When something bad happens to a person, it is human to try figure out why it happened. What caused it? If we understand that, it may be possible to avoid the same outcome the next time. However, some of the ways that we use to try to understand events, such as superstition, cannot explain what is actually going on. Neither does correlation – which can only say that event B happened round about the same time as event A.

To really know what caused an event, we need to look at causality: how information flows from one event to another. It is the information flow that shows there is a causal link – that event A caused event B. But what happens when the time-sequenced information flow from event A to event B is missing? Now we need general causality to identify the causes.

General nutcracker

Mathematical models for general causality have been very limited, working for up to two causes. Now in a huge Artificial Intelligence breakthrough, researchers have developed the first robust model for general causality which identifies multiple causal connections without time-sequence data: a Multivariate Additive Noise Model (MANM).

Researchers from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India developed the model and tested it on simulated, real-world datasets. The research is published in the journal Neural Networks.

“Uniquely, the model can identify multiple, hierarchical causal factors. It works even if data with time sequencing is not available. The model creates significant opportunities to analyse complex phenomena in areas such as economics, disease outbreaks, climate change and conservation,” said Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, Professor of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and global AI and Economics expert at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

“The model is especially useful at regional, national or global level where no controlled or natural experiments are possible,” added Marwala.

Superstition and correlation towards causality

“If a black cat runs across the road, or an owl hoots on a roof, some people are convinced something really bad is going to happen. A person can think there is a connection between seeing the cat or the owl and what happened afterwards. However, from an Artificial Intelligence point of view, we say there are no causal links between the cat, the owl, and what happens to the people who see them. The cat or the owl were seen just before the event, but they are merely correlated in time with what happened later,” said Prof Marwala.

Meanwhile, back in the house that the owl sat on, something more sinister may be going on. The family inside may be sliding deeper and deeper into debt. Such a financial situation can impose more and more severe restrictions on the household, eventually becoming a trap from which there can be little escape. But do the people living there understand why – what the actual causal connections are between what happens to them, what they do and their levels of debt?

Causality at household level

The causes of persisting household debt are a good example of what the new model is capable of, says post-doctoral researcher Dr Pramod Kumar Parida, lead author of the research article.

“At a household level one can ask: Has the household lost some or all of its income? Are some or all members spending beyond their income? Has something happened to household members that is forcing huge spend, such as medical or disability bills? Are they using up their savings or investments, which have now run out? Is a combination of these things happening, if so, which are the more dominant causes of the debt?”

If enough data about the household’s financial transactions is available, complete with date and time information, it is possible for someone to figure out the actual causal connections between income, spend, savings, investments and debt.

In this case, simple causality theory is sufficient to find out why this household is struggling.

General causality at societal level

But said Parida, if one asks: ‘What are the real reasons most people in a city or a region are struggling financially? Why are they not getting out of debt?’ Now it is no longer possible for a team of people to figure this out from available data. Now a whole new mathematical challenge opens up.

“Especially if you want the actual causal connections between household income, spend, savings and debt for the city or region, rather than expert guesses or ‘what most people believe’,” he added.

“Here, causality theory doesn’t work anymore, because the financial transaction data for households in the city or region will be incomplete. Also, date and time information will be missing on some data. Financial struggle in low, middle and high-income households may be very different, so you’ll want to see the different causes from the analysis,” said Parida.

“With this model, you can identify can identify multiple major driving factors causing the household debt. In the model, we call these factors the independent parent causal connections. You can also see which causal connections are more dominant than the others. With a second pass through the data, you can also see the minor driving factors, what we call the independent child causal connections. In this way, it is possible to identify a possible hierarchy of causal connections.”

Significantly improved causal analysis

The Multivariate Additive Noise Model (MANM) provides significantly better causal analysis on real-world datasets than industry-standard models currently in use, said co-author Prof Snehashish Chakraverty, at the Applied Mathematics Group, Department of Mathematics, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India.

“In order to improve a complex regional problem such as household debt or healthcare challenges, it may not be sufficient to have the knowledge of patterns of the debt, or of disease and the exposure. On the contrary, we should understand why such patterns exist, to have the best way of changing them. Previous models developed by researchers worked with a maximum of two causal factors, that is they were bivariate models, which simply could not find multiple feature dependency criteria,” he said.

Directed Acyclic Graphs

“MANM is based on Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs), which can identify a multi-nodal causal structure. MANM can estimate every possible causal direction in complex feature sets, with no missing or wrong directions.”

The use of DAGs is a key reason MANM significantly outperforms models previously developed by others, which were based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA), such as Linear Non-Gaussian Acyclic Model (ICA-LiNGAM), Greedy DAG Search (GDS) and Regression with Sub-sequent Independent Test (RESIT), he says.

“Another key feature of MANM is the proposed Causal Influence Factor (CIF), for the successful discovery of causal directions in the multivariate system. The CIF score provides a reliable indicator of the quality of the casual inference, which enables avoiding most of the missing or wrong directions in the resulting causal structure,” said Chakraverty.

Where an existing dataset is available, MANM now makes it possible to identify multiple multi-nodal causal structures within the set. As an example, MANM can identify the multiple causes of persistent household debt for low, middle and high-income households in a region.

African elephants like to rumble, naked mole rats trade soft chirps, while fireflies alternate flashes in courtship dialogues.

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of ‘animal conversations’.

An international team of academics undertook a large-scale review of research into turn-taking behaviour in animal communication, analysing hundreds of animal studies.

Turn-taking, the orderly exchange of communicative signals, is a hallmark of human conversation and has been shown to be largely universal across human cultures.

The review, a collaboration between the Universities of York and Sheffield, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, reveals that this most human of abilities is actually remarkably widespread across the animal kingdom.

While research on turn-taking behaviour is abundant, beginning more than 50 years ago with studies of the vocal interactions of birds, the literature is currently fragmented, making rigorous cross-species comparisons impossible.

Researchers who study turn-taking behaviours in songbirds, for example, speak of “duets” whereas those who study some species of monkeys note their “antiphonal calls”.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of turn-taking behaviour across all species, humans included, is its fine timing.

In some species of songbird, for example, the latency between notes produced by two different birds is less than 50 milliseconds.

Other species are considerably slower; for example, sperm whales exchange sequences of clicks with a gap of about two seconds between turns. Humans lie somewhere in between, with gaps of around 200 milliseconds between turns at talk in conversation.

The authors of the study propose that systematic cross-species comparisons of such turn-taking behaviour may shed new light on the evolution of language.

The academics propose a new comparative framework for future studies on turn-taking.

One of the authors, Dr Kobin Kendrick, from the University of York’s Department of Language and Linguistic Science, said: “The ultimate goal of the framework is to facilitate large-scale, systematic cross-species comparisons.

“Such a framework will allow researchers to trace the evolutionary history of this remarkable turn-taking behaviour and address longstanding questions about the origins of human language.”

Dr Sonja Vernes, from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, added: “We came together because we all believe strongly that these fields can benefit from each other, and we hope that this paper drives more cross talk between human and animal turn-taking research in the future.”

In the face of climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss, creating a sustainable version of civilization is one of humanity’s most urgent tasks. But when confronting this immense challenge, we rarely ask what may be the most pressing question of all: How do we know if sustainability is even possible? Astronomers have inventoried a sizable share of the universe’s stars, galaxies, comets, and black holes. But are planets with sustainable civilizations also something the universe contains? Or does every civilization that may have arisen in the cosmos last only a few centuries before it falls to the climate change it triggers?

Astrophysicist Adam Frank, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, is part of a group of researchers who have taken the first steps to answer these questions. In a new study published in the journal Astrobiology, the group–including Frank, Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, a senior computational scientist at Rochester, Marina Alberti of the University of Washington, and Axel Kleidon of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry–addresses these questions from an “astrobiological” perspective.

“Astrobiology is the study of life and its possibilities in a planetary context,” said Frank, who is also author of the new book Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, which draws on this study. “That includes ‘exo-civilizations’ or what we usually call aliens.”

Frank and his colleagues point out that discussions about climate change rarely take place in this broader context–one that considers the probability that this is not the first time in cosmic history that a planet and its biosphere have evolved into something like what we’ve created on Earth. “If we’re not the universe’s first civilization,” Frank said, “that means there are likely to be rules for how the fate of a young civilization like our own progresses.”

As a civilization’s population grows, it uses more and more of its planet’s resources. By consuming the planet’s resources, the civilization changes the planet’s conditions. In short, civilizations and planets don’t evolve separately from one another; they evolve interdependently, and the fate of our own civilization depends on how we use Earth’s resources.

In order to illustrate how civilization-planet systems co-evolve, Frank and his collaborators developed a mathematical model to show ways in which a technologically advanced population and its planet might develop together. By thinking of civilizations and planets–even alien ones–as a whole, researchers can better predict what might be required for the human project of civilization to survive.

“The point is to recognize that driving climate change may be something generic,” Frank said. “The laws of physics demand that any young population, building an energy-intensive civilization like ours, is going to have feedback on its planet. Seeing climate change in this cosmic context may give us better insight into what’s happening to us now and how to deal with it.”

Using their mathematical model, the researchers found four potential scenarios that might occur in a civilization-planet system:

1. Die-off: The population and the planet’s state (indicated by something like its average temperature) rise very quickly. Eventually, the population peaks and then declines rapidly as the rising planetary temperature makes conditions harder to survive. A steady population level is achieved, but it’s only a fraction of the peak population. “Imagine if 7 out of 10 people you knew died quickly,” Frank said. “It’s not clear a complex technological civilization could survive that kind of change.”
2. Sustainability: The population and the temperature rise but eventually both come to steady values without any catastrophic effects. This scenario occurs in the models when the population recognizes it is having a negative effect on the planet and switches from using high-impact resources, such as oil, to low-impact resources, such as solar energy.
3. Collapse without resource change: The population and temperature both rise rapidly until the population reaches a peak and drops precipitously. In these models civilization collapses, though it is not clear if the species itself completely dies outs.
4. Collapse with resource change: The population and the temperature rise, but the population recognizes it is causing a problem and switches from high-impact resources to low-impact resources. Things appear to level off for a while, but the response turns out to have come too late, and the population collapses anyway.

“The last scenario is the most frightening,” Frank said. “Even if you did the right thing, if you waited too long, you could still have your population collapse.”

The researchers created their models based in part on case studies of extinct civilizations, such as the inhabitants of Easter Island. People began colonizing the island between 400 and 700 AD and grew to a peak population of 10,000 sometime between 1200 and 1500 AD. By the 18th century, however, the inhabitants had depleted their resources and the population dropped drastically to about 2,000 people.

The Easter Island population die-off relates to a concept called carrying capacity, or the maximum number of species an environment can support. The earth’s response to civilization building is what climate change is really all about, Frank says. “If you go through really strong climate change, then your carrying capacity may drop, because, for example, large-scale agriculture might be strongly disrupted. Imagine if climate change caused rain to stop falling in the Midwest. We wouldn’t be able to grow food, and our population would diminish.”

Right now researchers can’t definitively predict the fate of the earth. The next steps will be to use more detailed models of the ways planets might behave when a civilization consumes energy of any form to grow. In the meantime, Frank issues a sober warning.

“If you change the earth’s climate enough, you might not be able to change it back,” he says. “Even if you backed off and started to use solar or other less impactful resources, it could be too late, because the planet has already been changing. These models show we can’t just think about a population evolving on its own. We have to think about our planets and civilizations co-evolving.”

