White farmers in South Africa will have to pay back their loan for property that could be expropriated under the land reform proposal that is currently being pushed by the ruling African National Congress (ANC).

The controversial bill, allowing the government to confiscate lands from white farmers without compensation and redistribute them to the black citizens, is currently pending further study after the Portfolio Committee on Public Works withdrew the draft.

An email from Nedbank, which emerged on social media last week, made it clear that expropriation without compensation is not going to be deemed as a legitimate reason for borrowers to default on their payments. Nedbank is among the country’s ten largest lenders.

“It is important to note the Home Loan agreement is subject to a contractual agreement, and bond payments remain due and payable until such time that the bond is paid in full irrespective of any form of land expropriation – with or without compensation,” the email reads. “We would encourage you to continue with the bond payments until such time a determination is made.”

The bill, which evoked heated debate across the world and alleged violent attacks against white farmers, was approved by the ANC under President Cyril Ramaphosa in February. It was initially proposed in 2015 to alter the skewed property ownership patterns and to include the black majority into the developed sectors of the South African economy.

Agricultural banks have previously expressed concerns over the planned reform. They warn the proposed land reform creates considerable uncertainty for lenders, which are exposed to billions of rands worth of home and property loans. In the worst case scenario, banks would require government bailouts if landowners begin to default on loans. Nedbank is reportedly participating in the parliamentary debates, submitting its own proposals on land reform.

Downing Street dismissed a searing attack by Boris Johnson on Theresa May’s Brexit strategy – insisting he had ‘no new ideas’.

The PM’s spokesman hit out after the former foreign secretary jibed that she was flying the ‘white flag’ in the standoff with the EU.

Mr Johnson said the UK was ‘lying flat on the canvas’ in negotiations with Brussels, insisting Mrs May had ‘not even tried’ to play hardball.

The latest intervention heaped pressure on Mrs May over her blueprint – which would see the UK follow EU rules on goods and collect some taxes for the bloc in order to avoid friction at the borders.

But the premier’s spokesman shot back: ‘Boris Johnson resigned over Chequers. There are no new ideas in this article to respond to.

“What we need is serious leadership with a serious plan – that is exactly what this country has with this prime minister and this Brexit plan.”

The spat comes amid a rising onslaught from Tory Eurosceptics who are demanding the premier changes tack.

However, Mr Johnson was branded a ‘great charlatan’ by angry Conservative Remainers.

Mr Johnson, who resigned over the Chequers compromise along with former Brexit secretary David Davis, wrote in his Telegraph column that the negotiations were a ‘fix’ which could only lead to victory for Brussels.

The Tory heavyweight compared withdrawal negotiations between Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and the EU’s Michel Barnier to a rigged wrestling match.

He said: ‘Out of their corners come Dominic Raab and Michel Barnier, shrugging their shoulders and beating their chests – and I just hope you aren’t one of those trusting souls who still thinks it could really go either way.

‘The fix is in. The whole thing is about as pre-ordained as a bout between Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy; and in this case, I am afraid, the inevitable outcome is a victory for the EU, with the UK lying flat on the canvas and 12 stars circling symbolically over our semi-conscious head.’

Mr Johnson accused ‘some members’ of the Government of deliberately using the Irish border situation to ‘stop a proper Brexit’ and effectively keep Britain in the EU.

He said that the real ‘scandal’ was ‘not that we have failed, but that we have not even tried’ on Brexit.

The blistering intervention comes as Mrs May faces growing opposition on Tory benches to the Chequers Cabinet compromise on the Brexit strategy which triggered the resignation from the Government of Mr Johnson.

With Parliament returning from recess tomorrow, the PM is expected facing huge pressure to change course from Tory hardliners – amid claims that election strategist Sir Lynton Crosby is involved in a ‘chuck Chequers’ campaign.

Mr Barnier has stated he ‘strongly opposed’ the Chequers proposals because such ‘cherry-picking’ would mean the end of the European project if enacted

But Mr Johnson said Britain faced getting ‘two thirds of diddly squat’ for its divorce bill.

He said: ‘They may puff about ‘cherry-picking’ the single market. There may be some confected groaning and twanging of leotards when it comes to the discussion on free movement.

‘But the reality is that in this negotiation the EU has so far taken every important trick.

‘The UK has agreed to hand over £40 billion of taxpayers’ money for two thirds of diddly squat.

‘We will remain in the EU taxi; but this time locked in the boot, with absolutely no say on the destination. We won’t have taken back control – we will have lost control.’

The comments followed claims from former Brexit secretary David Davis that Mrs May had positioned herself for ‘open sesame’ on further Brexit climbdowns after saying she would not be pushed into compromises ‘that are not in our national interest’.

Mr Davis branded the Chequers blueprint as being ‘actually almost worse than being in’ the EU.

But he insisted today that Mrs May should not be forced to resign for putting forward ‘wrong’ proposals – and took an apparent swipe at Mr Johnson by criticising ‘personality’ politics.

Asked if Mrs May should resign, he said: ‘No, we don’t need any more turbulence right now. What matters in all of this is not the personality politics, it’s the outcome at the end.’

Home Secretary Sajid Javid also joined in the criticism.

He told a press conference in London: ‘The thing that is helpful is for us all to support the Prime Minister with her plan and make sure it is getting affair hearing with the EU.

‘And those who think there is a different way then they need to properly set out what alternatives there might be.

‘But right now this is a plan that has been put forward by the UK Government and it is still being considered by all the bits that make up the EU and let’s see what they say.

‘But that is the plan and that is the one that everyone should be uniting behind.’

Senior Tory backbencher Sarah Wollaston laid into Mr Johnson more bluntly on Twitter.

‘No surprise to see the great charlatan blaming others for a mess of his own creation.

Damian Green, a close ally of Mrs May and her former deputy, complained that Mr Johnson was not being ‘serious’.

‘I don’t think using words like surrender and so on is cogniscant of the seriousness of the situation.

‘These are hugely important months for the future of the country and its prosperity.’

He insisted Mrs May’s position was ‘difficult but not impossible’ .

‘We’re walking a narrow path with people chucking rocks at us from both sides,’ he said.

Mr Green said he believed the Chequers plan would end up winning support.

‘Everyone is going to have to face the fact that the British Government has got a plan… no-one else in the EU has suggested a plan that is in any way workable,’ he said.

One Tory Remainer told The Times they were being privately assured that the Chequers plan would be softened further.

‘They are telling me, ‘We know this is difficult. We know we may have to move further.’

In another sign of Cabinet tensions yesterday, International Development Secretary Liam Fox took a swipe at the Treasury over gloomy predictions on the consequences of a no-deal scenario.

Dr Fox told the BBC: ‘Can you think back in all your time in politics where the Treasury have made predictions that were correct 15 years out, I can’t, they didn’t predict the financial crisis that happened, no-one could.

‘So this idea that we can predict what our borrowing would be 15 years in advance is just a bit hard to swallow.

‘To say what a GDP figure would be 15 years ahead is not a predictive power that I’ve known the Treasury to have in my time in politics … I don’t believe it is possible to have a 15-year time horizon on predictions on GDP.’

Conservative rebels including Iain Duncan Smith and Priti Patel have joined a backbench campaign to wreck Theresa May’s Brexit plans, it has emerged.

The Stand Up 4 Brexit group has apparently recruited around 20 Tory MPs including the ex-Cabinet ministers in an effort to sink the PM’s Chequers compromise.

Mrs May’s limited control of the House of Commons means even a small rebellion from her own backbenchers could prompt a government defeat.

Stand Up 4 Brexit’s aims include the end of free movement and opposing plans to keep Britain aligned with EU standards on goods, The Times reported.

David Davis, who resigned as Brexit secretary over the Chequers plan, also vowed to vote against Mrs May’s proposals.

The PM’s plans were ‘actually almost worse than being in’, he said.

However Mr Davis said he did not believe a change of party leader was needed, following claims that election strategist Lynton Crosby was planning to install Boris Johnson in Downing Street instead.

He said: ‘It is absolutely possible to dump Chequers without changing leader and that’s the best way to do it.

‘Anyone who conflates getting rid of Chequers with changing the leadership is confusing their aims’.

Original source

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in Damascus for an official visit, held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

During the Monday talks, the two sides underlined the need for Iran and Syria to develop mutual cooperation in various fields, particularly in economy, in the aftermath of the resistances victory over terrorism.

They also emphasized the active participation of Iranian companies in the reconstruction of the war-torn state.

The two officials further exchanged views on the most important issues of bilateral and regional ties, the need for the return of displaced people, and other topics of mutual interest.

Zarif travelled to Damascus on Monday morning with a diplomatic delegation, a week after the Iranian defense minister travelled to the Arab country amid the Syrian army’s preparation for attacking Idlib, the last stronghold of terrorists in the north.

Meanwhile, Tehran will on Friday host a summit of the Iranian, Russia and Turkish presidents following several meetings between the three countries’ foreign ministers.

