By Jonathan Power*

The arrival in Sweden of 163,000 refugees, mainly Syrians, in 2015 – making for a higher proportion of Sweden’s population than almost any other European country – has been used by the far right to drum up broader fears about immigration. A recent spate of shootings, grenade attacks and burnt-out cars has made many Swedes feel afraid of what is going on. This is despite international surveys showing it’s the best nation at everything from economic competitiveness to doing good for humanity to achieving happiness.

Sweden, a country of 10 million people, rebounded stronger from the financial crisis than any other big western country, faster even than the U.S., and its economy has been solid ever since, benefiting from historically strong public finances and low government debt. The economy ploughs ahead, unemployment is low, having escaped relatively unscathed from the Great Recession.

One would assume, since in democracies economic wellbeing is usually the top political issue, that in September 9 general election the incumbent party, the Social Democrats, the socialists, would win. Not so. They are polling poorly. So too is the Moderate Party, the leading party of the opposition.

The only big party on the upswing is the Sweden Democrats, an anti-EU, anti-immigrant, party, that has its roots in a Nazi past. No matter that its main voting constituency – the countryside and small towns – house very few immigrants, their racism and parochialism could well upset Sweden’s long-time political balance and reasonableness.

All sorts of wild ideas are now floating around about murder and rape. One is that because of immigrants the murder rate has gone up over the last two years. But a senior policeman said on television that in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, where drug gangs shoot each other but almost never ordinary people, the murder rate has gone up by two the last year.

According to the official Swedish Crime Survey the number of “confirmed cases of lethal violence” has fluctuated between 68 and 112 in the period of 2006–2015, with a decrease from 111 in 2007 to 68 in 2012, followed by an increase to 112 in 2015 and a decrease to 106 in 2016.

Yet when I asked a range of people in Malmo about the issue they only talk about the recent, highly unusual, drive-by killings near the town centre, of three men, involved, say the police, in drug trafficking. The press in Europe and the U.S. also gave the impression that this was a regular happening.

The number of convictions for rape has remained relatively unchanged since 2005, with approximately 190 convictions on average each year. But the Swedish press, in particular the tabloid press, which usually is by no means as sensationalist as its British and American counterparts, has inflamed the worry by reporting that most rapes are carried out by immigrants, but this is in cases when the woman doesn’t know the attacker. But that way of measuring it inflates the apparent percentage of immigrants. The new law that tightens up the definition of rape – now probably the strictest in the world – also has had the effect of raising the total number of reported rapes.

What immigrant crime there is is done by a very small minority. The vast majority of them are second generation immigrants, like the three young Somalis who after giving me a lift when the trains had broken down robbed me last Friday, August 31. (I had time to chat to them before they threatened to smash my face in if I didn’t hand over my money.)

The immigrant “problem” highlights the errors made by the Swedish authorities when a wave of immigrants arrived a generation ago. They had the mistaken idea of multiculturalism – just as in the UK, Germany and Denmark, but not in neighbouring Finland. It hasn’t worked.

It allowed immigrants to crowd together in neighbourhoods of their own kind. A young boy born into the “ghetto” is inevitably alienated from Swedish society. His contact with normal, average, Sweden is minimal. Good teachers – there are exceptions – prefer not to teach in ghettos schools. Standards are low. When he grows up he will find that Swedish employers are prejudiced. Applicants for jobs with foreign names are often shunted aside. These issues combined have produced the problems of the second generation.

Integration – now belatedly recognized as necessary – in which new immigrants are dispersed right round the country, avoids the formation of ghettos. The Syrian immigrants are being housed far and wide. They are also, unlike previous immigrants, being given an immediate right to residency so that they can look for jobs and not just be dependent on Sweden’s generous welfare system.

Over the years the mainstream politicians have not done a good job of educating the voters on all this, and their policies have often been the wrong ones.

A good debate at election time should have been able to do something to enlighten people. I don’t see it has been done, at least enough.