A world’s first QUT-led study has used artificial intelligence to analyse regional personality characteristics estimated solely from language patterns in 1.5 billion Twitter posts and uncover hotspots and cold spots of entrepreneurial personality and activity across the US.

QUT’s Associate Professor Martin Obschonka from the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research teamed up with researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Mannheim. Their paper, Big Data, artificial intelligence and the geography of entrepreneurship in the United States has just been published online via the Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, UK) and the Center for Open Science (Charlottesville, USA).

The study analysed 1.5 billion Twitter tweets from the US across 1,772 counties (representing 95 per cent of the US mainland population) for differences in entrepreneurial personality, defined as a local patterns of high extraversion, conscientiousness, openness, and low agreeableness and neuroticism (an entrepreneurial constellation of the Big Five personality traits).

According to the study, the language of Twitter used in a region reveals information on the personality structure and economic vitality of the region’s population.

The study also measured large hotspots of entrepreneurial personality (larger areas consistently scoring high in entrepreneurial personality): Belt on the East Coast, spanning from Massachusetts all the way to Florida, Colorado around Denver / Boulder, San Francisco / Bay Area, and South California, Gulf Coast regions of Louisiana and Mississippi

The study noted large cold spots of entrepreneurial personality (larger areas consistently scoring low in entrepreneurial personality:): Rust Belt, Southern Texas, Central California

Professor Obschonka said the study proved a Twitter-based personality estimate is as successful in predicting local differences in actual entrepreneurial activity (e.g., local start-up rates) as regional personality data collected by means of millions of standard personality tests.

“What we have discovered here is that social media – how language is used in Twitter – is a reliable marker of economic vitality in a region,” Professor Obschonka said.

“We have examined Twitter data from a large project at the University of Pennsylvania. This project analysed 1.5 billion US tweets and other social media data to train a machine learning model that can estimate regional personality characteristics by analysing language patterns typically used on social media in a region.

“So far, studies examining regional differences in personality and meaningful effects on regional outcomes such as economic performance, well-being, health, or voting behaviour had to rely on costly and resource-consuming questionnaire studies that require millions of people to fill out long online personality tests.

“We wanted to test whether we find similar results, in our case effects of local personality on entrepreneurship, when using regional personality estimates generated by an artificial intelligence method, based on publicly available social media data such as tweets.

“The answer is yes. The US map of the Twitter-based local measure of entrepreneurial personality and the US map of the actual start-up rates show impressive overlap. We found substantial positive correlations between regional Twitter-based entrepreneurial personality and actual start-ups rates, and these correlations were robust when considering local economic conditions such as level of education, unemployment rate, and industry composition.

“More importantly, we find very similar or even higher correlations between regional differences in Twitter-based measures of entrepreneurial personality and entrepreneurial activity than in prior self-report studies analysing millions of personality tests.”

Professor Obschonka would now like to examine similar data in Australia, Europe and elsewhere.

“It seems that we stand at the dawn of a new era where we do not have to wait any longer until millions of people fill out long personality questionnaires to understand the local concentration of entrepreneurially-minded people, and local mechanisms such as entrepreneurship and innovation,” he said.

“Instead, by means of artificial intelligence methods we can simply analyse existing, publicly-available social media data such as billions of tweets to study local personality differences and their relevance for the well-being and prosperity of whole regions.”

The early Earth might have been habitable much earlier than thought, according to new research from a group led by University of Chicago scientists.

Counting strontium atoms in rocks from northern Canada, they found evidence that the Earth’s continental crust could have formed hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought. Continental crust is richer in essential minerals than younger volcanic rock, which would have made it significantly friendlier to supporting life.

“Our evidence, which squares with emerging evidence including rocks in western Australia, suggests that the early Earth was capable of forming continental crust within 350 million years of the formation of the solar system,” said Patrick Boehnke, the T.C. Chamberlin Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geophysical Sciences and the first author on the paper. “This alters the classic view, that the crust was hot, dry and hellish for more than half a billion years after it formed.”

One of the open questions in geology is how and when some of the crust–originally all younger volcanic rock–changed into the continental crust we know and love, which is lighter and richer in silica. This task is made harder because the evidence keeps getting melted and reformed over millions of years. One of the few places on Earth where you can find bits of crust from the very earliest epochs of Earth is in tiny flecks of apatite imbedded in younger rocks.

Luckily for scientists, some of these “younger” minerals (still about 3.9 billion years old) are zircons–very hard, weather-resistant minerals somewhat similar to diamonds. “Zircons are a geologist’s favorite because these are the only record of the first three to four hundred million years of Earth. Diamonds aren’t forever–zircons are,” Boehnke said.

Plus, the zircons themselves can be dated. “They’re like labeled time capsules,” said Prof. Andrew Davis, chair of the Department of Geophysical Sciences and a coauthor on the study.

Scientists usually look at the different variants of elements, called isotopes, to tell a story about these rocks. They wanted to use strontium, which offers clues to how much silica was around at the time it formed. The only problem is that these flecks are absolutely tiny–about five microns across, the diameter of a strand of spider silk–and you have to count the strontium atoms one by one.

This was a task for a unique instrument that came online last year: the CHicago Instrument for Laser Ionization, or CHILI. This detector uses lasers that can be tuned to selectively pick out and ionize strontium. When they used CHILI to count strontium isotopes in rocks from Nuvvuagittuq, Canada, they found the isotope ratio suggested plenty of silica was present when it formed.

This is important because the makeup of the crust directly affects the atmosphere, the composition of seawater, and nutrients available to any budding life hoping to thrive on planet Earth. It also may imply there were fewer meteorites than thought pummeling the Earth at this time, which would have made it hard for continental crust to form.

“Having continental crust that early changes the picture of early Earth in a number of ways,” said Davis, who is also a professor with the Enrico Fermi Institute. “Now we need a way for the geologic processes that make the continents to happen much faster; you probably need water and magma that’s about 600 degrees Fahrenheit less hot.”

The study is also confluent with a recent paper by Davis and Boehnke’s colleague Nicolas Dauphas, which found evidence for rain falling on continents 2.5 billion years ago, earlier than previously thought.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and overturned a decision finding that a baker illegally discriminated against a same-sex couple by refusing to bake a specialty cake for their wedding based on the baker’s orthodox Christian principles concerning marriage. The state Commission and lower courts found that the baker’s actions were contrary to the state’s public accommodation statute. The baker challenged the decision below on grounds of free exercise of religion and free speech.

The Court punted on the free speech question, but decided that the Commission’s adjudication of his case violated “the State’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to religion or religious viewpoint.” The Court found hostility based on remarks from commissioners describing the baker’s religious beliefs about marriage as “one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religion to hurt others.” And also comparing the baker’s free exercise claim to grounds used to support the Holocaust and slavery. On top of this, the Court found that in other cases where bakers had refused to bake cakes containing Biblical statements condemning homosexuality, the Commission found no unlawful discrimination.

The Commission’s hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion. Phillips was entitled to a neutral decision maker who would give full and fair consideration to his religious objection as he sought to assert it in all of the circumstances in which this case was presented, considered, and decided. In this case the adjudication concerned a context that may well be different going forward in the respects noted above. However later cases raising these or similar concerns are resolved in the future, for these reasons the rulings of the Commission and of the state court that enforced the Commission’s order must be invalidated.

This was the right result in this case, but the Court has done little to provide meaningful guidance as free exercise and free speech clash with public accommodation statutes making sexual orientation a protected classification. It is unlikely we will ever see another Commission decision that overtly expresses hostility to Christianity. With this opinion, we do not know if the artistic expression of a specialty baker is grounds for refusing to provide services under the First Amendment. We really don’t know what the Court will do with a similar case not possessing the unique circumstances of a biased decision maker.

So, religious liberty prevailed here. We have no clue what the result will be the next time. It seems the Court is aware of the rock and a hard place situation its recent sexuality and marriage jurisprudence has placed orthodox Christians. There seems to be a desire to throw them a constitutional lifeline, but there’s also evidence of alligator arms fearing to push back too much against the prevailing spirit of the age.

This article was published at The Beacon.

Ever since Samantha Bee let loose with her obscene woman-hating comments directed at Ivanka Trump, she and a swarm of TBS senior staff members have been plotting on what to do next. The answer will come June 6 on Bee’s “Full Frontal” show: she will offer a more detailed account of this issue.

Bee and TBS have their work cut out for themselves. If what happened on May 30 was simply an anomaly, Bee could ride it out, saying she was apologizing for this one-time screw up. But this was not one ugly chapter in an otherwise sterling series of shows. While it was more over the top than any of her previous performances, what she said was more typical of her routine than exceptional.

What defines Samantha Bee is her vulgarity. Ironically, the few willing to defend her cite her repeated insults as proof that she should not get fired. Bari Weiss, an opinion writer for the New York Times, understands why Roseanne Barr was fired but Bee was not. “ABC didn’t hire Roseanne to be a racist, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist,” he said. “TBS hired Sam Bee to be…Sam Bee. She’s an edgy late-night comic. That’s what she does.”

Weiss is unwittingly making my point: Bee was hired to offend. Not every person or group, of course—liberals have many protected classes—just those they think deserve it. Like Catholics. Indeed, as I recently pointed out, she has a history of mocking Catholics with her barbaric sense of humor.

So does Jon Stewart. Predictably, he came storming to Bee’s defense. He frequently lashed out at Catholicism on his “Daily Show,” his signature moment coming in 2012.  After touting his feminist credentials, he degraded women and assaulted Christian sensibilities. “Maybe women could protect their reproductive organs from unwanted medical intrusions with vagina mangers,” he said. On the screen behind him was the picture of a naked woman with her legs spread and a nativity scene ornament in between.

So it comes as no surprise that Stewart is now telling Bee not to listen to her critics, or what he calls the “propagandist right.” Instead, he advises,  “create your own moral code to live by.” She has. Which is why she is in this jam. She certainly isn’t living by the Ten Commandments. If Stewart were an educated man, he would know that among those who have urged their followers to “make up their own moral code” was Adolf Hitler.

Bee is in a dilemma. If she wants to pivot and start becoming a real comedian—someone who can make people laugh without descending to the gutter—she risks losing her immature audience. If she continues the way she did before, she will invite a pushback the likes of which  television has never seen before. What she says June 6 will be defining. We will be sure to comment June 7.

Remember Lewis “Scooter” Libby who served as an adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney?
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs and Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States and Assistant to the President during the administration of President George W. Bush.

In October 2005, Libby resigned from all three government positions after he was indicted on five counts by a federal grand jury concerning the investigation of the leak of the covert identity of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson. He was subsequently convicted of four counts (one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury, and one count of making false statements), making him the highest-ranking White House official convicted in a government scandal since John Poindexter, the national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan in the Iran–Contra affair.

After a failed appeal, President Bush commuted Libby’s sentence of 30 months in federal prison, leaving the other parts of his sentence intact. President Donald Trump fully pardoned Libby on April 13, 2018.
Remember Joe Arpaio who made a name as “America’s Toughest Sheriff”? He was the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017. Arpaio has been accused of various types of police misconduct, including abuse of power, misuse of funds, failure to investigate sex crimes, improper clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws, and election law violations. A Federal court monitor was appointed to oversee his office’s operations because of complaints of racial profiling. The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history, and subsequently filed suit against him for unlawful discriminatory police conduct. Arpaio’s office paid more than $146 million in fees, settlements, and court awards.