Iran, Russia and Turkey are known as the three guarantors of a ceasefire in Syria’s de-escalation zones.

Since the outbreak of war and foreign militancy in Syria in 2011, Iran has stood by the Syrian government and supported its people against terrorist groups, including Daesh (ISIL).

In recent months, the Syrian army has managed to liberate many of the areas occupied by terrorists and is preparing to launch an attack to recapture the northern city of Idlib.

Social media networks, which often foster partisan antagonism, may also offer a solution to reducing political polarization, according to new findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from a team led by University of Pennsylvania sociologist Damon Centola.

The Penn researchers asked 2,400 Republicans and Democrats to interpret recent climate-change data on Arctic sea-ice levels. Initially, nearly 40 percent of Republicans incorrectly interpreted the data, saying that Arctic sea-ice levels were increasing; 26 percent of Democrats made the same mistake. However, after participants interacted in anonymous social media networks–sharing opinions about the data and its meaning for future levels of Artic sea ice–88 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of Democrats correctly analyzed it, agreeing that sea-ice levels were dropping.

Republicans and Democrats who were not permitted to interact with each other in social media networks but instead had several additional minutes to reflect on the climate data before updating their responses remained highly polarized and offered significantly less accurate forecasts.

“New scientific information does not change people’s minds. They can always interpret it to match their beliefs,” says Centola, director of Penn’s Network Dynamics Group and author of the new book “How Behavior Spreads.” “But, if you allow people to interact with each other in egalitarian social networks, in which no individual is more powerful than another, we find remarkably strong effects of bipartisan social learning on eliminating polarization.”

To test this notion for politically charged topics like climate change, Centola, along with Penn doctoral student Douglas Guilbeault and recent Penn Ph.D. graduate Joshua Becker, constructed an experimental social media platform, which they used to test how different kinds of social media environments would affect political polarization and group accuracy.

Their study was motivated by NASA’s 2013 release of new data detailing historical trends in monthly levels of Arctic sea ice. “NASA found, to its dismay, that a lot of people were misinterpreting the graph to say that there would actually be more Arctic sea ice in the future rather than less,” Guilbeault explains. “Conservatives in particular were susceptible to this misinterpretation.”

The researchers wondered how social media networks might alter this outcome, so they randomly assigned participants to one of three experimental groups: a political-identity setup, which revealed the political affiliation of each person’s social media contacts; a political-symbols setup, in which people interacted anonymously through social networks but with party symbols of the donkey and the elephant displayed at the bottom of their screens; and a non-political setup, in which people interacted anonymously. Twenty Republicans and 20 Democrats made up each social network.

Once randomized, every individual then viewed the NASA graph and forecasted Arctic sea-ice levels for the year 2025. They first answered independently, and then viewed peers’ answers before revising their guesses twice more. The study outcomes surprised the researchers in several respects.

“We all expected polarization when Republicans and Democrats were isolated,” says Centola, who is also an associate professor in Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, “but we were amazed to see how dramatically bipartisan networks could improve participants’ judgments.” In the non-political setup, for example, polarization disappeared entirely, with more than 85 percent of participants agreeing on a future decrease in Arctic sea ice.

“But,” Centola adds, “the biggest surprise–and perhaps our biggest lesson–came from how fragile it all was. The improvements vanished completely with the mere suggestion of political party. All we did was put a picture of an elephant and a donkey at the bottom of a screen, and all the social learning effects disappeared. Participants’ inaccurate beliefs and high levels of polarization remained.”

That last finding reveals that even inconspicuous elements of a social media environment or of a media broadcast can hinder bipartisan communications. “Simple ways of framing a political conversation, like incorporating political iconography, can significantly increase the likelihood of polarization,” Guilbeault says.

Instead, Centola says, put people into situations that remove the political backdrop. “Most of us are biased in one way or another. It’s often unavoidable. But, if you eliminate the symbols that drive people into their political camps and let them talk to each other, people have a natural instinct to learn from one another. And that can go a long way toward lessening partisan conflict.”

American workers’ occupational status reflects that of their parents more than previously known, reaffirming more starkly that the lack of mobility in the United States is in large part due to the occupation of our parents, finds a new study by New York University’s Michael Hout.

“A lot of Americans think the U.S. has more social mobility than other western industrialized countries,” explains Hout, a sociology professor. “This makes it abundantly clear that we have less.”

Previous research had used occupation metrics that relied on averages to gauge social status across generations. This dynamic, also called “intergenerational persistence,” is the degree to which one generation’s success depends on their parents’ resources.

While these studies showed a strong association between parental occupation and intergenerational persistence, they understated the significance of parents’ jobs on the status of their children.

The new findings, which appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal a more powerful link as they rely on data that use medians, or middle points, as opposed to average socioeconomic status, in gauging occupations.

The findings, which take into account pay and education of those in a given occupation, are based on General Social Survey (GSS) data from 1994 through 2016.

To measure occupation, GSS interviewers asked respondents for detailed descriptions of their current occupation, their father’s occupation when they were growing up, and (since 1994) their mother’s occupation while they were growing up. Their replies were coded to 539 occupational categories, following protocols established by the U.S. Census Bureau, and then given a socioeconomic score ranging from 9 (shoe shiner) to 53 (flight attendant) to 93 (surgeon).

“The underlying idea is that some occupations are desirable and others less so,” explains Hout.

Notably, the study shows that the sons and daughters of high-status parents have more advantages in the labor force than earlier estimates suggested.

For example, half the sons and daughters whose parents were in the top tier of occupations now work in occupations that score 76 or higher (on a 100-point scale) while half the sons and daughters of parents from the bottom tier now work in occupations that score 28 or less on that scale.

Hout notes that earlier measures–tracking averages instead of medians–would underestimate that range and show less stark distinctions between the top and bottom tiers of occupation status.

Specifically, in the above instance, using averages would show half the sons and daughters whose parents were in the top tier of occupations work in occupations that score only 72 or higher while half the sons and daughters of parents from the bottom tier work in occupations that score up to 33 or less.

“Your circumstances at birth–specifically, what your parents do for a living–are an even bigger factor in how far you get in life than we had previously realized,” observes Hout. “Generations of Americans considered the United States to be a land of opportunity. This research raises some sobering questions about that image.”

The quest to find new ways to harness solar power has taken a step forward after researchers successfully split water into hydrogen and oxygen by altering the photosynthetic machinery in plants.

Photosynthesis is the process plants use to convert sunlight into energy. Oxygen is produced as by-product of photosynthesis when the water absorbed by plants is ‘split’. It is one of the most important reactions on the planet because it is the source of nearly all of the world’s oxygen. Hydrogen which is produced when the water is split could potentially be a green and unlimited source of renewable energy.

A new study, led by academics at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, used semi-artificial photosynthesis to explore new ways to produce and store solar energy. They used natural sunlight to convert water into hydrogen and oxygen using a mixture of biological components and manmade technologies.

The research could now be used to revolutionise the systems used for renewable energy production. A new paper, published in Nature Energy, outlines how academics at the Reisner Laboratory in Cambridge developed their platform to achieve unassisted solar-driven water-splitting.

Their method also managed to absorb more solar light than natural photosynthesis.

Katarzyna Sokó, first author and PhD student at St John’s College, said: “Natural photosynthesis is not efficient because it has evolved merely to survive so it makes the bare minimum amount of energy needed – around 1-2 per cent of what it could potentially convert and store.”

Artificial photosynthesis has been around for decades but it has not yet been successfully used to create renewable energy because it relies on the use of catalysts, which are often expensive and toxic. This means it can’t yet be used to scale up findings to an industrial level.

The Cambridge research is part of the emerging field of semi-artificial photosynthesis which aims to overcome the limitations of fully artificial photosynthesis by using enzymes to create the desired reaction.

Sokó and the team of researchers not only improved on the amount of energy produced and stored, they managed to reactivate a process in the algae that has been dormant for millennia.

She explained: “Hydrogenase is an enzyme present in algae that is capable of reducing protons into hydrogen. During evolution this process has been deactivated because it wasn’t necessary for survival but we successfully managed to bypass the inactivity to achieve the reaction we wanted – splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.”

Sokó hopes the findings will enable new innovative model systems for solar energy conversion to be developed.

She added: “It’s exciting that we can selectively choose the processes we want, and achieve the reaction we want which is inaccessible in nature. This could be a great platform for developing solar technologies. The approach could be used to couple other reactions together to see what can be done, learn from these reactions and then build synthetic, more robust pieces of solar energy technology.”

This model is the first to successfully use hydrogenase and photosystem II to create semi-artificial photosynthesis driven purely by solar power.

Dr Erwin Reisner, Head of the Reisner Laboratory, a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and one of the paper’s authors described the research as a ‘milestone’.

He explained: “”This work overcomes many difficult challenges associated with the integration of biological and organic components into inorganic materials for the assembly of semi-artificial devices and opens up a toolbox for developing future systems for solar energy conversion.”