*Note: For 17 years Jonathan Power was a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune – and a member of the Independent Commission on Disarmament, chaired by the prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme. He has written a book published by Pergamon, “Immigrants in Western Europe and the USA”. He also wrote a long article for Prospect magazine in 2009, “In Search of the Swedish Soul”. He forwarded this and his previous Viewpoints for publication in IDN-INPS Copyright: Jonathan Power. Website www.jonathanpowerjournalist.com.

By Daniel J. Mitchell*

President Trump has proposed a one-year pay freeze for federal bureaucrats, which has reinvigorated the debate over whether compensation levels for the civil service are too lavish.

The Washington Post opines this is nothing but “government bashing,” but this chart from my former colleague Chris Edwards should be more than enough evidence to show that federal bureaucrats have a big advantage over workers in the economy’s productive sector.

And there is plenty of additional evidence that federal employment is very attractive. For instance, it’s just about impossible to get fired from a bureaucracy.

Though defenders of the civil service sometimes make the preposterous claim that nobody gets fired because bureaucrats are such good employees.

The low rate at which federal employees are fired for poor performance doesn’t prove the government accepts it but instead “could actually be a positive sign,”… A report from the Merit Systems Protection Board in effect responds to members of Congress and others who contend that federal managers don’t care, or don’t dare, to take disciplinary action because of civil service protections. “…If the agency is successful in preventing poor performance…, a small number of performance-based removals could actually be a positive sign,” MSPB said. …Of the 2.1 million federal employees in a government database…, about 10,000 are fired for either poor performance or misconduct each year. …That low rate of firing has been cited in proposals to force agencies to take action… Individual employees, too, commonly express dissatisfaction with how agencies handle poor performers among their co-workers.

I have to confess that my jaw dropped when I read this article. Maybe we should ask veterans whether they think all federal bureaucrats do a good job?

Or we can ask non-profit groups whether they think IRS bureaucrats are top-quality workers? Or ask anyone who has ever tried to navigate the federal government?

We also know that the counties where most federal bureaucrats reside are now the richest region of the entire nation.

The three richest counties in the United States with populations of 65,000 or more, when measured by their 2016 median household incomes, were all suburbs of Washington, D.C., according to data released today by the Census Bureau. Eight of the 20 wealthiest counties with populations of 65,000 or more were also suburbs of Washington, D.C.–as were 10 of the top 25. …With Falls Church City included in the 2015 data, the nation’s four wealthiest counties were D.C. suburbs.

To be fair, this data is also driven by all the high-paid lobbyists. contracts, consultants, and others who have their snouts buried in the federal trough. So the incredible wealth of the DC region is really an argument for shrinking the size and scope of the federal government.

But the bureaucracy is part of the problem.

Interestingly, even the Congressional Budget Office concluded that bureaucrats are overpaid. And CBO almost certainly understated the gap, as noted in congressional testimony.

The CBO report’s headline figure is that, on average, federal salaries and benefits are 17 percent above private-sector levels. … I would consider the CBO’s reported federal compensation premium to be on the low end… when I analyze federal employee wages using the methodology that the progressive-leaning Economic Policy Institute has used in numerous studies of state and local government salaries, I find an average federal salary premium of not 2 percent but of about 14 percent. … The CBO chose to value federal employees’ pension benefits using a 5 percent discount rate. Using that discount rate, the federal employee retirement package was found to be substantially more generous than is received by comparable private-sector employees. But…corporate pensions are not nearly as safe as federal pensions, as witnessed by pending benefit reductions for “multiemployer” defined benefit plans. Valuing federal pension benefits using a lower discount rate to better reflect their safety would find a higher overall federal compensation premium.

Notwithstanding all this evidence, the unions representing bureaucrats nonetheless try to crank out numbers showing federal employees are underpaid.

To be sure, overall compensation levels don’t tell us everything. It is important to adjust for education, skills, and other factors.

Which is why the most useful, powerful, and revealing data in this debate is produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures voluntary quit rates by industry. If there is a lot of turnover in a sector of the economy, that suggests workers are underpaid. But if there are very few voluntary departures, that suggests workers in that part of the economy are overpaid.

And the numbers from BLS clearly show that federal bureaucrats are far less likely to leave their positions when compared to employees in the private sector.