Over the course of his career, Arpaio was the subject of several federal civil rights lawsuits. In one case he was a defendant in a decade-long suit in which a federal court issued an injunction barring him from conducting further “immigration round-ups”. A federal court subsequently found that after the order was issued, Arpaio’s office continued to detain “persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed.” In July 2017, he was convicted of criminal contempt of court, a crime for which he was pardoned by President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017.

The latest white-collar convicted criminal to get the presidential pardon is Dinesh D’Souza. Born in Bombay, D’Souza came to the United States as an exchange student and graduated from Dartmouth College. He became a naturalized citizen in 1991. He made a notoriety of being a hate provocateur since his Dartmouth College days. His neo-conservative views made him a darling among the right-wing Christians within the Republican Party.

In August 2010, D’Souza was named president of The King’s College, a small, Christian liberal arts college in Manhattan. On October 18, 2012, he resigned his post at The King’s College following a press report that he had shared a hotel room at a Christian conference with a woman whom he introduced as his fiancée, despite still being married to his wife of 20 years.

On May 20, 2014, D’Souza pleaded guilty in federal court to one charge of using a “straw donor” to make an illegal campaign contribution to a 2012 United States Senate campaign, a felony. On September 23, he was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house near his home in San Diego, five-years of probation, and a $30,000 fine. On May 31, 2018, D’Souza was issued a full pardon by President Donald Trump.

By pardoning three high-profile neocons, is Trump sending a message to his former aides or accomplices with the Russia-gate?

Anthony Zurcher tries to provide the answer. He says, “The president could be sending a message to his people that he views that they – like Libby, Arpaio and D’Souza – are the targets of out-of-control federal prosecutors. Perhaps he is offering a very visible display of his willingness to use his sweeping authority to remedy what he perceives not just as wrongs in the past – but also those that may come.

At the very least, with his actions and Thursday’s comments that he is entertaining pardons for former Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (abuse of power) and home-decor guru Martha Stewart (obstruction of justice and lying to investigators), the president is demonstrating that he is willing to exercise a much freer hand with his presidential powers.

Over the years the presidential pardon authority has been governed by an extended (some would say overly bureaucratic) process of review and approval by Department of Justice lawyers.”

By the way, the presidential pardons are neither an innovation nor an abuse of the presidential power. As the executive head of the state, in accordance with the United States Constitution’s Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, the president is entitled to pardon anyone.

George HW Bush pardoned Reagan-era Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger. He also pardoned Eliott Abrams who was convicted of withholding information from Congress about the Iran–Contra affair while serving under Reagan. Abrams remains a die-hard Zionist and continues to play a major promoter for war against Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Bill Clinton pardoned financier and deep-pocketed political donor Marc Rich who was charged with tax evasion. He also pardoned his brother Roger Clinton, Jr.. after serving a year in federal prison for cocaine possession.

Both Weinberger’s and Rich’s pardons came in the final days of a presidency and were met with controversy and outcry.

Barack Obama granted official mercy to 1,927, and that was down from Franklin Roosevelt’s (the longest-serving president) whopping 3,687 pardons and commutations.

Richard Nixon is the only president to have both issued pardons and received one (from his successor, Gerald Ford).

While many in the opposition see Trump’s pardon as eroding political norm and flexing political power the scope of which, in the US Constitution, is largely undefined, his supporters find his actions are ones of liberation, absolving those who had been unjustly punished – even for crimes they have admitted committing. Conservative commentator and Trump critic David Frum of The Atlantic has a more blunt assessment. “The most effective way for an authoritarian leader to abuse the law is not by prosecuting the innocent, but by protecting the guilty,” he tweeted.

Roger Stone, the longtime friend and former aide to President Trump, said that his presidential pardons are a message to special counsel Robert Mueller. “It has to be a signal to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and even Robert S. Mueller III,” Stone told the Washington Post. “Indict people for crimes that don’t pertain to Russian collusion and this is what could happen.”

“The special counsel has awesome powers, as you know,” he explained, “but the president has even more awesome powers.”

Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) agreed with Stone’s assessment, but he saw it as a dangerous development. “But the possibility that he may also be sending a message to witnesses in a criminal investigation into his campaign is extremely dangerous,” he added. “In the United States of America, no one is above the law.”

I wish Senator Warner is right and Trump is impeached for his crimes, even though he may later be pardoned by Pence, his VP, a la Nixon-Ford style! Where is America heading to?

My wife Joyce and I came home last week from a three-week trip to Manila in the Philippines, and to Hong Kong and Beijing in China.

Even though Philippines President Rodrigo Dutarte has an ongoing program of murdering drug dealers on the streets, and China has a penchant for locking up critics of the regime — even Nobel Laureates — and beating up and arresting journalists, there was only one place on that jaunt where I personally felt like I was entering a police state at the immigration checkpoint: the USA.

At the Manila airport, the woman checking our passports was polite and friendly… and unarmed. She examined our passports matching the photos to our faces, stamped them, asked how long we were staying and returned them to us, wishing us a good stay.

In Hong Kong the process was typically swift and efficient, even when the officer, also unarmed, asked about Joyce’s work visa, which had an eight-day expiration (she was performing a harpsichord concert for a fee at the government radio station RTHK).

At the Beijing International Airport, where we were entering a full-blown police state, there were fingerprints and photos taken by an immigration officer who was professional, but friendly enough… and unarmed.

But when we got home and back to US immigration after landing at Newark , the scene was altogether different. Every immigration agent had a sidearm as well as a taser on her or his belt. Signs everywhere said phone, cellphone and computer use while in the interminable lines was barred, and hostile-sounding loudmouthed immigration officers were quick to scold anyone who violated that rule by trying to call some relative or friend waiting in the greeting area or to snap a pic of someone with them in line.

If nothing else there is an enormous amount of waste going on in at US border crossings. The INS, a division of Homeland Security, doesn’t need a person trained in policing and weapons tactics to check someone’s travel documents. All they need is what most countries have at their entry points: a bunch of polite people skilled at scrutinizing travel documents, and then a few people doing guard duty who maybe should be armed, at least with non-lethal weapons (the notion of officers firing their revolvers in a crowded immigration hall is, let’s agree, pretty horrifying!).

Guns really don’t belong in an airport immigration area at all (in fact, tellingly, when you see them being worn by passport control personnel, it’s usually in a police state). I mean, really, think about it. If there is one place that you shouldn’t have to worry about someone pulling out a weapon, gun or knife or anything scarier than a nail-clipper, it would be an immigration hall full of people who have already gone through at least one airport security check and who haven’t even had a chance yet to get to their checked baggage where they might perhaps have stowed a weapon. We folks in the line waiting to get cleared for entry back into the US– or if we’re in the foreigner line, into the US for the first time — are surely the most certifiably unarmed bunch of people you’ll ever find outside of a Quaker meetinghouse So why all the INS goons with guns at their side scrutinizing our passports to see where we’ve been and asking what we’re doing in the US?

It’s really got to be an intimidation thing.

I was actually waiting to see if they would demand to see my cell phone and my computer. An increasing number of Americans are reporting that border officers have been doing that, downloading access to all their information and contacts. This invasive practice started happening during the paranoid post-9/11 Bush/Cheney administration, when it was mostly happening to people with Muslim-sounding last names, but it has been getting worse over the years, and has gotten dramatically more common, reportedly, since the election of President Trump, who has really amped up the anti-immigrant activities of the INS, and the general militarization of the border.

The chances that these draconian practices — the militarizing of passport checkers and the trasing of First Amendment rights to privacy of information — will prevent some future terrorist attack, which is after all the supposed justification for all this police-state activity at the border — including the introduction of finger-printing and facial-recognition software–is next to zero. After all, a potential terrorist certainly knows it is happening, and would be unlikely to risk either trying to commit a terror act in the waiting line, or trying to get into the US with incriminating information on a cell phone or computer.

In fact, given the security screenings that passengers have to go through before getting on a flight to the US, I’m willing to bet that there hasn’t been a single violent attack attempted in an immigration line involving a weapon in the historical memory of the Department of Homeland Security’s existence.

The irony of all this is that if someone did want to commit mayhem at an airport, the easiest way to do it these days would not be to attempt something in the line waiting to have one’s passport checked, but to wait until later, out at the baggage claim area, since there’s usually nobody around wearing a weapon as people wait for their bags to appear from their plane, and it’s not illegal to ship weapons in your checked baggage. (Granted that bags are routinely X-xrayed and checked for possible explosives before they’re loaded on a plane, but there’s nothing illegal about shipping your pistol, rifle or AR-15 in your checked baggage. A terrorist could thus just collect his bag, zip it open, whip out his gun and than spray the waiting passengers with bullets before any security guards could arrive to stop him.

If Homeland Security were genuinely concerned about public safety, they’d transfer those armed INS agents to serve as security guards in the baggage claim area, and leave intelligent, trained and — what the hell — polite and welcoming passport checkers to handle the paperwork end.

Meanwhile, I don’t know what the deal is with banning cell-phone use in the waiting line while having one’s travel documents checked. You can use your phone after the seatbelt light goes off on landing, while you’re still in the plane, and everyone’s on their phone walking to the passport line. What’s so special about the immigration lobby that cellphones and computers have to be banned?

It is clearly just another act of intimidation — something the INS goons can use to order people around.

I guess it makes a certain amount of sense. If you’re going to be entering, or in the case of us citizens, re-entering the United States, maybe it’s important to be reminded that you are entering a police state, so you’ll remember that, for example, if you’re stopped by a cop after you pick up your parked car and are driving home, you need to be ultra polite and obedient lest you be yanked from your vehicle and body-slammed on the pavement for asking too many questions, or for being too slow to show your license.

It’s just your government telling you, “Welcome home. Now behave yourself…or else.”

Strong as Death

Oh, Gaza. Strong as death is love.

I loved Gaza. That is a play on words. The Biblical Song of Songs says that love is strong as death. Strong in Hebrew is Aza. Aza is also the Hebrew name of Gaza.

I have spent many happy hours in Gaza. I had many friends there. From the leftist Dr. Haidar Abd al-Shafi to the Islamist Mahmoud al-Zahar, who is now the foreign minister of Hamas.

I was there when Yasser Arafat, the son of a Gazan family, came home. They put me in the first row of the reception at the Rafah border, and that evening he received me at the hotel on the Gaza sea shore, seating me next to him on the stage during a press conference.

I met with a friendly attitude everywhere in the Gaza Strip, in the refugee camps and in the streets of Gaza City. Everywhere we talked about peace and about the place of Gaza in the future State of Palestine.

Good, but what about Hamas, the terrible arch-terrorist organization?

In the early 1990s, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin exiled 415 prominent Islamists from Gaza to Lebanon. The Lebanese did not let them in, so the exiles vegetated for a year in the open air on the border.

We protested against the expulsion and put up a tent camp opposite the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem. We stayed there for 45 days and nights, including some days in snow. In the camp were Jews and Arabs, including Israeli Arab Islamists. We spent the long days and nights in political discussions. What about? About peace, of course.

The Islamists were nice people, and treated my wife, Rachel, with utmost civility.

When the exiles were finally allowed home, a reception was held for them in the largest hall in Gaza. I was invited, together with a group of companions. I was asked to speak (in Hebrew, of course) and after that I was invited to a banquet.