The leatherback sea turtle is the largest living turtle and a critically endangered species. Saving leatherback turtles from extinction in the Pacific Ocean will require a lot of international cooperation, however, because the massive turtles may visit more than 30 different countries during their migrations.

A new study uses tracking data for 14 species of migratory marine predators, from leatherback turtles to blue whales and white sharks, to show how their movements relate to the geopolitical boundaries of the Pacific Ocean. The results provide critical information for designing international cooperative agreements needed to manage these species.

“If a species spends most of its time in the jurisdiction of one or two countries, conservation and management is a much easier issue than it is for species that migrate through many different countries,” said Daniel Costa, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and a coauthor of the study, published September 3 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

“For these highly migratory species, we wanted to know how many jurisdictional regions they go through and how much time they spend in the open ocean beyond the jurisdiction of any one country,” Costa said.

Under international law, every coastal nation can establish an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extending up to 200 nautical miles from shore, giving it exclusive rights to exploit resources and regulate fisheries within that zone. The high seas beyond the EEZs are a global commons and are among the least protected areas on Earth. Discussions have been under way at the United Nations since 2016 to negotiate a global treaty for conservation and management of the high seas.

First author Autumn-Lynn Harrison, now at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C., began the study as a graduate student in Costa’s lab at UC Santa Cruz. Costa is a cofounder, with coauthor Barbara Block of Stanford University, of the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) program, which began tracking the movements of top ocean predators throughout the Pacific Ocean in 2000. Harrison wanted to use the TOPP data to address conservation issues, and as she looked at the data she began wondering how many countries the animals migrate through.

“I wanted to see if we could predict when during the year a species would be in the waters of a particular country,” Harrison said. “Some of these animals are mostly hidden beneath the sea, so being able to show with tracking data which countries they are in can help us understand who should be cooperating to manage these species.”

Harrison also began attending meetings on issues related to the high seas, which focused her attention on the time migratory species spend in these relatively unregulated waters. “Figuring out how much time these animals spend in the high seas was directly motivated by questions I was being asked by policy makers who are interested in high seas conservation,” she said.

The TOPP data set, part of the global Census of Marine Life, is one of the most extensive data sets available on the movements of large marine animals. Many of the top predators in the oceans are declining or threatened, partly because their mobility exposes them to a wide array of threats in different parts of the ocean.

Leatherback turtle populations in the Pacific could face a 96 percent decline by 2040, according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and leatherbacks are a priority species for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Laysan and black-footed albatrosses, both listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List, spend most of their time on the high seas, where they are vulnerable to being inadvertently caught on long lines during commercial fishing operations.

White sharks are protected in U.S. and Mexican waters, but the TOPP data show that they spend about 60 percent of their time in the high seas. Pacific bluefin tuna, leatherback turtles, Laysan albatross, and sooty shearwaters all travel across the Pacific Ocean during their migrations.

“Bluefin tuna breed in the western North Pacific, then cross the Pacific Ocean to feed in the California Current off the United States and Mexico,” Costa said. “Sooty shearwaters not only cross the open ocean, they use the entire Pacific Ocean from north to south and go through the jurisdictions of more than 30 different countries.”

International cooperation has led to agreements for managing some of these migratory species, in some cases through regional fisheries management organizations. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), for example, oversees conservation and management of tunas and other marine resources in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The first session of a U.N. Intergovernmental Conference to negotiate an international agreement on the conservation of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction will be held in September. Harrison said she has already been asked to provide preprints and figures from the paper for this session.

“These migratory species are a shared heritage, and this paper shows their international travels better than ever before,” Harrison said. “The first step to protect them is knowing where they are over their annual cycle and promoting international agreements to manage the threats they may face across several countries.”

(RFE/RL) — The Iranian currency has hit another record low against the dollar on the unofficial market amid continued economic difficulties following the reimposition of nuclear sanctions by the United States, reports say.

The rial has lost around 15 percent of its value on the open market in the past three days, trading at 128,500 to $1 by late September 3, according to Bonbast.com, which tracks Iran’s rates.

A dramatic decline of the rial, which has lost 70 percent of its value in the past year, combined with rising prices and economic hardship, have triggered protests across the country in recent weeks.

The new drop comes after Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati on September 1 announced tighter restrictions on allocating foreign exchange reserves, according to financial journalist Maziar Motamedi.

“Hemmati said that he wishes to be much more careful in allocating foreign currencies at government rates, signaling a potential forthcoming shortage of hard currency,” Motamedi told the AFP news agency.

The fall of the rial is primarily due to the country’s weak economy and heavy demand for dollars among Iranians, who fear Washington’s pullout from the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers in May and reinstated U.S. sanctions could shrink Iran’s exports.

Last month, the United States started reimposing U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the nuclear accord in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program.

A second round of penalties targeting Iran’s crude exports is due to come into effect in early November.

Amid mounting discontentment toward President Hassan Rohani’s government over a deterioration in the country’s economic situation, Iranian lawmakers last week sacked the minister of economic affairs and finance, the latest in a continuing shake-up of top economic personnel in the country.

By Suadad Al-Salhy

Iraq’s parliament held its first session on Monday since May elections but failed to elect a speaker as the two main rival blocs both insisted they had the largest number of seats to form a coalition government.

Muqtada Al-Sadr, one of the most influential Iraqi clerics, whose Sairoon Alliance came first in the elections, said on Sunday he had secured 188 members for his coalition.

A few hours later, Al-Sadr’s arch rival, the former Iraqi prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki, and the head of an alliance of pro-Iranian parties, Hadi Al-Amiri, claimed they had managed to pull together a 145-seat coalition.

Representatives from either side both requested to register their coalitions as the triumphant alliance.

The biggest bloc has the exclusive right to form a government.

The race to form the biggest alliance has been ongoing since the preliminary results of the election.

The first session of parliament was attended by the 297 newly-elected MPs, who swore the constitutional oath.

Shortly after, MPs loyal to Al-Amiri and Al-Maliki, as well as Kurdish MPs, pulled out of the session to block the quorum required to register the largest bloc.

Jamal Al-Assadi, a government legal expert, told Arab News that the two sides were disputing the technicalities of how they managed to secure their coalitions.

“Al-Sadr’s team said that the signature of the heads of parties are enough to make the alliance and form the biggest bloc while Al-Maliki and Al-Amiri’s team insist on having the signature of each member,” he said.

“The law says clearly that the signature of the heads of blocs are required to form the biggest bloc, but our guys have already ignored this in 2010 and 2014 and adopted the signatures of each of the deputies.”

MP Mohammed Zainni, who presided over the session, was forced to ask for the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq to decide which of the two blocs will be declared the biggest. The session was suspended until the Federal Court responds.

The negotiations over the past three months have been framed by tensions between Iran and the US. Iraq has been one of the main battle grounds for the two countries since the US invasion in 2003.

The two rival attempts to build a coalition are divided along these lines.

On the one side, Al-Fattah and State of law are entirely backed by Iran. Al-Fattah became the political umbrella for several prominent Shiite armed factions including Badr organization and Assaib Ahl Al-Haq.

On the other side is Sairoon and Al-Nassir, which are supported by the United States. Al-Nassir is led by outgoing Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, who is jostling for a second term. Sairoon is the political party of the Battalion of Peace, Al-Sadr’s armed wing.

“The problem is that both coalitions incude armed factions, which are capable of destabilizing the situation in minutes,” a prominent Shiite leader told Arab News.

“These factions do not believe in peaceful or democratic rivalry and only know the language of arms to resolve their differences.

“We suggest to impose a curfew in Baghdad until this issue is resolved but the Minister of Interior said that everything is under control.”

By JD Flynn

On its face, the arc of Archbishop Viganò’s story is straightforward.

In a testimony released Aug. 25, Archbishop Carlo Viganò wrote that in 2006, he sent a memo to his Vatican superiors, which said that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had a history of sexual misconduct with seminarians and priests and that an example should be made of him for the good of the Church.

Viganò claimed that his memo was ignored, and so he sent a second one in 2008. That one, he said, had its desired effect. His testimony said he was told that Pope Benedict XVI imposed “canonical sanctions” on McCarrick in 2009 or 2010, forbidding him from living in a seminary, celebrating sacraments publicly, and from making other kinds of public appearances.

Finally, Viganò alleged that Pope Francis knowingly ignored Benedict’s sanctions on McCarrick, and made the cardinal one of his closest advisors. For that, Viganò said, Pope Francis should resign.

The story is simple, but the the fallout from the Viganò testimony has become quite complex.

In the week since the testimony was released, Viganò detractors have pointed out that the nuncio may himself have shut down an investigation into the former Archbishop of Saint Paul-Minneapolis, that he had axes to grind with several of the people he implicated in the memo, and that he may have dishonestly misrepresented some family obligations at the time he was appointed apostolic nuncio to the United States.

At the same time, facts have emerged that seem to corroborate some parts of Viganò’s account, and affirm the credibility of his subsequent press statements.

