maulana Madani have failed to ask and contemplate is this question: Why Islam is globally a “securitisation issue” today? And if so, why is it academically unethical to introduce ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’ terrorism as a course of study in a central university like JNU? They will do a great favour to the community if they conceptualise and clarify an erudite and scholarly position on this. In this context, these two pertinent questions have emerged in the intellectual Muslim circle:

Is the subject of “Islamic Terrorism” already being taught in an Indian or foreign university?

If so, what areas are being covered under this subject and what are (a) the sources, (b) methodology, (c) reference books/works/studies to be followed?

The Delhi Minorities Commission chairperson, Dr Zafarul Islam Khan has basically asked these and a few more questions to the JNU registrar in a bid to find the reason behind the varsity’s proposal to start a course on “Islamic terrorism”.

The commission which claims to have taken cognizance of the reports about the proposed course has, in its formal notice, asked the JNU administration to respond to a few queries as the following:

Is there any concept paper or proposal to include a course on “Islamic Terror” in the proposed “Centre for National Security Studies”? If so, please provide a copy?

Since there is report that “many members” of the Academic Council objected to the introduction of this subject, was there any voting and if so what was the result?

Nevertheless, there are Islamic intellectuals, leaders and clerics who protest, largely in the Urdu press, that the name of this proposed course be changed into ‘religious extremism’ or at least ‘Islamist terror’, rather than ‘Islamic’. A Delhi-based community leader and cleric, Maulana Ansar Raza has reportedly stated to the Urdu daily Inquilab today that the best way would be to impart a course on ‘religious terrorism’ without dubbing it with any particular religion. “If you label terrorism with Islam, then that is to spread the impression that this particular religion is that of terrorism and all Muslims must be targeted. In other words, that’s to water and sanction other forms of terrorism”, he said.

But whether it is dubbed as ‘religious terrorism’, ‘Islamic’ or ‘Islamist’, or even couched in neutral terms—such as Counter-Radicalization or Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), the question is: why most academic exercises on this subject have eroded other faith-based acts of violence or religious persecutions? Why they are focused exclusively on the study of violence in Islam? Barring a few international research institutes, majority of world’s leading universities and policy-making institutions are running various study programs under this rubric. But the problems grow exponentially when such courses are seen as ‘initiatives’ of an administration publicly charged with ‘animosity’ towards Islam and the Muslim minority.

In its official statement, the JNU Student Union has alleged that a panel was formed to finalise modalities of the course on ‘Islamic terrorism’, after it was decided to establish such a centre. But the report of the 145th Academic Council (AC) meeting chaired by the JNU V-C who allowed the tabling of a course on ‘Islamic Terrorism’ under the proposed National Security Studies has rebuffed it. It clarifies that the ‘Islamic Terrorism’ will be treated as a key area of work for the centre, rather than a course (as claimed by the JNUSU), along with over 20 other areas, which include ‘Insurgency’, ‘Naxalism’, and ‘Military Modernisation of China and Pakistan’.

*Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi is a classical Islamic scholar and English-Arabic-Urdu writer. He has graduated from a leading Islamic seminary of India, acquired Diploma in Qur’anic sciences and Certificate in Uloom ul Hadith from Al-Azhar Institute of Islamic Studies. Presently, he is pursuing his PhD in Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

First published in Newageislam.com