I am recounting all this in order to describe the atmosphere at that time. In everything I said, I stressed that I was an Israeli patriot. I advocated peace between two states. Before the first Intifada (which started on December 9, 1987) Gaza was not a place of dark hatred. Far from it.

Masses of laborers crossed the checkpoints every morning in order to work in Israel, and so did the merchants who sold their wares in Israel, or crossed Israel on the way to Jordan, or got their merchandise through Israeli harbors.

So how did we succeed – we, the State of Israel – in turning Gaza into what it is today?

In the summer of 2005 the then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, decided to cut all ties with the Gaza Strip. “Arik”, a soldier in his heart, decided that the costs of occupying the strip were higher than the benefits. He pulled the army and the settlers out and turned the strip over – to whom? To nobody.

Why to nobody? Why not to the PLO, which was already the recognized Palestinian authority? Why not within the framework of an agreement? Because Arik hated the Palestinians, the PLO and Arafat. He did not want to have anything to do with them. So he just left the strip.

But nature abhors a vacuum. A Palestinian authority came into being in Gaza. Democratic elections were held, and Hamas won in all of Palestine. Hamas is a religious-nationalist party which originally was furthered by the Israeli secret service (Shin Bet) in order to undermine the PLO. When the PLO did not accept the election results, Hamas in Gaza took power by force. Thus the present situation came into being.

During all this time we still had a positive option.

The Gaza Strip could have turned into a blooming island. Optimists spoke about a “Second Singapore”. They spoke about a Gaza harbor, with due inspection of incoming goods either in Gaza or in a neutral port abroad. A Gaza airport, with appropriate security inspection, was built and used and then destroyed by Israel.

And what did the Israeli government do? The very opposite, of course.

The government subjected the Gaza Strip to a stringent blockade. All connections between the strip and the outside world were cut.  Provisions could come only through Israel. Israel increased or decreased the import of essential necessities at its whim. The affair of the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was bloodily stormed near the Gaza shore, emphasized the total isolation.

The Gaza population has now reached about two million. Most of them are refugees from Israel, who were driven out during the 1948 war. I cannot say that I am innocent – my army unit fought in the south of Palestine. I saw what was happening. I wrote about it.

The blockade created a magic circle. Hamas and the smaller (and more extreme) organizations carried out acts of resistance (or “terror”). As a reaction, the Israeli government intensified the blockade. The Gazans answered with more violence. The blockade became worse. And so on, up to and including this week.

What about the southern border of the strip? Rather bizarrely, Egypt cooperates with the Israeli blockade. And not only because of the mutual sympathy between the Egyptian military dictator, Abd al-Fatah al-Sisi, and the Israeli rulers. There is also a political reason: The Sisi regime hates the Muslim Brothers, Its banned internal opposition, which is considered the parent organization of Hamas.

The PLO regime in the West Bank also cooperates with the Israeli blockade against Hamas, which is its main competitor within the Palestinian political framework.

Thus the Gaza Strip remains almost completely isolated, without friends. Except some idealists around the world, who are much too weak to make a difference. And, of course, Hezbollah and Iran.

***

Now there prevails a kind of balance. The Gazan organizations carry out violent acts, which do no real damage to the State of Israel. The Israeli army does not have the appetite to occupy the strip again. And then the Palestinians discovered a new weapon: non-violent resistance.

Many years ago an Arab-American activist, a pupil of Martin Luther King, came to Palestine to preach this method. He found no takers and returned to the US. Then, at the beginning of the second Intifada, the Palestinians tried this method. The Israeli army reacted with live fire. The world saw a picture of a little boy shot while in the arms of his father. The army denied responsibility, as it always does. Non-violent resistance died with the boy. The Intifada demanded many victims.

Truth is that the Israeli army has no answer to non-violent resistance. In such a campaign, all the cards are in the hands of the Palestinians. World public opinion condemns Israel and praises the Palestinians. Therefore, the army’s reaction is to open fire, in order to induce the Palestinians to start violent actions. With these the army knows how to deal.

Non-violent resistance is a very difficult method. It demands enormous willpower, strict self-control and moral superiority. Such qualities are to be found in Indian culture, which gave birth to a Gandhi, and within the black American community of Martin Luther King. There is no such tradition in the Muslim world.

Therefore it is doubly astonishing that the demonstrators on the Gaza border are now finding this power in their hearts. The events of Black Monday, May 14, surprised the world. Masses of unarmed human beings, men, women and children, braved the Israeli sharpshooters. They did not draw weapons. They did not “storm the fence”, a lie spread by the huge Israeli propaganda apparatus. They stood exposed to the sharpshooters and were killed.

The Israeli army is convinced that the inhabitants of Gaza will not stand the test, that they will return to useless violence. Last Tuesday it seemed as if this assessment was right. One of the Gaza organizations carried out a “revenge action”, launching more then a hundred mortar shells into Israel without causing any real damage. That was a useless gesture. Violent action has no chance whatsoever to hurt Israel. It only supplies ammunition to Israeli propaganda.

When one thinks about non-violent struggle, one should remember Amritsar. That is the name of an Indian town where in April 1919 soldiers under British command opened murderous fire for 10 consecutive minutes on Indian non-violent protesters, killing at least 379 and wounding about 1200. The name of the commander, Colonel Reginald Dyer, entered history, for eternal shame. British public opinion was shocked. Many historians believe that this was the beginning of the end of British rule in India.

“Black Monday” on the Gaza border reminds one of this episode.

***

How will this end?

Hamas has offered a Hudna for 40 years. A Hudna is a sacred armistice, which no Muslim is allowed to break.

I have already mentioned the Crusaders, who stayed in Palestine for almost 200 years (more then us, at this moment). They agreed to or entered into several Hudnas with the hostile Muslim states around them. The Arabs kept them strictly.

The question is: Is the Israeli government able to accept a Hudna? After inciting the masses of their followers and filling them with mortal hatred against the people of Gaza in general and Hamas in particular, would it dare to agree?

When the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are choked, lacking medicines, lacking enough food, lacking pure water, lacking electricity, will our government not fall into the trap of illusion and believe that now Hamas will collapse?

That will not happen, of course. As we sang in our youth: “No people withdraws from the trenches of their life!”

As the Jews themselves proved for centuries, there is no limit to what a people can endure when its very existence is at stake.

That’s what history tells us.

***

My heart is with the people of Gaza.

I desire to ask their forgiveness, in my name and in the name of Israel, my country.

I am longing for the day when everything will change, the day when a wiser government will agree to a Hudna, open the border and let the people of Gaza return to the world.

Now, too, I love Gaza, with the love that the Bible says is as strong as death.

“If a president was dumb enough to pardon himself that would be such an arrogant statement of power that the House would probably impeach him in a week and the Senate would convict him.” — Newt Gingrich, Jun 5, 2018

It is a view that Charles I would have been proud of: The means by which one can forgive and exculpate oneself for purported wrongs. Admittedly, that out of sorts Stuart king only believed that one source was worthy of pardoning him: God and God alone. It was the divine who had vested him with legitimacy; accordingly, it was only the divine that might judge him or remove his crown. Oliver Cromwell proved otherwise and sneaked off his head.

Trump does not believe in Sky Creatures, and remains very terrestrial in his lusts and ambitions. He seems to be constantly jockeying for the next position, embracing less issues of policy as matters of expedient stance. Those stances, written in water, alter with whirling consistency, leaving the pundit to lurch after the next novel interpretation.

Axiomatic to the Trumpland playbook are questionable interpretations of the US constitution. The president finds the whole notion of checks and balances more than inconvenient: he finds them risible.

To that end, he is testing the water, largely as a means to banish Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller to the outer reaches of the political system. This forms a strategy of neutralisation that lies at the core of Trump’s legal approach, one that seeks to cut Mueller’s wings and limit his own exposure. “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars,” tweeted Trump, “I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”

Such an expansive reading was bound to poke the Twittersphere, with one response to his observation being curt and tangy in rebuke. “No person is above the law, not even the president,” came an irate respondent. “The president – the executive branch of our government is co-equal to the other two branches of government.”

Former federal prosecutor and White House counsel Nelson Cunningham relevantly noted that no one was “going to indict the president while he is sitting. So whether he can pardon himself for a crime for which he won’t be charged – is a moot point.” The art of the television president is mastering the moot point and delivering it as a matter of pre-emption.

Former White House counsel to President Barack Obama Bob Bauer also draws upon those who suggest that a prosecution for obstruction would not take place while Trump was in office. “The case for immunity has its adherents, but they based their position largely on the consideration that a president subject to prosecution would be unable to perform the duties of the office, a result that they see as constitutionally intolerable.”

Reference should, instead, be made to the Pardons clause within the US constitution: “The President… shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in cases of Impeachment” (Article II, section 2).

A thorny issue for the president to negotiate, given the glaring parallel offered by Richard Nixon. The president who desperately dragged the US national security state into its imperial form was confronted with the damning words of the Articles of Impeachment that he “obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice”.

While there is a certain tyrannophobic tendency in assessing elements of the current president’s misrule, such signature moves as enunciating the power of self-pardon by their very definition suggests authoritarian sensibilities. New York University professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat smells something going off in the US. “It’s in the tradition of the trial balloons he’s been launching since his campaign, which warn the public and his GOP allies that he feels he’s above the law.”

Charlie Sykes sees a president in a state of permanent, and dangerous experimentation. “This is the president who has taken the unthinkable and made it thinkable,” he claimed with some exasperation. “Why go there? Unless you are floating it to see what would be considered acceptable in Congress and to the public.”

Trump’s own advisers have done their best to tell their employer what he wants to hear, notably over whether he could ever be guilt of obstructing justice. Attorney John Dowd, by way of example, did come up with the potentially dangerous hypothesis that the “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case”.

And here we again return to the notion of the immune sovereign who can technically commit no wrong. Rudy Giuliani, who now spends time advising Trump, has been even more unequivocal on the power of self-pardon. “The constitution gave the president the right to pardon himself”. There would be no need to avail himself of that, as he had not done “anything wrong”.

US constitutional history flies in the face of such a rosy reading, though it is undeniable that the executive branch, as one presiding over the Justice Department, does have latitude on prosecutions and terminations. Issues of impeachment, linked as they are to obstruction, remain key. Can the nation’s chief law enforcement officer obstruct an investigation he has the power to terminate? White house counsel past and present cannot agree, but none can ignore the context of politics.

China’s increasingly sophisticated laser weapons arsenal is becoming a source of concern for its strategic rivals. What are their future potential?

By Zi Yang*

In May 2018, the United States Department of Defence lodged a formal protest to China regarding a series of incidents in Djibouti where military-grade lasers were directed at US aircraft from China’s naval base, some 13 kilometres from Camp Lemonnier, the US’ only permanent base in East Africa. In one event, the pilot and co-pilot of a US Air Force C-130 Hercules were dazzled with lasers and sustained minor eye injuries.

Spokespersons for China’s Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs however have categorically denied US claims, labelling the concerns as “untrue criticisms”. Meanwhile, rhetoric has been heating-up in the public opinion sphere. US-based authors have criticised China’s insincerity in working to resolve the lasing issue, while Chinese writers shot back at “false accusations” or outright celebrated the triumph of Chinese laser weapons over “arrogant Americans” spying on China’s naval base.