Two sources told CNA last week that they were witnesses to a 2008 meeting in which Viganò’s predecessor, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, told McCarrick to move out of the seminary where he’d been living. An auxiliary bishop in Minneapolis, Andrew Cozzens, released a statement Friday that seemed to corroborate Viganò’s account of the Nienstedt investigation. Sources told CNA yesterday that they could confirm a meeting Viganò claimed to have had with Pope Francis in 2015. And several American bishops have spoken out to say that they believe Viganò to be a man of integrity, encouraging that his allegations be thoroughly investigated.

The most serious complicating factor came in an Aug. 31 report from the National Catholic Register’s Edward Pentin. While Viganò has claimed that Benedict imposed “canonical sanctions” on McCarrick, Pentin reported a source close to Benedict telling him that, as far as the former pope could remember, “the instruction was essentially that McCarrick should keep a ‘low profile.’ There was ‘no formal decree, just a private request.’”

Pentin, who broke the story of Viganò’s testimonial, had reported in his initial coverage of the memo that a source told him the former pope remembered issuing restrictions of some kind, but could not remember exactly how the matter was handled. His Aug. 31 report elaborated, with a source saying that McCarrick might have been the recipient of a “private request.”

There is a great deal of distance between what Viganò claimed- that Benedict imposed “canonical sanctions”- and what Pentin’s source revealed- that the restrictions might have come through no more than a “private request.”

—
For some commentators, Pentin’s report seems to discredit Viganò’s entire testimonial. “Private requests” are not “canonical sanctions,” they argue, and therefore Viganò has been untruthful about the central argument of his memo.

Those commentators have a point, in part: private requests are not canonical sanctions. Viganò, who has a doctorate in canon law and a lifetime of ecclesiastical service, should know the difference. Misrepresenting a “private request” that a cardinal keep a low profile as “canonical sanctions” seems very obviously to be a grave defect in Viganò’s report.

Of course, it is possible, though unlikely, that Viganò directly and intentionally misrepresented Pope Benedict’s actions. This seems unlikely because the archbishop has called consistently for a release of files and documents; if he believed those documents would prove him wrong, he would not likely be calling for them.

It is also possible that the archbishop wasn’t certain exactly what happened, and that he overcommitted to what he did know by claiming to have “certainty” Benedict had imposed canonical sanctions. This seems a likely scenario, given that Viganò’s entire testimony has a certain dramatic flair.

But there are a few other factors worth at least considering in a responsible assessment of the situation.

The first is the effect of a game of ecclesiastical telephone.

Viganò has not claimed that he saw written letters or decrees enacting restrictions. Instead, his testimony says he was informed by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re that Benedict imposed the sanctions on McCarrick. Pentin’s initial reporting says that Benedict instructed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to handle the matter. This means that by the time Viganò heard about whatever happened, the story had gone through at least Bertone and Re, and it’s possible the story had even more intermediaries before it landed on Viganò’s desk.

The Vatican has a penchant for gossip, and many of its officials have a marked zeal for hyperbole. Anyone who knows the Vatican well can imagine how a “private request” made by Benedict could become “canonical sanctions” by the time the story reached Viganò.

The second possible factor is the generally loose relationship many bishops, of all theological perspectives, have with the nuances and finer points of canon law.

The frequency with which some bishops misuse or fail to use canon law as it’s written was on full display in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, which depicted countless instances in which bishops failed to follow the procedures required of them by Church law. Many commentators have argued, for years in some cases, that if bishops in the United States had followed canon law exactingly in recent decades, they might have stopped the most egregious stories in the grand jury report even before they happened.

But if bishops have misused or failed to use the processes outlined in canon law with regularity, they even more frequently misuse canonical terms.

Every canon lawyer can tell stories about bishops who say that they have “suspended” a priest- a formal action that can be undertaken only as the result of a penal process- when they mean simply that they have temporarily benched him, sometimes without paperwork.

Similarly, the word Viganò used -“sanction”- is understood almost exclusively by canonists to mean a technically imposed penalty following an established process. But it is the kind of word that is often used loosely by hierarchs, in reference to any number of on or off-book disciplinary measures.

It is quite possible that Viganò has not grasped some of the implied distinctions contained in the phrase he chose, and includes in his definition of the term “sanctions” less formal verbal instructions.

Whatever the backstory, it seems absolutely clear that when Viganò used the term “canonical sanctions” he was not referring to a technical penalty imposed after a penal process. If McCarrick had undergone a formal penal process-a trial- the entire Church would know about it.

It seems clear to most commentators that Viganò should have used a less technically loaded term. By failing to be clear about what he meant, he’s opened the door for criticism, and those who take issue with the substance of his letter have marched through that door with indignation.

But none of that changes the big-picture allegations of Viganò’s memo: that after receiving multiple reports, Benedict took some action against McCarrick, and that action was later reversed or rescinded.

In the past week, several sources, speaking to different media outlets, have provided evidence that Benedict did make some kind of response to reports he received about McCarrick’s sexual misconduct. While it seems highly unlikely that response was technically a “sanction” in the formal sense, it also seems increasingly apparent that Benedict did give some kind of restrictive instruction to McCarrick.

Viganò says he might have received a memo about Benedict’s restrictions in 2011, and that if so, it would be found in the archives of the U.S. nunciature or the Congregation for Bishops. That would likely shed some clarity on the matter. It remains to be seen whether the Holy See will review those archives and release pertinent documents, but few journalists expect documentary clarity to be forthcoming from the Vatican.

It seems unlikely that semantic disagreements about Viganò’s claims will lead Catholics to dismiss entirely the questions he has raised, implicitly and explicitly, about whether, and by whom, McCarrick’s situation was inadequately addressed or simply papered over.

Those are the precisely the questions for which Catholics have been seeking answers.

—
Many Catholics have asked this week why, if Benedict did respond in some way to the Viganò memos, he didn’t respond in a stronger fashion.

Benedict is well known to have a record of active intolerance for sexual misconduct in the Church. During his tenure leading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he led a charge to develop more stringent processes and penalties for clerics accused and convicted of abuse. He is known to have referred to sexually abusive priests as a “filth” in the Church.

Viganò says he reported that McCarrick had sexually coerced young priests and seminarians, publicly embarrassed at least one who would not acquiesce to his demands, and possibly committed related canonical crimes of sacrilege. Many Catholics assume that such a report would have caused Benedict to issue an immediate, public, and serious set of penalties. Taking a soft approach on McCarrick seems incongruous with his record.

The National Catholic Register reported last week week a source telling them that “as well as being very active, the media and public opinion didn’t speak any more about McCarrick, and sometimes it’s better if something is sleeping to let it sleep.” To many Catholics, such reasoning is unacceptable, and to many close observers, it doesn’t sound quite like Benedict.

Viganò’s report alleged that some of Benedict’s most powerful advisors shielded McCarrick from the pope. True or not, the allegation merits investigation as the former pope’s action- or inaction- is reviewed and evaluated. So does Benedict’s reputation for being non-confrontational as a manager, even to a fault.

Catholics have also asked why Francis, if he knew that McCarrick was reportedly sexually engaged with seminarians for decades, would make a him an important advisor and emissary.

To understand and assess the responses of Benedict and Francis to allegations about McCarrick, it is important to understand the canonical context in which those allegations were made.

Since 2002, all bishops in the United States have known exactly how to address an allegation that a cleric sexually abused a child. The procedure is uniform and clear, and bishops seem to understand the importance of following it precisely and promptly. But the manner in which allegations of sexual misconduct with adults are handled looks nothing like those clear procedures.

Church law does not expressly establish that sex between a cleric and an adult is a canonical crime. As a consequence, bishops everywhere find themselves vexed, and frequently, about how exactly they should handle allegations of clerical sexual misconduct involving adults- even in cases like McCarrick’s, where coercion is an operative factor.

Bishops often send priests accused of sexual misconduct involving adults to inpatient therapy, and it has become typical for bishops to unofficially and temporarily sideline priests who engage in sexual dalliances with adults, usually until the bishop is convinced that the priest has addressed whatever issues are believed to have contributed to his misconduct. But there is almost never a canonical process involved in such cases, and, at the moment, there is not even an obvious canonical crime with which such priests could be charged.

Those practices might help to explain why Benedict didn’t act more publicly or directly on McCarrick. They might also explain, at least in part, why Francis was apparently able to be convinced that McCarrick had been reformed, and that he could be brought into the pontiff’s inner orbit.

That context is not offered as an excuse; most commentators on the matter argue compellingly that, whatever the context, both popes should have understood the seriousness of the situation. But it is possible that one or both of them did not, which is the reason why an investigation into all available records and testimonies would be of great help to the Church.

In the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, and the McCarrick revelations, it is now becoming clear to bishops and other Church leaders that priests and bishops are almost always in unbalanced relationship of power with other Catholics and so clerical sexual misconduct with adults should never be presumed to be consensual, as it often has been presumed to be in the past. And it is becoming especially clear to bishops that when the sexual partners of clerics are seminarians, “consent” is really not an operative or relevant principle.