This five-fold gap is staggering. I have lots of friends who work for the federal government. Most privately confess that they know that are making out like bandits. I think I’ll send this chart to the few holdouts.

By the way, I shared the numbers about quit rates for state and local bureaucrats back in 2011. Same story, though the compensation gap isn’t quite as large and may be driven mostly by unfunded fringe benefits.

P.S. I’m much more interested in shrinking government rather than shrinking pay levels. The correct pay for bureaucrats at the Departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Education, Energy, and Agriculture is zero. Why? Because those bureaucracies shouldn’t exist.

About the author:
*Daniel J. Mitchell is a top expert on fiscal policy issues such as tax reform, the economic impact of government spending, and supply-side tax policy. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University. His blog is Liberty – Restraining Government in America and Around the World.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute.

By Mari-Ann Kelam*

On Aug. 23, the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian Regimes, Estonia opened a new memorial for all victims of communism. The 30,000 square foot structure in Tallinn is dedicated to the people of Estonia who suffered under the terror inflicted by the Soviet Union. The names of 22,000 people who were murdered or never returned home from the inhumane conditions in Siberia are inscribed on the memorial’s plaques. Now, after the passage of so much time, many families finally have place to mourn their lost loved ones, to pray, to place flowers and candles. Considering the lighthearted treatment afforded communism by many in the West, these reminders remain much-needed.

The Day of Remembrance marks the infamous Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939, which divided Europe between Hitler and Stalin and paved the way to World War II.  Much of the world has forgotten that these dictators remained allies until Germany invaded the USSR in late 1941.  Many do not realize that both national socialism, or Nazism, and communism shared the idea that everything was permissible for the good of the cause – everything from martial law to confiscations, occupations, arrests, torture and murder.

The crimes of Stalin have sometimes been excused because he ultimately fought against Nazi Germany.  Soviet crimes against humanity were not even mentioned at the Nuremburg trials. Sadly, the huge American contribution to winning the war and rebuilding the western part of Europe has been ignored or forgotten as well. But all this means that the crimes of Stalin and his communist successors have not been judged properly nor have the millions of victims and their survivors received proper recognition or any assurance that history will not repeat itself. Stalin and Hitler had much blood on their hands – basically two sides of one filthy coin – yet only one side seems to be etched into the memory of mankind.

And because so far there has been no judgment of Russia’s Soviet past, the unfortunate Russian people have ended up with an authoritarian leader who falsifies the past, glorifies Stalin and his era, ignores rule of law, invades his neighbors, and eliminates those who dare to criticize or oppose him. In 2002, Alexander Yakovlev, in his book “A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia“ warned that Russia will never be a normal country until it acknowledges and comes to terms with the crimes of its Soviet past.

It is a task left to survivors, historians, people of goodwill, and memorials and monuments such as the one in Estonia, to try to tell the truth about the communist system which everywhere ended in misery, costing the lives of 100 million people.

On this background it is extremely concerning and offensive to find Walmart and other retailers promoting what they call “cool shirts“ — bright red tees emblazoned with the Soviet hammer and sickle. Making light of the atrocities committed under and in the name of communism shows ignorance and callousness.

As an Estonian-American living in Europe, I am embarrassed and pained. It is impossible to explain such flippancy to people here, many of whom suffered under communism. People are beginning to think that it is true – Americans care only about making money. I have a hard time convincing them about the America and Americans I know and love, their values and principles, their bravery and willingness to help the downtrodden and oppressed.

Most of my friends here and abroad find this Walmart campaign disgusting. Some have asked, “When will they come out with the companion shirt emblazoned with a swastika?” Precisely this question shows how much still needs to be done to inform and educate people that there were two evil dictators, erstwhile allies, whose crimes and ambitions resulted in so many millions of victims. It is an immense task, but it can be achieved. One place to begin, in this case, is to contact Walmart at all levels. There are many opportunities – their website, their Facebook, your local Walmart store, and management at the highest level.