China’s Strides in Laser Weapons Technology

Looking beyond the war of words, it must be admitted that China has made impressive strides in laser weapons technology. There are a few key questions that need to be asked: Why does China value advances in laser weapons technology? How does China classify its laser weapons? What laser weapons constitute China’s existing arsenal? What is the future developmental trend of Chinese laser weapons?

As stated in Chinese military technology texts, laser weapons are valued because of speed, agility, precision, cost effectiveness, and anti-jamming properties.

First and foremost, laser weapons are fast and can strike at targets with the speed of light at 300,000 kilometres per second. Secondly, laser weapons are agile and in a short time span can intercept multiple targets or a single target multiple times. Thirdly, laser is highly directional and can hit designated points on the intended target with extreme precision.

Fourthly, laser is exceptionally cost effective when compared to conventional ammunition, with each laser shot costing as little as one US dollar. Last but not least, laser is strongly resistant to electromagnetic interference.

China’s Strategic and Tactical Laser Weapons

The Chinese classify laser weapons into the strategic and tactical. Strategic or high-power laser weapon systems are space or ground-based that intercepts enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles and satellites. Tactical or low-power laser weapons are generally used for short-range air defence or self-defence for the individual warfighter or weapons platforms.

Besides dazzling enemy sensors and electro-optical devices — such as the JD-4 active laser defence system mounted on China’s Type-99KM main battle tank that can dazzle enemy laser rangefinder and target designator — tactical laser weapons can also blind enemy combatants through harming the retina and cornea of the eye while sowing confusion and panic among enemy troops.

China is a signatory to the United Nations “Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons”. Although the law bans laser weapons that directly lead to permanent eye damage, it does not prohibit laser weapons that cause flash blindness.

In addition to its blinding function, laser weapons can also destroy enemy targets through high heat, shockwaves, and by causing secondary radiation that damages critical electrical components. According to the book Electro-optic Ranging & Countermeasure, written by three Chinese electro-optics specialists, destruction via high heat, better known as “heat damage,” is the most common method of laser destruction.

The average melting point of a satellite, aircraft, or missile casing is around 1,500 Celsius. It usually takes three to five seconds for a high-power laser of two to three megawatt to melt or vaporise the casing.

China’s Laser Weapons Arsenal

Based on the reports of Popular Science and South China Morning Post, we know that China maintains a diverse laser weapons arsenal.

There are two main categories of Chinese tactical laser weapons short-range air defence weapons and individual weapons. The former targets slow and low-flying unmanned aerial vehicles, missiles, and aircrafts. Known complexes include the Low Altitude Guard I and II, The Silent Hunter, Guorong-I Anti-Drone System, and High Shield Comprehensive Optoelectronic Defence System. The effective ranges of these systems are between several hundred metres to 12 square kilometres.

Individual laser weapons consist of laser guns that dazzle enemy combatants or their electro-optical devices. In this category we have the BBQ-905 laser dazzler rifle, WJG-2002 laser dazzler rifle, PY132A blinding laser weapon, PY131A blinding laser weapon, and the WJ-1-050 portable laser dazzler weapon. According to analyst Sebastien Roblin, the BBQ-905 has the longest effective range of a thousand meters.

Apart from tactical weapons, China also has strategic laser weapons systems to intercept ballistic missiles and satellites thousands of kilometres away. In recent years, China has conducted interception exercises from bases in Xinjiang and Sichuan provinces and the results were reported to be “very satisfactory”.

Preventing Unintended Conflict

Despite its advantages over conventional arms, the laser weapon is not without its shortcomings. Other than difficulties in tracking highly agile targets and destroying heavily armoured targets, adverse weather conditions, such as fog, rain, and snow can negatively impact the effectiveness of laser weapons.

Still, greater battlefield application of laser weapons is unavoidable in the future, especially for special forces, air defence, and missile defence. As the global presence of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) expands, it is necessary for China and foreign countries to reach additional consensus regarding the use of laser weapons in order to prevent unintended escalation of conflict.

To Chinese specialists, the laser weapon is a low-cost and effective form of countermeasure especially in the electro-optical realm. Given China’s growing technological sophistication in laser weapons, we should expect the unveiling of smaller and smarter laser armaments and the expansion of global demand for Chinese laser weapons in the near future.

*Zi Yang is a Senior Analyst with the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He was previously with the United States Institute of Peace and Georgetown University’s Centre for Security Studies.

On May 29, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan discussed issues related to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar. Pashinyan again stressed the importance of “stressed the need for getting Karabakh’s civil society involved in confidence-building measures”.

How beautifully Pashinyan continues to veil the representatives of the illegitimate regime that is not officially a party to the conflict. Yerevan knows that Baku will not accept it. But before the ratification of the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, Pashinyan simply needs to create an image of Armenia as a “striving for peace and stability country”.

In fact, the experts from different countries say that the new pro-Western government of Armenia is highly likely to make a serious attempt to provoke, to some extent, the resumption of hostilities. And then the blame will be shifted on Azerbaijan.

Under the influence of American advisers, highlighting the membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (known as CSTO), or the United Military Group, the Armenian leadership will seek to draw Russia into the aggravation of the conflict on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and lay a challenge at the country’s feet.

The West is aware that Russia is certain to withdraw from direct military participation on the Armenian side. It will give an opportunity to accuse the Kremlin of non-fulfillment of allied obligations.

Consequently, it will lead to the complete Armenian withdrawal from the Russian influence. In case of the provoked aggravation on the line of contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the US government will pretend to believe pieces of evidence of the newly-formed democratic Republic and its legitimate government, and present Azerbaijan as autocracy and aggressor.

The political strategists think it’s possible to unite Georgia and Armenia on the basis of their desire to join NATO and the confrontation of free democratic republics to the Russian threat. In accordance with this scenario Pashinyan’s power and the people that stand behind him make decisions. Pashinyan’s trip to Georgia is foreseen and not accidental. The embodiment of unification is difficult to imagine, but it’s real.

In a pivotal move projecting a new set of national interests, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, barely a day before the Shangri La Dialogue began, announced that the US Pacific Command will now be called the US Indo-Pacific Command.  The name change, seen by observers as a tactical move against Chinese military and economic hegemony in the region, is just symbolic for now, as it won’t immediately result in any major alterations to the command’s maritime boundaries or assets in the huge area spanning from East Africa to America’s Pacific coast.

The move by the US highlights the increasing significance of India in Washington’s strategic thinking and also marks India’s re-entry to the American government’s “Asia Nexus.” While the Obama administration was much more hesitant to replace “Asia-Pacific” with Indo-Pacific terminology, the Trump government has used the term not only in official documents but also at multilateral meetings.

It is worth noting that the announcement came just a week before the much-anticipated and strategically significant Malabar 2018 naval exercise, an annual trilateral event involving the US, Japan, and India. This year it’s being held in Guam, and it comes at a time of territorial disputes between China and littoral states in the resource-rich South China Sea region. China has been aggressively expanding its military bases on disputed islands to strengthen its territorial claims.

Why and how did the term “Indo-Pacific” recently gain prominence? The spirit of the term was first captured during Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s speech to the Indian Parliament in August 2007. He talked about the “confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans” as “the dynamic coupling as seas of freedom and of prosperity” in “broader Asia.” The first official use of the term appeared in Australia’s Defence White Paper.

The turning point was a joint statement issued by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump after the former’s state visit to the White House on June 26, 2017. As stewards in the Indo-Pacific region, Trump and Modi agreed that a close partnership between the United States and India was central to peace and stability.

At the recent Shangri La Dialogue, Modi called the Indo-Pacific “a natural region” that stretches from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of America. He called the building of a “stable, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region” an “important pillar” of India’s partnership with the United States. At the same time, Modi emphasized that India’s conception of “Indo-Pacific” is not directed against any other nation (read China, which has expressed reservations about the concept). Modi also rejected the conflation of the Indo-Pacific idea with that of the “Quad” – the forum for consultation between India, US, Japan and Australia.

The use of the term “Indo-Pacific” anchors the historic and contemporary reality that South Asia, specifically India, has a major role in shaping present and future discourses, and also providing security in the region. This infuriates China, as it sees itself as a future hegemon, both regionally and globally.

In 2016, the US and India signed a Logistics Exchange Agreement that reinforced their bilateral security ties and makes it easy for the two countries to conduct joint military operations in the Indo-Pacific region. Without a doubt, the agreement was aimed at countering the escalating maritime assertiveness of China in the region. America continues to contribute to Indo-Pacific stability, revitalizing the free and open rules-based international order.

In the same year, the United States designated India a “major defense partner” with the goal of strengthening military cooperation, increasing information-sharing and cutting red tape to facilitate defense deals. It has emerged as India’s No 2 weapons supplier, closing $15 billion worth of deals over the last decade. America now aims to topple Russia as the largest weapons supplier to India, whose trade volume has sharply declined over the last decade.

The renaming will ultimately continue to be a symbolic act and will have little real impact until US-India defense cooperation escalates to the level of ministerial discussions and there is greater cooperation between the various military commands of both countries. A lot is expected from the upcoming first two-plus-two ministerial dialogue between India and the US scheduled for the first week of July.

The Indo-Pacific as a geopolitical construct is here to stay. Renaming the command is tactically significant, as it indicates that the US accepts that the Indian Ocean and Pacific region is becoming a single competitive arena. It is evident that the stage is being set for a great maritime game in the Indo-Pacific.

While India’s commitment to playing the game is praiseworthy, there are high-priority organizational and functional impediments that it will have to overcome. Otherwise, Modi’s “Act East” commitment will merely be a gimmick.

*Abhishek Mohanty is studying M.A Politics: International and Area Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is a Junior Research Associate at German Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance- Bangkok, Junior Researcher at Center for Southeast Asian Studies- Indonesia, and Research Intern at Centre for Vietnam Studies- New Delhi. He is a member of Kalinga-Lanka Foundation. Research interests include critical analysis of foreign policies, regional and global issues of Southeast Asian and Pacific states. This article appeared at Asia Times.

Flash! Russian opposition journalist murdered in Kiev.

Bang! It was just the latest Putin hit job.

Poof! The whole story turned out to be a hoax.

With those three steps the latest explosive news story about Russia went up in smoke. I’m talking about the widely reported murder in Ukraine of a so-called dissident Russian journalist.

But the murder hoax isn’t the big story here. The blockbuster is how the media, Russia “experts,” and politicians reacted to the purported murder before the hoax was exposed.

On May 30, NPR reported, “Fatally Shot Russian Journalist Was Targeted For His Work.” CNN tagged along with, “Journalist, a Putin critic, killed in Ukraine.”

Who did it? According to BBC, Ukraine’s prime minister Volodymyr Groysman “accused Russia of being behind the killing.” This sounds like the same old story: Putin just murdered another journalist.

There was only one problem here. Someone discovered on the same day this murder story broke that journalist Arkady Babchenko was actually alive and well.

The news of his murder was fake news. The Ukrainian government quickly tried to cover up its hoax. It came up with what sounds like a whopper of an explanation: They tried to tell us that the Babchenko hoax was all part of a plan to entrap some Russian hit man.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Who knows. But those caught spreading the hoax now have scant credibility left. Take for example the Ukrainian officials. They admit to lying about Babchenko’s death and now expect us to believe their fanciful and unsubstantiated cover-up story.

And who is to believe NPR and CNN now? They jumped right onto the emergent hoax without any apparent thought of journalistic fact checking. The same goes for the commentators who were quick to spread the unsubstantiated story. All parties that put their reputations on the line now are seen with egg on their faces.