As a result of what’s happened, some bishops are now beginning to understand that they need the same kinds of clear procedures for handling misconduct involving adults that they have for handling allegations involving children. The specifics might be different, but the importance of developing some kind of clearly delineated protocol is becoming obvious, mostly so that bishops can be nearly conditioned to handle them in appropriate manner each time they arise.

There remain Catholics who defend Benedict or Francis by arguing that since sexual misconduct with adults is not canonically prohibited, bishops and popes are free to handle those matters as they wish. While that argument is technically correct, it is obvious that most Catholics expect bishops and popes to enact severe punitive measures for any kind of sexually coercive activities involving clerics and other adults. The U.S. bishops’ conference has the opportunity to lead on this matter at its November meeting, since it is unlikely anything will come from the Vatican on the matter before that.

In fact, several sources tell CNA that the most likely long-term outcome of this summer of scandal is a universalized protocol for handling allegations of clerical sexual misconduct or abuse involving adults.

—
A review of the responses from Benedict and Francis to allegations about McCarrick seems to be a reasonable response to the Viganò testimonial.

Viganò says that he warned Francis about McCarrick, informing him that Benedict had restricted his ministry, but he claims the pope ignored those warnings and drew McCarrick into his inner circle, allowing him to influence key episcopal appointments in the United States. Journalist David Gibson in 2014 wrote about McCarrick’s restored place of importance in the Francis pontificate, and Rocco Palmo wrote in 2017, before McCarrick allegations became public, that the cardinal had been influential in at least one major U.S. episcopal appointment.

If Francis did knowingly place into a position of influence a cardinal who was alleged to have sexually abused priests and seminarians, the Church should know about it, and know who helped to influence that decision. It seems immaterial to Francis’ position whether Benedict imposed formal sanctions on McCarrick, made a “private request,” or something happened in between. No pope is bound by the administrative decisions of his predecessor, and, as with Benedict, a full review of Francis’ response to the allegations against McCarrick seems appropriate.

Viganò alleges that a number of documents related to these questions can be found in several different Vatican archives. Some journalists, including CNA’s reporters, have begun requesting those documents. But again, it remains to be seen whether they’ll be made available.

—

The big-picture of Viganò’s memo is that Benedict, Francis, and other Vatican officials may have mishandled allegations raised to them about McCarrick. That big-picture is not changed if Viganò did not accurately convey Benedict’s actions on the matter.

There could be important lessons to be learned by a thorough review of Viganò’s claims, whatever the outcome. But, as a surprise to almost no one, the archbishop’s memo has mostly been reduced to a cudgel to be used in the ideological culture wars that divide U.S. Catholics. Viganò has been attacked relentlessly, and his credibility has been impugned far beyond those criticisms supported by evidence. Cardinals and bishops have called Viganò’s claims a distraction, and some prominent Catholics have openly called the former nuncio a liar.

Catholics of all theological perspectives could do justice for abuse victims through an unbiased investigation of facts. Viganò’s memo raises questions that, whatever the answers, seem to merit serious inquiries. It remains to be seen whether those opposing such an investigation, including some prominent bishops and cardinals, will relent, or at least better articulate their positions. It also remains to be seen whether Pope Francis will support such an investigation, making files available, and breaking his silence on Viganò’s story.

Ten years ago, there was panic in Washington, DC, New York City and financial centers around the world as the United States was in the midst of an economic collapse. The crash became the focus of the presidential campaign between Barack Obama and John McCain and was followed by protests that created a popular movement, which continues to this day.

Banks: Bailed Out; The People: Sold Out

On the campaign trail, in March 2008, Obama blamed mismanagement of the economy on both Democrats and Republicans for rewarding financial manipulation rather than economic productivity. He called for funds to protect homeowners from foreclosure and to stabilize local governments and urged a 21st Century regulation of the financial system. John McCain opposed federal intervention, saying the country should not bail out banks or homeowners who knowingly took financial risks.

By September 2008, McCain and Obama met with President George W. Bush and together they called for a $700 billion bailout of the banks, not the people. Obama and McCain issued a joint statement that called the bank bailout plan “flawed,” but said, “the effort to protect the American economy must not fail.” Obama expressed “outrage” at the “crisis,” which was “a direct result of the greed and irresponsibility that has dominated Washington and Wall Street for years.”

By October 2008, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), or bank bailout, had recapitalized the banks, the Treasury had stabilized money market mutual funds and the FDIC had guaranteed the bank debts. The Federal Reserve began flowing money to banks, which would ultimately total almost twice the $16 trillion claimed in a federal audit. Researchers at the University of Missouri found that the Federal Reserve gave over $29 trillion to the banks. These are historically these are signs of a coming recession.

This did not stop the loss of nine million jobs, more than four million foreclosures and the deep reduction in wealth among the poor, working and middle classes. A complete banking collapse was averted, but a deep recession for most people was not.

The New Yorker described the 2008 crash as years in the making, writing:

“…the crisis took years to emerge. It was caused by reckless lending practices, Wall Street greed, outright fraud, lax government oversight in the George W. Bush years, and deregulation of the financial sector in the Bill Clinton years. The deepest source, going back decades, was rising inequality. In good times and bad, no matter which party held power, the squeezed middle class sank ever further into debt.”

Before his inauguration, Obama proposed an economic stimulus plan, but, as Paul Krugman wrote, “Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis. The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat.”

In the end, the stimulus was even smaller than what Obama proposed. Economist Dean Baker explained that it may have created 2 million jobs, but we needed 12 million. It was $300 billion in 2009, about the same in 2010, and the remaining $100 billion followed over several years — too small to offset the $1.4 trillion in annual lost spending.

New York Magazine reports the stimulus was “a spending stimulus bigger, by some measures than the entire New Deal.” But unlike the New Deal, which benefited people at the bottom and built a foundation for a long-term economy, the bi-partisan post-2008 stimulus bailed out Wall Street and left Main Street behind.

Wall Street executives were not prosecuted even though the financial crisis was in large part caused by their fraud. Bankers were given fines costing dimes on the dollar without being required to admit guilt or having their cases referred for prosecution. The fines were paid by shareholders, not the perpetrators.

Still at Risk

Many of the root causes of the crisis remain today, making another economic downturn or collapse possible. The New Yorker reports that little has changed since 2008, with Wall Street banks returning to risky behavior and the inadequate regulation of Dodd-Frank being weakened. Big finance is more concentrated and dominant than it was before the crash. Inequality and debt have expanded, and despite the capital class getting wealthier in a record stock market with corporate profits soaring, real wages are stuck at pre-crisis levels.

People are economically insecure in the US and live with growing despair, as measured by reports on well-being. A May 2018 Federal Reserve report found almost 80 percent of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. The Federal Reserve reported in 2017 that “two in five Americans don’t have enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense.” Further, “more than one in five said they weren’t able to pay the current month’s bills in full, and more than one in four said they skipped necessary medical care last year because they couldn’t afford it.”  People have survived by going into debt, by the first quarter of this year, household debt was at an all-time high of $13.2 trillion.

Positive Money writes: “Ten years on, big banks are still behaving in reckless, unfair and neglectful ways. The structural problems with our money and banking system still haven’t been fixed. And many experts fear that if we don’t change things soon, we’re going to sleepwalk into another crash.”

William Cohen, a former mergers and acquisitions banker on Wall Street, writes that the fundamentals of US economy are still flawed. The Economist describes the current situation: “The patient is in remission, not cured.”

The Response Of the Popular Movement

Larry Eliott wrote in the Guardian, “Capitalism’s near-death experience with the banking crisis was a golden opportunity for progressives.” But the movement in the United States was not yet in a position to take advantage of it.

There were immediate protests. Democratic Party-aligned groups such as USAction, True Majority and others organized nationwide actions. Over 1,000 people demonstrated on Wall Street and phones in Congress were ringing wildly. While there was opposition to the bailout, there was a lack of national consensus over what to do.

Protests continued to grow. In late 2009, a “Move Your Money” campaign was started that urged people to take their money out of the big banks and put it in community banks and credit unions. The most visible anti-establishment rage in response to the bailout arose later in the Tea Party and Occupy movements. Both groups shared a consensus that we live in a rigged economy created by a corrupt political establishment. It was evident that the US is an oligarchy, which serves the interests of the wealthy while ignoring the necessities of the people.

The anti-establishment consensus continues to grow and showed itself in the 2016 presidential campaigns of Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. They were two sides of the same coin of populist anger that defeated Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. Across the political spectrum, there is a political crisis with both mainstream, Wall Street-funded political parties being unpopular but staying in power due to a calcified political system that protects the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans.

Preparing for the Next Collapse

For most of the past 25 years, the issue of saving the Aral Sea has dominated all discussions of water sharing and use in Central Asia. But now that the death of that sea has become irreversible, the leaders of that region are increasingly focusing on putting a market price on water so as to be able to share this resource without the conflicts of the past.