A good case study is Mark Galeotti, an academic with a long history of spreading misinformation about Russia. Writing in the Moscow Times Galeotti rhetorically asked, “Does the Putin regime murder its enemies as a matter of policy, does it simply create an atmosphere permissive of such violence, or is it now the scapegoat of choice?” Then he remarked, “The answer, of course, is all three.”

Well actually it is not all three — it is just the third: Russia is now “the scapegoat of choice.” And Galeotti is now on record as a certified scapegoater.

Still commenting on the then yet-to-be exposed Babchenko murder hoax Galeotti proclaimed: “It is hard to see his murder as not directly or indirectly instigated by the Kremlin.”

Galeotti is not new in the game of spreading false information about Russia. My book Litvinenko Murder Case Solved documents a whopper he told the Moscow Times in 2012. It was about Litvinenko’s polonium poisoning. The official British submission held that the polonium likely came from an industrial or commercial source. Yet Galeotti fingered Russia, claiming only a sophisticated state run laboratory could produce it. He had no facts to back up that claim either.

These fabricated stories of Galeotti’s are emblematic of the kind of flashy Putin-did-it claims that keep erupting. They start by presenting an unsubstantiated allegation. Although no facts are presented, the allegation fits well into the narrative established by previous unsubstantiated allegations.

And so what you get is a lie that rests on a foundation of lies that have come before. Typically conclusions precede the acquisition of evidence — evidence that never really materializes.

Bam! That’s the key to all the unmitigated and unsubstantiated maliciousness that has been spread by the likes of Galeotti, NPR, CNN, and a multitude of others.

But who cares?

Practically nobody! Most Americans who’ve been exposed to the plethora of maliciously concocted stories about Russia and Putin understandably tend to believe what they’ve heard. They are oblivious to the skullduggery that produced the fake news and lack sufficient motivation to scrutinize the concocted stories.

That’s the final “Flash!” here. The demonstrably false stories are destined to persist in the mainstream news. But who indeed cares?

But they are not sufficiently interested in Russia news to scrutinize the concocted stories. That leaves them with beliefs based on fake news and little motivation to question the malicious reports.

That’s the final “Flash” here. People

Final Flash! The jig may be up on Russia fake news, but …

Unfortunately there is little motivation for them to question those entrenched beliefs. Foreign news in general is not of great interest to Americans. That’s why so many news organizations have closed their foreign bureaus.

Final Flash! With little motivation to question the unquestionably false news about Russia

The sorry situation that remains is that in spite of the revelations I’ve presented of widespread fraud in news about Russia, it simply does not matter to most people.

Xi Jinping assumed the position of the President of the People’s Republic of China during the 12th National People’s Congress in March 2013. Within the Chinese political system, the president derives his powers and authority from the concurrent posts of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission (CMC), both of which, Xi was already holding before becoming President in 2013. Though the Chinese Presidency is largely a ceremonial office, the constitutional limit on the presidency for two-terms meant that Xi would have had to give it up in 2023. The limitation on presidential tenure was introduced by Deng Xiaoping to present concentration of power in the hands of one leader. Notwithstanding the limits imposed by the historical constitutional amendment during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, enthroned Xi Jinping as a lifelong Chinese president and permanent leader, with unchallenged political and military control. Near totalitarian control of the world’s major economic and military power is a major geostrategic development of global aspirations.

The amendment, also incorporated Xi Jinping’s Thought on “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”,1 in the charter of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body of the CPC,2 implying thereby that Xi’s ideas are central to the future of the Chinese development and progress. In the three-and-a-half-hour-long speech during his coronation, President Xi outlined his dream for China, meant to be achieved through ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ by 2049, the centenary of the establishment of the PRC. Since Xi’s ascent to power in 2013, China under him has been exercising political and economic influence in a manner that all the regional powers, including India, accommodate its ever-rising ambitions. China is appearing unrivalled in Asia and beyond due to its military and economic capacity, aware that no country single-handedly has the influence to prevent its progression. It is investing heavily in the maritime domain, promoting stronger bilateral and multilateral security arrangements, pursuing greater economic integration and promoting regional connectivity in order to achieve its ambitions. Chinese are investing heavily in infrastructure and proposing grand trade propositions in the region to influence the regional politics in its favour armed at changing regional hegemony in Indo-Pacific.

Over the last few years, China has undertaken different initiatives that act as stimuli to its coherent Asia-Pacific strategy. For example, it took the lead to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), introduce the Silk Road Fund (SRF) under the Belt-Road Initiative (BRI), and has assisted in the establishment of the New Development Bank (NDB) under BRICS. Xi’s ‘new era’ strategy entails the continuation, evolution and implementation of his multi-layered and multi-prolonged foreign policy moves, including the Belt and Road Initiative over the coming decade, which bear far reaching consequences for India.

In the reign of a long-serving Xi, we’re further going to see an extension of the Chinese attempt of setting the global rules in accordance with its own value system. China is rapidly providing its ‘economic growth model’ as an inspiration to many developing countries and at the same time, offering Chinese investment as expedient means to attain financial resources and capital. Asian countries are interested in the Chinese growth model and are looking forward to accessing Chinese markets, technology, and capital to support their own developmental projects. It is apparent that in order to achieve its aim of becoming a global economic powerhouse, China is leveraging geo-economic tools to achieve geostrategic objectives. It is pursuing a strategy of ‘predatory economics’ in most of the developing countries and trying to convert them in Chinese ‘tributaries’; under the pretext of development in the bargain saddling them with unsustainably high debts to China. Take Pakistan as an example whose foreign exchange reserves have dropped from $18 billion in April 2017 to $10 billion in May 2018. Pakistani officials hoped to avoid forex crisis by borrowing from China, which will save the nation from borrowing from IMF.

China’s gradual control of the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka is another example of one country which has had to arrive at some sort of one-sided concessional agreement with China wherein it ceded a 99-year lease-based control of its port because it could not pay off Chinese debts.3 Sri Lankan government is asking for Indo-Japanese assistance to overcome the criticism faced due to the country’s reliance on extensive Chinese loans for infrastructure development.4 To counter the increased influence of Chinese economics and military in the neighborhood, India will need to build its capacity and capability in the military and economic domains, while timely implementing the promises that it makes to its neighbors and reassuring them towards the Indian goal of Security and Growth for all in the region (SAGAR).

The unbridled nationalism and expansive sovereignty claims of China during Xi’s tenure has been worrisome for China watchers. He has emphasized that he will not compromise on matters of territorial integrity and national sovereignty. Under Xi, China has broadened its ‘core interests’ and asserted sovereignty claims contrary to the international law and treated the arbitral award against its actions in the South China Sea with contempt. Despite facing stiff opposition from other countries, China has already transformed many disputed islands in the South China Sea into its secure military out-posts. Having already acquired a dominant position in the South China Sea, Beijing has decisively begun to shift its focus to the Indian Ocean. Chinese mounting activities in the maritime domain is paving the way for Beijing’s inexorable ascendance over the region. India needs to work with other countries to limit China’s dominance with regard to port infrastructure and maritime commerce in the India Ocean.

Soon after Xi assumed power in 2013, he pushed forward his pet project, the ‘One Belt One Road initiative’, now renamed the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI). Xi’s BRI aims to build China’s global connectivity to make it to the center of all human activity, thereby seeking the rejuvenation of China’s ancient dream of being the “middle kingdom”.5 Beijing’s official narrative to promote the BRI is in terms of economic prosperity throughout the Indo-Pacific region and Europe and claims that “China’s development is not designed to pose a threat to any country”.6 China’s geopolitical influence and economic capabilities are sobering many regional countries in the region to join the initiative. The BRI initiative has strategic implications that China can leverage for its political gains. With developments accredited to the BRI, China has officially entered India’s ‘traditional sphere of influence’. Officially declining to be a part of the BRI, India is closely watching every move of this Chinese project because it is wary of the security implications, especially the projected “Maritime Silk Road” as part of the BRI in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

India has continuously opposed the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as it passes through the disputed territory of Gilgit-Baltistan in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, challenging its sovereignty and territorial integrity.7 The 1300 km corridor connects Xinjiang, China to the Gwadar port, Pakistan. With an existing presence in Chittagong port (Bangladesh), Hambantota port (Sri Lanka), Port Sudan (Sudan), Maldives, Seychelles and Somalia, a control of Gwadar port establishes Chinese dominance in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese maritime investments in the Indian Ocean maritime periphery suggest a dual-use, furthering both infrastructural advancements and military operations. Chinese submarines have been spotted in the Indian Ocean since 2013 and there have been two deployments alternately- a conventional submarine and a nuclear propelled submarine.8 Chinese have insisted that it is for anti-piracy operations, but India finds this to be rather an odd task for submarines.

Xi’s extended presidency will also have implications on the boundary negotiations between India and China. The recent military face-offs between China and India at Depsang, Demchok, and Doklam have taken place during Xi’s rule. Xi’s continuation into a third term would mean a strong and institutionalised authoritarian regime with the full backing of the People’s Liberation Army and the Communist Party of China over the next decade. It indicates a unified leadership in the times to come, further implying the soft coercion policy attempting to sell a tactical advantage on the boundary issue. Xi’s message to the People’s Liberation Army at the 19th Congress of CPC was “to become a modern fighting force by 2035, the world’s best military force by 2050 and intensify its combat readiness by focusing on how to win wars”.9 In his newly appointed cabinet during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi has retained General Zhao Zongqi in the Central Committee, the commander of the PLA’s Western Theatre Command (with responsibility for the entire border with India) and the Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi, who acts as the special representative for the border talks with New Delhi, was elevated to the Politburo. Though many would argue, that dialogue with the same Chinese government will steadfast the border negotiation process, Chinese assertiveness and increasing sovereignty claims suggest otherwise.

To reset ties between the two nations after the Doklam standoff last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping met at an informal summit in Wuhan on April 27th-28th, 2018 and discussed a gamut of issues that concern the two nations, from the BRI project to India’s candidature for membership of Nuclear Supplier’s Group. Though the actual outcomes of this meeting will be apparent only in the months to come, breaking from the formal protocol of welcoming an Indian leader is a new type of engagement that China has established with India.

Despite the positive rhetoric, a look at their respective media releases suggest dichotomy between the two nations in some areas. For example, concerning the Sino-Indian border dispute, Indian media release read that India strived for greater mutual trust and “predictability and effectiveness in the management of border affairs”, but this was missing from the Chinese media document which simply reiterated old rhetoric of “maintaining peace and tranquillity”. While both sides emphasized on responsibility and wisdom in handling disputes and “strengthening” CBMs and communication channels, India’s statement was more explicit in “including the principle of mutual and equal security”… “to prevent incidents in border regions.”10 Similarly, while Chinese statement  sought “open, inclusive, balanced and win-win economic globalisation that benefits all” and expressed to seek “protectionism” from the West, focus on “balance on trade” was missing when it came to bilateral trade with India, which is significant as India has a trade deficit of $51 billion with China as on 2016-2017.11

An extended office occupancy will help Xi to coalesce his achievements in the neighborhood and further empower those in-charge of implementing the Chinese projects. India will have to prepare itself militarily and economically to deal with the Chinese intimidation. At the same time, coalitions against China would now be steadier to counter the expected pressures from the more robust and powerful Chinese foreign and security policies. Emmanuel Macron, the French President has called for Paris-Delhi-Canberra Axis amid the Asia-Pacific tensions.12 Quadrilateral, with the combined might of the four democratic powers (US, India, Japan and Australia) is quite formidable. However, the return of the Quadrilateral initiative will only reinforce China’s attention on the Asia-Pacific region as already seen by China’s displeasure when the Trump administration proposed a Quad meeting. A statement from Beijing read that it “hopes that the summit will neither target nor damage a “third party’s interest”.13 Thus, to counter an assertive China, India does not only need to decode Xi’s strategic design and exploit windows of opportunities to counter Chinese movements but also enhance cooperation with China on all fronts, be it economic, political or military.

*Gopika Shinghal is a Research Associate at the Delhi Policy Group. She has completed her master’s degree in International Relations from King’s College London.

Notes:
1. “Incorporation of Xi Jinping into Constitution conducive to national rejuvenation”, People’s Daily Online, http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0226/c90000-9430280.html
2. “Proposed amendment to CPPCC charter unveiled”, Xinhua http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-03/08/c_137025376.htm
3. “How the China-backed Hambantota ort project is changing the politics of Sri Lanka”, Scroll.in https://scroll.in/article/850907/how-the-china-backed-hambantota-port-project-is-changing-the-politics-of-sri-lanka
4. “Sri Lanka Premier Wants India and Japan Cash to Balance China”, Bloomberg https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/03/27/sri-lanka-premier-wants-india-and-japan-cash-to-balance-china
5. Borje Ljunggren, “Under Xi, China aims to be the world’s middle kingdom”, YaleGlobal Online https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/under-xi-china-aims-be-worlds-middle-kingdom
6. “In Xi’s 3-Hour Long Speech, The Part that’s Relevant for India”, NDTV https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/in-xis-3-hour-long-speech-the-part-thats-relevant-for-india-1764486
7. “India will not accept project that violates its sovereignty: MEA on China’s OBOR”, The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/india-will-not-accept-project-that-violates-its-sovereignty-mea-on-chinas-obor/articleshow/63632894.cms
8. Shaurya Karanbir Gurung, “14 Chinese navy ships spotted in Indian Ocean, Indian Navy monitoring locations”, The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/14-chinese-navy-ships-spotted-in-indian-ocean-indian-navy-monitoring-locations/articleshow/61882634.cms
9. Zhao Lei “PLA to be world-class force by 2050”, ChinaDaily.com.cn http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-10/27/content_33756453.htm
10. For Chinese Statement, see: “China-India reach broad consensus in informal summit”, Xinhua http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/29/c_137145546.htm ;
For India’s Statement, see: “Transcript of Media Briefing by Foreign Secretary during visit of Prime Minister to China”, http://www.mea.gov.in/media-briefings.htm?dtl/29855/Transcript_of_Media_Briefing_by_Foreign_Secretary_during_visit_of_Prime_Minister_to_China_April_28_2018
11. Chaitanya Mallapur, “India’s Trade Deficit with China up Twofold In a Decade to 2016-17; Can India benefit from US- China Trade War?” Bloomberg https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/2018/04/16/indias-trade-deficit-with-china-up-twofold-in-a-decade-to-2016-17-can-india-benefit-from-us-china-trade-war
12. “Macron calls for Indo-Australia Axis to Stop China” The Quint https://www.thequint.com/news/world/macron-calls-for-strategic-axis-between-india-australia-france-amid-pacific-tension
13. “Beijing reacts cautiously to US proposal for quadrilateral meeting, hopes it does not damage ‘third party interests” Firstpost https://www.firstpost.com/world/china-reacts-cautiously-to-us-proposal-for-quadrilateral-meeting-hopes-it-does-not-damage-third-party-interests-4194437.html

Protests that forced Jordan’s prime minister to resign and laid bare the country’s systemic economic and political crisis shed a new light on the root causes of popular protests in the Middle East that swept the region in 2011 and have since continuously erupted at local levels in a swath of land stretching from Morocco to Egypt.

The protests, sparked by price and tax hikes, brought large numbers of middle class demonstrators, who saw their livelihoods threatened, on to the streets. The replacement of Prime Minister Hani al-Mulki with his education minister, Omar al-Razzaz, a reformer and former World Banker, did little to quell the unrest.

Protesters are demanding a full repeal of the proposed tax hikes, that would raise employees’ income tax by five percent and corporate levies by between 20 and 40 percent in line with the terms of a three-year $723 million dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Jordan secured in 2016.

Buried in the protesters’ slogans and demands is a call for a greater say in the country’s affairs at a time that King Abdullah, driven by economic need and tectonic geopolitical shifts, is unilaterally rewriting the country’s social contract.

The protesters’ demands put King Abdullah between a rock and a hard place. Dependent throughout its history on foreign aid, Jordan, deprived of support by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states because of King Abdullah’s refusal to fall into line with Saudi policies designed to establish the kingdom’s regional hegemony, has little choice but to fall back on its own resources that are reflected in the proposed tax hikes.

While Jordan’s economic plight might be extreme compared to other Middle Eastern states, the pattern of unilaterally rewriting social contracts is not uniquely Jordanian. It is prevalent in countries like Egypt that has also turned to the IMF for relief and the Gulf states that have been tinkering with their cradle-to-grave welfare state in their bid to diversify their economies and reduce dependence on foreign and expatriate labour.

Social contracts, involving the state providing public sector jobs, free education and health, and subsidized food and fuel in return for surrender of political rights and acceptance of elite capture and kept in place by coercion, are not the only similarity between Jordan and other Middle Eastern states.

Attempts at reform in the Middle East and North Africa are exclusively social and economic. If anything, repression in countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt has substantially increased in a bid to squash any call for political reform in a process of change that directly impacts people’s lives.

The drivers of the Jordanian protests are not only similar to those of the 2011 revolts that initially toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen and erupted across a geography stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf.

They also confirm conclusions of a recent World Bank report, ‘Eruptions of Popular Anger: The Economics of the Arab Spring and Its Aftermath,’ that argues that erosion of middle class incomes, discontent with quality of life, the shortage of formal sector jobs, and corruption rather than poverty and income inequality were at the root of the protests.

To be sure, the marginalized and impoverished helped populate the 2011 protests as well as the more recent demonstrations in Jordan, a country with double digit unemployment, 21 percent of the population living below the poverty line, and finances and services burdened by the influx of more than 2 million refugees, including 600,000 plus Syrians.

Yet, World Bank economist Elena Ianchovichina, the author of the report, “rules out high and rising inequality as a reason for the Arab Spring uprising” and argues that “analysis of welfare dynamics during the years preceding the uprising(s) suggests that the real problem had been erosion of middle-class incomes…which either declined or lagged behind incomes of other welfare groups.”

Like in Jordan in the wake of the government’s austerity measures, Ms. Ianchovichina postulates that “the middle class was getting squeezed and the middle-class consensus was eroding.”

Ms. Ianchovichina arrives at her conclusion by exploring alternative measures of welfare that capture people’s views about their well-being. “On the eve of the Arab Spring, people felt stuck. The middle class, in particular, was growing more frustrated with the quality of life in their countries. Life satisfaction scores declined markedly before the Arab Spring events,” Ms. Ianchovichina’s report said.

She argued that the middle class “associate this unhappy development with perceptions of declining standards of living, especially the deteriorating quality of public services and labour market conditions, and the growing dissatisfaction with corruption linked to the inability of people to do well without wasta, that is, connections with powerful political and business elites… These grievances negatively affected life satisfaction and were symptoms of a broken social contract.”

Because “the social contracts were kept in place through coercion, and exclusion generated anger about relative deprivation between the connected and those without connections, a breakdown in the social contract increased the premium on freedom and created impetus for political change. Thus, a broken social contract, not high inequality, led to the Arab Spring uprisings,” Ms. Ianchovichina said.

The economist’s analysis is as valid for the Arab revolts as it is for Jordan. “The contracts had become unsustainable because persistent fiscal imbalances emerged. The public sector could no longer be the employer of choice, and the system of general energy and food subsidies had become a fiscal burden. Therefore, reforms were passed to limit the growth of public sector employment and reduce the cost of subsidies… Young people could no longer count on public employment after graduating from college. But the private sector did not generate enough jobs to absorb the large number of young people entering the labour force,” Ms. Ianchovichina argued in the report.

In Jordan, this week the replacement of Prime Minister Al-Mulki failed to put an end to the protests. Protesters were no longer pacified by cosmetic changes. They appear to be demanding systemic change that would involve greater transparency, accountability and political participation. In doing so, the protesters could be establishing a new benchmark in the Middle East and North Africa’s torturous process of political transition.

Ms. Ianchovichina conclusion from her analysis of the Arab Spring states is equally valid for Jordan.

“Building inclusive institutions will be crucial for the success of the new social contract, and it will pay off in stability, economic growth, and shared prosperity… The new governance model for security will have to be based on a balanced mix of inclusive institutions that create incentives for cooperation, fair dispute settlement, redistributive policies targeted to the most vulnerable segments of society, and rule-of-law institutions that protect and respect the rights of all citizens.”

King Abdullah has acknowledged that his country is at a crossroad. Insisting that he stands by his people, the king stressed the “need to deal with challenges in a novel manner, away from the traditional style.”

That will require political will to take on vested interests and make political change a pillar of the reform process. Without doubt, King Abdullah’s willingness and ability to implement change is being put to the test.

The UK failed to tell Bosnia of its suspicions about a consignment of bullets bound for Saudi Arabia, which has a habit of diverting arms to proxies in Syria and Yemen.

By Semir Mujkic, Lawrence Marzouk and Ivan Angelovski

The UK suspected that almost 30 million Bosnian-made bullets sold to Saudi Arabia would end up in the wrong hands, but failed to warn Sarajevo before the shipment had flown, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network can reveal.

The deal was brought to the UK’s attention because two British-based brokers had requested – and were eventually refused – licences to mediate the Bosnia-Saudi deal.

Though Bosnian officials said it had no record of a broker being involved in the export, a BIRN investigation has established the shipment that left Bosnia in two parts in November 2015 and January 2016 with the approval of Sarajevo matched the deal for which the UK refused brokering licences in terms of timing, quantity, origin, destination and type of ammunition.

The UK refusal came in March 2016 after around 14 months of deliberation, when it was already too late to halt the shipment. Such applications are usually decided within 20 working days.

The refusal cited the “unacceptable risk” the bullets would be diverted, adding that the Saudi government, the specified ‘end user’, was not in fact “the intended recipient”, according to information obtained by BIRN under a Freedom of Information request submitted to the Department for International Trade.

Experts in the international arms trade say the UK likely suspected the bullets would end up in the hands of Saudi proxies in Syria or Yemen; even more worrying are the concerns raised by some watchdogs, including Amnesty International, about the leaky nature of US and Saudi arms pipelines into Syria, meaning some military hardware has found its way to extremists including ISIS.

BIRN has reported extensively on the billion-euro arms trade that has developed between Balkan countries and Saudi Arabia, which systematically diverts the weapons to allied militias in Syria and Yemen.

Despite these concerns, and calls by the European Parliament to place an arms embargo on the Gulf kingdom, licences to Saudi Arabia are rarely rejected, making the UK’s decision all the more significant.