For both ideological reasons – Marxism-Leninism was opposed on the basis of the labor theory of value to putting a price on unprocessed natural resources – and practical ones – Moscow’s ability to play off the water surplus and water short republics in Central Asia was a foundation of Soviet power in that region.

But with the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of five new countries in the region, conflicts over water intensified with the water surplus countries of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan at odds with the water-short countries of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the absence of the arbitrating role that Moscow had played in the past.

These conflicts have intensified over this period as a result of growing shortages of water even in the water-surplus countries, growing water requirements for economic activity and population needs in the water-short countries, and the interest of outside third parties, first and foremost China, in gaining access to this resource.

However, these tensions were often subsumed under discussions about how to “save the Aral Sea,” a body of water that has lost more than 90 percent of its surface area and more than 97 percent of its volume in recent decades. Indeed, talk about water in Central Asia still takes place under this rubric.

Last week, the five presidents met in Turkmenbashi under the auspices of the International Foundation for Saving the Aral Sea. But as regional expert Zamir Karazhanov notes, this time the leaders talked less about saving the Aral than about how to share water (ritmeurasia.org/news–2018-09-02–voda-v-centralnoj-azii-priobretaet-rynochnuju-cennost-38312).

Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev renewed his 2003 proposal for the creation of an international water-energy consortium in Central Asia, an idea that attracted lots of interest 15 years ago but little action. And Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon called for setting a market price on water so it could be divided up on the basis of supply and demand.

The water-energy consortium could become the place where prices would be set, but it is far from clear, Karazhanov says, whether the upstream countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, would be willing to cede their sovereign power to the downstream ones which are overwhelmingly dependent on water from the two.

Turkmenistan currently gets more than 90 percent of its water from flows that originate beyond its borders; Uzbekistan, 77 percent; and Kazakhstan, more than 40 percent, the Central Asian commentator says. They will have an interest in low prices while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will want them as high as possible.

No specific decisions were taken at Turkmenbashi, Karazhanov says; but “the main thing is that the meeting took place.” There hadn’t been on at the presidential level on water issues since 2009; and there had never been one since 1991 where the main issue wasn’t “saving the Aral” but figuring out ways to share water, almost certainly by setting some price on it.

As China and the US pursue development of unmanned underwater drones, the Indian navy is also adjusting its strategy to include autonomous vehicles in its armoury against China’s growing undersea footprint in the Indian Ocean

By Abhijit Singh

Undersea warfare has come to the surface after the South China Morning Post reported on Beijing’s development of giant, smart, cheap unmanned submarines. The “sea bots”, operated by artificial intelligence, are intended to perform tasks as diverse as reconnaissance, mine placement and making self-destructive attacks. They are now undergoing testing at a facility in Guangdong province, and will be part of a network of manned and unmanned assets tracking rival submarines in the world’s oceans.

China isn’t alone in its quest for undersea dominance. Last year, the United States commissioned its first-ever squadron of unmanned underwater vehicles, or drones, and contracted top defence firms to produce a new generation of such machines. It aims to enhance its combat potential, including in anti-submarine, mine clearance and even counter-underwater drone operations.

Deep-sea drones are not exactly new, but have recently come to the fore as potential replacements for conventional submarines. Military experts say a technological revolution in undersea warfare is making the maritime environment increasingly transparent. Lower frequency active sonar and non-acoustic detection methods are making it hard for submarines to hide by keeping quiet.

To be sure, the consensus on unmanned vehicles isn’t universal. Traditionalists are sceptical of unmanned vehicles, which do not yet have combat capability. They say nuclear attack submarines and diesel-electric vessels remain indispensable in underwater warfare. Faster and quieter, the latest submarines have higher endurance, significant energy generation capacity and advanced sensors; they are more able to intervene decisively in contested waters.

Yet, for other navalists, conventional submarines are anachronisms. Given the development of undersea platforms to hunt down attack submarines, the idea of sending manned submarines into hostile spaces is woefully out of date, to say the least.

A better solution would be a manned mother submarine – think underwater aircraft carrier – that could deploy swarms of drones and keep uniformed personnel out of the theatre of active conflict. Deployed in large numbers, sea bots could overwhelm the enemy’s systems and sensors, and undermine the adversary’s submarines.

It’s not only powerful navies that are pursuing undersea automation. The Indian navy has embarked on a search for mini drones equipped with passive sonar devices. At the naval commanders’ conference this year, senior officials made a strong case for futuristic technologies, after which the navy began to procure “high endurance autonomous underwater vehicles” for anti-submarine and intelligence roles.

Apparently, the plan is to acquire the platform from a global supplier, then mass-produce the equipment locally as part of the “Make in India” programme.

The Indian navy admits its anti-submarine initiatives are driven by the need to counter the Chinese navy’s growing undersea footprint in the Indian Ocean. Naval planners in New Delhi worry that China’s submarine deployments in South Asia might erode India’s influence in the near seas.

But even something seemingly benign, like Chinese marine observatories in South Asia that ostensibly monitor the undersea environment, might presage a larger assault on Indian interests.

China’s plan to construct an “Underwater Great Wall” of seabed sensors only confirms India’s fears. The Chinese navy’s positioning of long-endurance drones, like the Qianlong III and Haiyan in the South China Sea, might be a precursor to the deployment of similar platforms in the eastern Indian Ocean.

More worrying is the absence of globally accepted norms for the use of unmanned vehicles in overlapping exclusive economic zones and contested waters, amply illustrated by China’s seizure of a US underwater drone in the South China Sea in December 2016.

Inevitably, Indian maritime strategy in the South Asian seas will require both manned and unmanned underwater assets. For future maritime operations, Indian planners will need to navigate between three competing imperatives: passive surveillance in regional seas, the use of unmanned vehicles to track and pursue potential targets, and active communication with the mothership. Only an optimised strategy can expand India’s reach in the region.

The success of India’s unmanned underwater vehicle programme will depend on effective management practices. While maritime planners are likely to focus on greater surveillance – how to generate and relay an accurate underwater picture of the commons – it is equally important to prevent an accidental disclosure of the location details of manned assets.

In particular, naval engineers need to ensure a surveillance drone doesn’t mistakenly illuminate the mothership, leaving it vulnerable to enemy strikes.

For New Delhi, procuring naval drones may also make economic sense. While development costs are high now, drones will eventually be cheaper to deploy and maintain than conventional submarines. With their ability to carry out complex missions with minimal investment, drones will be a game changer.

So it should only be a matter of time before unmanned undersea vehicles are added to the Indian navy’s array of assets to counter China’s encroachment on India’s strategic space in South Asia.

This article originally appeared in South China Morning Post.

In an effort to sustain economic growth, the Philippine government is turning to infrastructure development with its bold P9 trillion “Build, Build, Build” program. The buildup is expected to bolster job creation and address constraints in mobility and connectivity.

Gridlock in Metro Manila cost the capital region an estimated P3.5 billion in lost productivity per day in 2017, according to JICA. Congestion reduces quality of life by entrapping millions of residents in time-wasting black holes. In the countryside, the archipelagic nature of the country limits ground, sea, and air connectivity, costing missed economic opportunities to address poverty.

The outlook is promising. In what is a rare, opportune occasion in Philippine history, the massive undertaking of Build, Build, Build is being pursued when it’s needed most, and when the nation’s fiscal position is healthy enough to help support it.

The Philippines has recently embarked on two of its largest projects yet—a 38-kilometer stretch of train tracks and an overhaul of Manila’s Metro Rail 3. As with all projects, they are backed by a mix of tax revenues, sovereign bond issuances, official development assistance (ODA), foreign and domestic loans, and public-private partnerships (PPPs).

The government scored a critical victory when it enacted the first package of its landmark Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act this year in a bid to raise around P786 billion in additional revenues over five years, 70 percent of which will be allocated to infrastructure development. The Philippines also secured P389 million in credit and pledges from China and another P480 million from Japan.

To support the infrastructure agenda, other kinds of investments need to be considered. Beyond the money, some of the most important investments to be made now are soft ones to strengthen policies and institutions. As project pipelines and capital needs expand, the Philippines will increasingly require a more conducive environment to infrastructure investment from a very liquid private sector.

Broadly, this entails having a clear, long-term vision for infrastructure development and a cohesive plan with national and local stakeholders on board. For this plan to be effective, it needs to be binding—transcending the six-year term that a single administration holds, and carrying a nonpartisan, long-term mandate.

Second, an ideal implementation framework addresses investor concerns on transparency, investor asset ownership, right-of-way, and fairness. Predictability helps build investor confidence. This means that the enforcement of contracts awarded in transparent, competitive processes needs to be respected and protected from undue interference from any branch or level of government.