No obligation to share concerns

Balkan weapons and ammunition have been used in a number of Islamist attacks in Europe in recent years and Western governments count on countries such as  Bosnia to crack down on arms trafficking, yet the UK made no apparent effort to warn Sarajevo of its concerns about this particular shipment.

A high-ranking Bosnian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told BIRN that Sarajevo had received no communication from the UK on the issue.

The UK’s Department for International Trade said that given Bosnia is not a member of the European Union, there is no “established mechanism” through which the UK could have informed the Bosnian authorities.

The department declined to explain why it had taken so long to refuse the brokering licences for the shipment.

A spokesman for the department said: “The UK government takes its export control responsibilities very seriously and operates one of the most robust export control regimes in the world. We rigorously examine every application on a case-by-case basis against the Consolidated EU and National Arms Export Licensing Criteria, with risks around human rights abuses being a key part of that process.”

UK authorities refused to say who they believed would be the real recipient of the ammunition.

BIRN was unable to establish if the brokers applying for the UK licences were involved in any way in the Bosnian export.

Bosnia’s Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations said it had no record of  a broker in paperwork submitted for the export licence – applied for by an unnamed exporter – and both London and Sarajevo declined to name those involved. Arms deals are notoriously opaque, the true actors often obscured by a chain of brokers and consultants sometimes in competition with one another.

Data BIRN  has obtained  reveal that the applications the UK refused, and those that Bosnia approved, matched in almost every other way. They were submitted at the same time in late 2014 and specified the exact same quantity and calibre of ammunition – including 13,492,927 AK-47 bullets and 3,063,276 rounds of sniper ammunition – split into three separate licences.

Unaware of the UK’s concerns, and unmoved by other evidence of Saudi Arabia’s diversion of arms to Syria and Yemen, Bosnia approved the licences in early 2015 and the goods were transferred to Saudi Arabia in November 2015 and January 2016.

Riyadh ordered bullets for AKs

Roy Isbister, an expert on arms trade laws with the London-based NGO Saferworld, said it “beggars belief” that London failed to share its suspicions with Sarajevo.

Asked why the UK might have refused the licence, Isbister told BIRN that the “most obvious explanation is that the UK would be fearing diversion to non-state actors that Saudi Arabia – and the US –  is supporting in current Middle Eastern conflicts”.

Some of  the bullets ordered by the Saudi authorities were not widely used by its forces, but extremely popular on the battlefields of Syria and Yemen. They included 15 million bullets for AK-47 style weapons.

Another 10 million 5.56×45mm bullets in the order are NATO standard and can be used by Saudi forces, but they are also compatible with Bulgarian AR-M9 rifles which were supplied to Yemeni soldiers by Saudi-ally UAE in 2015, according to weapons expert Jeremy Binnie from the London-based Jane’s Defence Weekly.

In mid-2015, a video surfaced that appeared to show ammunition airdropped by the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen, including mortar shells clearly marked as made in a Serbian state-owned factory [see box] in 2012.

“Massive red flag”

The UK’s Department for International Trade said this was the first case involving Saudi Arabia that London had refused, having previously approved brokering licences for the export of similar ammunition from Bosnia to Saudi Arabia worth 10 million euros in 2013 and 2014.

Isbister said the refusal, based on suspicions over the Saudi end-user certificate, should serve as a “massive red flag for other potential exporters” including members of the EU and Balkan countries that want to join the bloc and which have been cashing in on Saudi Arabia’s sudden thirst for small arms and light weapons.

It may also complicate the UK’s lucrative defence trade ties with the Gulf kingdom, he said.

Last year, the UK successfully fought off a challenge in court by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade over its decision to approve sales of British arms to Riyadh despite allegations of war crimes in Yemen. The ruling is under appeal.

“The [UK] Government decided that Saudi assurances about what will happen to this ammunition are worthless,” said Isbister.

“And yet, in the ongoing court case into UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Government has made it clear it places much more faith in Saudi claims of its own good conduct in the Yemen war than in the wall of information provided by respected impartial international human rights organisations and the UN to the contrary.”

Asked whether the UK’s refusal of the licences meant that Saudi Arabian end-user certificates could no longer be trusted, the UK government responded: “No, Saudi Arabia is a valued trading partner of the UK. An End User Certificate is only one element in the assessment of an export or brokering licence application: the provision of such a document is no guarantee that a licence would be granted.”

Sarajevo continues to export ammunition to Riyadh. In 2016, it approved 52 million euros of arms export licences for Saudi Arabia, according to the government’s yearly report of issued licences.

Bosnia’s Ministry of Foreign Trade told BIRN it was hardly alone in selling weapons to Riyadh. “A significant number of EU countries approve the export of goods from the Common List of Weapons and Military Equipment to Saudi Arabia.”

Contacted by phone, the Saudi ambassador to Sarajevo, Hani bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Mominah , asked BIRN to email its questions to the embassy. BIRN received no response to the emailed questions by the time of publication.

Read all the documents used in the investigation at BIRN’s online library BIRN Source.

This story was produced by BIRN as a part of A Paper Trail to Better Governance project.

By Terri Moon Cronk

In Syria, Operation Roundup is in its 36th day of targeting and destroying remnants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Army Col. Thomas Veale, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman, told Pentagon reporters Tuesday via teleconference from Baghdad.

“The increased operational tempo under Operation Roundup includes 225 coalition partner strikes in May,” the spokesman said. “That’s a 304 percent increase over March and a 123 percent increase over April strikes. We and our partners have pounded ISIS remnants from the ground and air in relentless pursuit of their leaders and fighters.”

Sagging ISIS Morale

ISIS’ morale is low and its leaders are scurrying for their lives, he said, noting that thanks to increased coalition and partner pressure, quite a bit of ISIS traffic is now flowing west toward Syrian regime-held territory.

Veale also announced the removal of a key ISIS operative from the battlefield in Syria. Amed al-Hamdouni, a courier for ISIS senior leadership, was killed during a coalition operation May 17 near Dashisha, Syria, he said.

Al-Hamdouni carried messages among high-level ISIS leaders throughout Syria and Iraq. His death hurts ISIS leadership’s ability to communicate securely and increases their risk of public exposure or further isolation, Veale said.

Turning to Iraq, Iraqi security force partners continue to provide excellent internal security and border security to protect Iraq’s sovereign soil and citizens, Veale said.

Iraq’s citizens are increasingly coming home, and to date, more than 3.7 million Iraqis have returned, he said.

The spokesman emphasized Iraqi security forces’ key role in securing the Iraqi side of the border with Syria in Operation Roundup. “Iraqi border guard forces and the Iraqi army have covered the western border as our partners’ ground defenses attack ISIS remnants in Syria,” he said.

Operation Reliable Partnership

The coalition also continues support to Iraq through Operation Reliable Partnership, which will enhance Iraqi forces’ ability to train and equip themselves, Veale said, adding, “Reliable Partnership will build resilience and security and sustainment capabilities, as well as the growing air enterprise, security policy and operations, intelligence and counterterrorism.”

The United States views Operation Reliable Partnership as an investment in Iraq’s future security and, as the successful defeat-ISIS operations have shown, is also an investment in global security, Veale said.

“We look forward to continuing the successes of this partnership,” he added.

“Our mission remains unchanged: to defeat ISIS in designated parts of Iraq and Syria, and to help set conditions for follow-on operations to increase regional stability,” the spokesman said.

“We, the military arm of the global coalition, work by, with and through our partners to achieve and help sustain security that enables stabilization activities,” he said. “Military action will only take us so far by providing a safer environment in which to work. We now encourage the international community to take advantage of the space, time and opportunities military successes have bought.”

Veale said the coalition and its partners have dealt severe blows to ISIS. However, he added, the enemy is adaptable and determined to rise again.

“There is no doubt momentum is on our side, but we’re facing a determined enemy and there is much work to do,” the spokesman said. “We’re grateful for the support of the global coalition of 71 nations and four international organizations, and we are ever mindful of the sacrifices our predecessors and our partners have made.”

South Africa’s Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says while public health care is distressed and facing hard times, the system is not on the brink of collapse.

“As far as we know, this healthcare system is still able to provide treatment to the largest number of HIV positive people globally. Our programme is the biggest in the world at 4.2 million people. In the next 24 months, we are poised to initiate an additional two million people on treatment,” Motsoaledi said at a briefing on the status of health care in South Africa.

Speaking from the Government Communications (GCIS) headquarters in Tshwane on Tuesday, the Minister said he was not aware of any scientific methods used to measure the veracity of the claims made about the breakdown of the health system.

“I am not here to challenge that because I do not know the yardstick that was used to arrive at a conclusion of collapse. Surely healthcare systems are measured on some form of scientific yardstick to arrive at any conclusion.”

Motsoaledi said that the country’s public health system is still able to treat all 300 000 patients who suffer from TB, noting that South Africa is the first country to get to scale in the use of TB diagnostic and early introduction of the latest medication for TB.

Due to the country’s interventions, South Africa has seen a drop in number of people dying from TB from 69 251 in 2009 to 33 063 in 2015.

The number of babies born HIV positive has also dropped from a total of 70 000 in 2004 to 4 500 currently.

The Minister said the public healthcare system is still able to take care of 1.06 million pregnant women out of 1.2 million pregnant women.

“To make sure that we are adequately taking care of them, we have them registered on a system called MomConnect, through which we communicate with them every single week. Cumulatively since August 2014, we had registered over two million pregnant women on this system.

“Out of this number, 1 620 lodged complaints about the healthcare system. But in the same period, a total of 15 440 sent us messages of compliments. This is unsolicited information. We do not then think that a collapsing or collapsed system is able to do this,” Motsoaledi said.

Overcrowding in public hospitals

The Minister admitted that his department is very worried about extreme overcrowding in public hospitals and that the situation “could have been much worse if we did not take proactive steps”.

“One of these steps was to decant patients away from the clinics and hospitals to take their medication at selected pick-up points. These are pick-up points selected by the patients themselves. We have 2.2 million people on this system called CCMDD (Central Chronic Medication Dispensing and Distribution). We are poised to load one million more people on this system during this financial year.”

He also disputed allegations that public health facilities have run out of medicines, saying drug stock outs in health facilities have long been resolved, with a new technology launched in 2014.

“In our clinics, we have the SVS (Stock Visibility System), which we launched with the Vodacom Foundation. We are able to monitor stocks in all our clinics straight from head office in Pretoria, and we do so every single week.

“On our hospital dashboard, we also average 88% for the highest provinces and 70% for the lowest provinces, which are Limpopo and North West.

Human resources battle

The Minister, however, said the country has a big human resources problem. He said sub-Saharan Africa carries 80% of all infectious diseases in the world but only has 3% of the health human resources.

“We are not exempted from that as South Africa. We are actually very badly affected. We have decided to enter the battle robustly,” the Minister said.

After placing the North West Health Department under Section 100 (1) (b), Motsoaledi said they have found huge vacancies, and this month they are going to fill 223 vacancies at the cost of R150 million.

In Gauteng, the Minister said a substantial number of vacant posts in health would be filled this year, especially in especially in the teaching hospitals.

Radiation oncology backlogs

Motsoaledi announced that the national department will help KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng with their radiation oncology backlogs in a programme to be launched early in August this year.

“Gauteng and KZN will get R100 million between them to deal with their backlogs.”

The Minister said as of Tuesday, 200 officials were deployed from head office to all provinces to go directly into hospitals and help with management. The officials include managers, doctors and nurses, amongst others.