Investors also appreciate consistency and clarity of plans – both regarding the strategy for high-profile assets (e.g., the overall airport strategy for Metro Manila) and the method of implementing projects through competitive bidding, whether proposals are solicited or unsolicited, and whether they are from foreign contractors participating in an ODA project.

Encouraging competition and maintaining a level playing field will ensure the government gets the most bang for its buck, while potentially lowering user fees and improving the quality of services. It is therefore important to foster genuine competition within the private sector for infrastructure development.

Third, continue improving our procurement processes. Beyond standardizing contracts and permits, the key challenge is finding the right balance between the speed of implementation and maximizing value for money. For example, concerns regarding the glacial pace of project approval and cumbersome procurement steps under the PPP framework need to be addressed by reforming these very rules and processes, and not by totally abandoning the framework as a viable method of implementation.

Procurement laws are worth revisiting. The practice of doing preventive maintenance is painfully restrictive in the public sector, and so are rules mandating the purchase of the least-cost instead of the best-value products. Again, finding the balance between prudence and value in making infrastructure investments is key.

Fourth, private capital isn’t enough by itself. Private expertise and skills are critical to the delivery of better quality public goods and services. By enhancing PPP frameworks, for example, the country can better facilitate the transfer of private-sector expertise, management, and technology to the public sector.

Beyond training and exposure, exceptions to the Salary Standardization Law for highly technical positions in government should be explored, as it only makes sense to incentivize talent in the public sector commensurate with the private sector. With these exceptions, the ability of government agencies to package and execute big projects can be improved over time.

Fifth, look at financial tools to attract private-sector investment and participation in the infrastructure push. These can include providing better fiscal incentives such as government funding for canceled or delayed projects, as well as credit enhancements for the private-sector undertaking of development risks.

These are some of the initial insights the Milken Institute gathered from a workshop on infrastructure finance with stakeholders. The government is acting on initiatives that address them.

For the infrastructure program to succeed, the private sector and civil society need to collaborate on these opportunities in a proactive and constructive manner.

Hard and soft investments go hand in hand with building a path towards a golden age of infrastructure development. As the Philippines carries on with these ambitious plans, there is no better time to build, build, build better policy and stronger institutions than now.

*Cesar Purisima is an Asia Fellow at the Milken Institute. He previously served as the Philippines secretary of finance and secretary of trade and industry. Caitlin MacLean is the senior director of innovative finance at the Milken Institute.

Dug in for the long haul in its increasingly bitter dispute with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, Qatar is emerging as a key player in efforts to prevent tension between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, from spinning out of control.

Qatar’s increasing role counters Saudi and UAE efforts to shape Palestinian politics in their mould. It further underlines the two Gulf states’ 15-month old failed effort to force Qatar to bow to their will by imposing a diplomatic and economic boycott.

The Qatari role takes on added significance in the wake of the Trump administration’s cancellation of all funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and a US-Israeli effort to terminate the UN body’s mandate and rejigger the definition of a Palestinian refugee in a bid to restrict Palestinian rights.

The Qatari role is also likely to be a litmus test of the willingness of Gulf states to support US-Israeli policy with the Trump administration asserting that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern and European states would only be allowed to fund UNWRA for the time being.

Israeli media reports said the Trump administration was insisting that funders ultimately would have to align themselves with the US goal of closing down the agency and redefining who is a Palestinian refugee.

The redefinition would exclude the descendants of Palestinians originally displaced in 1948 and reduce the number of recognized refugees from five million to an estimated 500,000. It would undercut long-standing Palestinian insistence on the right of return of the 1948 refugees and their descendants – a demand viewed by Israel as an assault on its existence as a Jewish state and an undermining of its claim to the right of the land.

It remains unclear whether any of the multiple countries stepping in to compensate for the US shortfall are willing to accept US conditions.

But in a possible indication of a shifting playing field, Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appeared to move away from his insistence on the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel by saying that he would entertain a US suggestion for a confederation of Israel, Palestine and Jordan.

Mr. Abbas said he had said as much when asked by US Middle East peace negotiators Jared Kushner, a senior advisor to President Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, and Jason Greenblatt whether he would be interested in a confederation.

Mr. Abbas did not say when the exchange took place. The Palestinian leader broke off all contact with the Trump administration after Mr. Trump last December recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Israeli forces have since killed at least 166 Palestinians and wounded 18,000 others who participated in recent months in regular protests along the Gaza Israel border in demand of their right to return.

Israel and Hamas agreed in July to a ceasefire, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations, to prevent Hamas rocket attacks and protesters flying kites with incendiary devices into Israel to which Israel responded with air strikes from spiralling out of control.

To make the ceasefire sustainable, economic support for Gaza where growth has been severely stunted as a result of a more than a decade-long Israeli-Egyptian blockade and now further aggravated by the US-Israeli assault on UNRWA is crucial.

Israeli media reported that Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman met in recent months in Cyprus separately with Qatari foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Qatar’s ambassador to the Palestinian territories Mohammed al-Emadi to discuss economic support for Gaza. Qatar, beyond financial muscle, has the longest-standing relations among the mediators with Hamas.

Qatar has also been negotiating the return by Hamas of two Israeli nationals held captive as well as the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed in 2014 in Gaza.

Speaking in a series of interviews, Mr. Al-Emadi suggested that Qatari funding would depend on Israel and Hamas agreeing on a sustainable ceasefire. “It is very difficult to fund the reconstruction of Gaza in an event of yet another destructive war,” Mr. Al-Emadi said. He said he had “discussed a maximum of five- to 10-year cease-fire with Hamas.”

Mr. Lieberman’s discussions ironically constitute recognition of the utility of Qatar’s long-standing relations with Islamists and militants that the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain cited as the reason for their diplomatic and economic boycott.

With exception of recent pledges to support UNRWA, countries like Turkey, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have focused on gaining political influence in Palestine rather than on economic development.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have concentrated on the purchase in Jerusalem of real estate adjacent to the Temple Mount or Haram al-Sharif, Islam’s third most holy site, according to Kamal Khatib, an Israeli Palestinian Islamist leader, as well as Arab media reports

For its part, Turkey has sent thousands of supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Democracy Party (AKP) to visit the city. Turkish activists allegedly participated in last year’s protests on Haram al-Sharif.

Saudi Arabia’s position, moreover, on the US-Israeli effort to undermine UNRWA and redefine the Palestinian issue is muddied by apparent differences between King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been vocal in his support for M. Trump and empathy with Israeli positions.

Laying down the law, King Salman King Salman denounced the “invalidity and illegality” of the US decision to recognize Jerusalem. He told an Arab summit in Dhahran in April that he was donating $150 million to support Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem.

King Salman’s moves ironically brought the kingdom closer to the outright condemnation by Qatar, Turkey and other Muslim nations of Mr. Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem. This, however, has more to do with King Salman’s own views as well as domestic politics in kingdom. It does little, if anything, to prevent the Gulf crisis from muddying efforts to resolve the Gaza crisis.

“A bumpy road seems to be lying ahead of Qatar…as it faces strong internal and external obstacles that impede its management of the Palestinian dossier and stops it from communicating with the rest of the regional and international parties so long as its opponents keep their veto on its movements,” said Gaza-based Palestinian historian Adnan Abu Amer.

The stock of the online retail giant Amazon is racing toward a $1 trillion market valuation, trading at $2,012 per share on Monday. The company is poised to become the next big tech titan after Apple to reach the milestone.

After a 72 percent stock price surge this year, Amazon’s market cap currently stands at $981.6 billion. The online retailer would become the second public company to reach the trillion-dollar market value if the stock rises to at least $2,050.27. Apple became the first-ever $1 trillion US company on August 2.

According to Dan Nathan, co-founder and editor of RiskReversal.com, options traders are betting the retailer could reach a trillion-dollar value this week. He told CNBC that market optimism will likely push Amazon to $1 trillion “sooner or later.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said the company’s shares could rise to $2,500 on the back of advertising, cloud computing, and subscription services. All three have significantly higher operating margins than Amazon’s core retail business, and they’re all growing quickly.

Last quarter, the company generated $2.2 billion in “other” revenue, which largely consists of advertising. Amazon’s rapid growth could make it the third-largest digital advertiser in the US by 2020, according to estimates from eMarketer.

Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos is now the world’s richest man, with a personal wealth estimated at $164 billion. Bezos employees at Amazon warehouses are on food stamps. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is second with a $98.4 billion net worth, while investor Warren Buffett is third on the list with a fortune of $87.1 billion.

Azerbaijan expects that Russia’s efforts towards resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be continued, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said.

He was making press statement in Sochi Sept. 1 together with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I would like to note that among the issues we have discussed, an important place is held by the issues of regional security, first of all the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” Ilham Aliyev said. “It has been ongoing for a very long time and has led to great suffering for the Azerbaijani people. The internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan have been under Armenian occupation for many years.”

“More than a million Azerbaijanis have become refugees and internally displaced persons as a result of this conflict,” the Azerbaijani president said. “The soonest settlement of the conflict will allow our citizens to return to their historical lands, and bring peace, stability and cooperation to our region.”

Russia, as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group dealing with the settlement of the conflict, plays an important role in the conflict settlement, Ilham Aliyev noted.

“Russia is our neighbor, our historical partner and friend, and we expect that Russia’s efforts towards resolving the conflict will be continued,” the Azerbaijani president said.

Saudi Arabia on Monday pledged $ 300 million worth of assistance to Sri Lanka, which will be disbursed to various areas in the country for various development programs.

The Saudi Arabian Ambassador in Sri Lanka Abdul Nazar Al Hardi said during the inauguration of the Badulla-Chenkalldai Road Development project in Padiyatalawa this morning that his government would provide assistance to the tune of US 300 million.

He said the fund would be spent on water supply projects, agriculture sector, education and health facility development.

“We are happy to assist Sri Lanka and look forward to strengthen bilateral ties with Sri Lanka,” he said.

Be wary of the self-satisfied and morally soothed. The complacent have a habit of giving the game away, glorifying themselves in satisfied satiation. Australia’s parliament seemed to be very self-congratulatory in their condemnation of the newly arrived Senator of the Katter Australia Party, Fraser Anning. Last month, the rough, seemingly untutored Anning became the convenient freak show for his fellow parliamentarians; his more seasoned colleagues, versed in the dark arts of hypocrisy, duly rounded on him. How dare he express what many of them have either felt or ignored?

Anning has volunteered himself as yet another scrounger who played the gargantuan race card, peppering his inaugural address to the Senate with the dross that has been fairly ordinary in Australian politics. It was meant to have resonances with Pauline Hanson’s vulgarly rich delivery in 1996, and it is worth noting the parallels. In the former, there was initial gasp, horror and pondering. What Hanson was saying as the new federal member for Oxley was hardly shocking to Prime Minister John Howard.

Hanson’s views struck home with a domestic, comforting fury; her prejudices stirred the blood: suspicions of racial swamping, the nightmare of Asiatic miscegenation were hardly alien to a prime minister who, as opposition leader in the 1980s, felt that Australia was at risk of yellowing. Howard’s rat cunning took hold: use Hanson’s indignation at Big Picture politics and elitism, and also, as best as possible, destroy her.

Anning evidently thought he could ride that same wave. He had been told by KAP advisors that he needed to be controversially relevant. This was not going to be an easy task; Australian politics has assimilated a good deal of intolerance since the late 1990s, and the new senator needed to do something to stand out. But rather than being a savvy racist, he came across as a barking enthusiast who had lost the plot. He quoted Sir Henry Parkes, “Father of our Federation” and his reference to knowing “the value” of Australia’s “British origin”. He believed that there was no “retrograde force” in the world more conspicuous than Muslims. “I believe that the reasons for ending all further Muslim immigration are both compelling and self-evident.”

He wishes for immigration policy to be wrested from government and taken to a plebiscite, the outcome, he hopes, being a return to the White Australia policy. “The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote.” Had Anning avoided those words of finality, his speech would read as anything Hanson has given in the past. Instead, he gave parliament a red line.

The now deposed Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Anning’s observations as “appalling”. “We are a nation that does not define its nationality, its identity, by reference to race or religion or cultural background or ethnic background.” Reference to a “final solution” on immigration was a “shocking insult” to the Jewish people. Opposition leader Bill Shorten considered the Anning performance “repugnant and disgraceful”. Even Hanson felt that the former One Nation member was “appalling”, claiming that the speech was “straight from the Goebbels handbook for Nazi Germany”. Politicians hugged; tears were shared in unity.

As Australian politicians immerse themselves in orgiastic satisfaction that their country is the tip of the civilised community, a twelve-year old refugee child on Nauru is mounting a hunger strike against a distinct interpretation of tolerance shown by Australian authorities. “This particular child, like many other children,” came the grim summation of Doctors For Refugees president Barri Phatarfod, “has just completely lost hope.”

It was Australian values, shorn of substance but obsessively anti-humanitarian, that created multi-tiered levels of refugees and asylum seekers in sneering defiance of the Refugee Convention. Hanson’s fear of remorseless Asiatic absorption has shifted: in place of the industrious citizens of Southeast Asia and China have come fears of the theocratic, wailing Mullahs worshiping the Koran and African mobs.

Australia’s parliament, in another more accurate depiction of its values, also did itself proud by passing amendments on asylum legislation to affirm that detaining 1,600 asylum seekers was lawful. (Only three members in the House of Representatives voted against it: Greens MP Adam Bandt, and independents Andrew Wilkie and Cathy McGowan.) The Migration (Validation of Port Appointment) Bill 2018 was given the easiest of passages to the Senate, legitimising the status of “a proclaimed port in the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands”. It further seeks to ensure “that things done under the Migration Act 1958 which relied directly or indirectly on the terms of the appointment are valid.” Both sides of the aisle want to inoculate themselves against any future litigation, and few tears were shed, or hands held, over that consensus.

What Anning did give to other politicians was an opportunity to be nauseatingly smug, cringingly self-satisfied in having condemned the racial genie long out of the bottle and roaming at will. To that end, he could be condemned as a person who did not share the values of parliament, the, dare one say it, un-Australian representative who had actually expressed views common to many backbenchers. An odd spectacle, given that the Australian parliament will always be characterised by its first gesture: legislating for a White Australia.

Labor’s Senator Penny Wong herself was also something of a treat in that regard, a fine figure when it comes to shifting values and raising the moral platform. This is a politician who publicly asserted a stance in her party against same-sex marriage in 2010 (politics is politics), telling the Ten Network that, “On the issue of marriage, I think the reality is there is a cultural, religious and historical view around that which we have to respect.” This dramatically altered last year, when Wong became ebullient, tear-shedding in the aftermath of amendments to the Marriage Act regarding same-sex marriage.

Now, Wong presented herself again, as a high priestess of moral worth, seeing in Anning a bête noire worthy of her condemnation. Anning’s speech “was not worthy of this Parliament.” It “did no reflect the heart of this country. We saw a speech that did not reflect the strong, independent, multicultural, tolerant, accepting nation that we are.”

Anning presented a perfect alibi. Australian politicians could speak about “values” and a contingent tolerance that remains vulnerable to erasure and sparing to asylum seekers and refugees (unless they so happen to be white South African farmers). They could extol a non-existent exceptionalism, ignoring the obvious fact that this is a country troubled by race and insecurity, wealthy yet spoiled by it. To take the issue of immigration to a plebiscite would be a truly democratic measure, but many Australian politicians fear the outcome. They might well find that the heart of the country remains soured by a managed paranoia.

By Jorge Valero

(EurActiv) — The European Commission proposed on Monday (9 September) a redistribution of the existing quota for hormone-free beef in order to address longstanding demands from the US to increase its exports within the agreed limits.

The Commission requested a mandate to negotiate what portion of the existing quota could be allocated to Washington.

The EU executive would need to negotiate also with other supplier nations “to ensure that any agreed country allocation of the said tariff rate quota with the US respects their existing rights under the WTO/GATT agreements”, the mandate says.

The proposal represents a conciliatory gesture toward US President Donald Trump to ease the trade “tensions”, following his agreement with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker last July, said Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan.

The Irish commissioner stressed that the outcome would not increase the existing non-hormone beef quota of 45,000 tonnes (around 0.6% of the total EU beef market) and would be WTO compatible.

Given its rejection of US’s use of hormones in beef production, Europe accepted in 2009 to open European markets to US hormone-free beef. But the quota was also open to other qualified suppliers.

The US complained that its non-hormone beef exports were squeezed by other countries, especially Argentina, Uruguay, Australia and to a lesser extent Canada and New Zealand.

Washington requested in 2016 a review of the agreement (memorandum of understanding), and new contacts took place earlier this year.

“The European Commission is committed to making headway,” commission spokesperson Daniel Rosario said on Monday.

Rosario stressed that the mandate would not alter the EU’s consumer and health standards, in particular on the use of growth-promoting hormones in beef production.

He added that it would also respect the agreement reached between Trump and Juncker to exclude agricultural products from the ongoing trade talks.

“It is how the existing quota works,” he insisted.

The Commission consulted with member states and farmers associations and the proposal did not raise any flags as long as it was WTO compatible and the quota was not exceeded.

But it remains to be seen how the Commission could allocate part of the quota to the US while ensuring that it remains open to all, as the WTO demands.

In order to avoid a new complaint to the WTO by affected suppliers, the Commission could use the free trade deals under negotiation with all the major beef exporters to find a solution.

The EU executive is in talks with the Mercosur bloc (which includes Argentina and Uruguay), Australia and New Zealand.

Canada already reached an agreement with the EU on this issue as part of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

Beef was one of the most sensitive issues of the CETA negotiations. Following intense negotiations, the EU accepted 45,000 tons of hormone-free beef from Canada.

The concession helped to settle the dispute with Ottawa over the hormone-treated beef at the WTO.