The executioners killed their victims twice: first by taking their lives and second by erasing the memory of them and their fate. This is why it is important to remember. We cannot undo the first killing, but we can undo the second.

About the author:
*Mari-Ann Kelam served for several years in the Estonian Parliament.

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei will hold a meeting in Tehran on Friday, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said.

The meeting would take place on the sidelines of an upcoming summit of the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey on Syria.

“Tehran will become a platform for bilateral talks. We are planning three bilateral meetings for our president – with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as separate talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Along with this, there will be a bilateral meeting with Turkish President (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan,” Ushakov said, according to the Tass news agency.

In late November 2015, Putin met with Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran. The Russian president gifted one of the world’s oldest Quran manuscripts to Imam Khamenei.

Speaking about the issues expected to be touched upon at the talks with Iran’s leadership, Ushakov said, “There will be both Syria and various aspects of bilateral cooperation, along with the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), taking into account the US’ withdrawal from the deal.”

In April, the presidents of Iran, Russia and Turkey – the three guarantor states of de-escalation zones in Syria – held a meeting in Ankara to discuss ways for peaceful settlement of the crisis in Syria.

The three countries have so far held several rounds of peace talks in Kazakhstan’s Astana and elsewhere to help end the conflict in Syria. The fourth round of those talks in May 2017 produced a memorandum of understanding on de-escalation zones in Syria, sharply reducing fighting in the country.

Diplomatic efforts to end fighting in Syria gained momentum in 2017 with the announcement of a ceasefire in the Arab country in early January.

According to a report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the conflict has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country’s pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders.

The leaders of the two Koreas will hold a summit in Pyongyang in September, Seoul said Thursday, September 6, as Kim Jong Un renewed his commitment to the denuclearisation of the flashpoint peninsula, AFP reports.

The announcement of the September 18-20 summit — the third between the North’s leader Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in this year — comes as US efforts to dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal have stalled.

The two leaders will meet in the North Korean capital to discuss “practical measures to denuclearise” the peninsula, South Korean National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong told reporters.

Chung on Wednesday flew to Pyongyang where he handed over a personal letter from Moon to Kim, as Seoul seeks to kick-start the diplomacy that led to the landmark June summit between US President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader.

The two pledged to denuclearise the Korean peninsula at the Singapore meeting but no details were agreed, and Washington and Pyongyang have sparred since on what that means and how it will be achieved.

However, in his meeting with Chung, Kim renewed his commitment to that goal, North Korean state media said Thursday.

The two Koreas “should further their efforts to realise the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula”, Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.

“It is our fixed stand… to completely remove the danger of armed conflict and horror of war from the Korean peninsula and turn it into the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat.”

By Mohammed Al-Sulami

Houthi militia have been accused of setting out to thwart United Nations-sponsored peace talks on Yemen following the failure of a rebel delegation to appear at the Geneva negotiations.

Discussions aimed at ending the three-year conflict were expected to begin on Thursday, but the Houthi team’s no-show left the talks in doubt, sparking frustration among negotiators.

The Houthi delegation failed to arrive following a series of last-minute demands and a claim that it lacked the necessary flight authorization to leave Sanaa in Yemen.

However, high-level anonymous sources in the Yemeni Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority later revealed a copy of a flight permit showing the Houthi delegation had permission to take off from Sanaa airport bound for Geneva.

The copy of the permit was obtained by the Yemeni online newspaper Al-Mashhad Al-Yemeni.
According to the aviation authority sources, the Houthi delegation offered “vague and flimsy excuses” aimed at disrupting the UN-sponsored consultations.

Earlier the delegation demanded that their flight be allowed to carry wounded Iranian and Hezbollah fighters to Oman for treatment before resuming the journey to Geneva.

The Houthis’ conditions were made after talks with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon to thwart the peace negotiations, the sources said.

The sources pointed out that the Yemeni government had not put any conditions on the negotiations, such as the release of political prisoners and individuals under house arrest, including the brother of Mahmoud Al-Sobaihi, the Yemeni defense minister.

Col. Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman for the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, which includes Saudi Arabia, said the Houthis are not serious about the Geneva talks.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Khaled Al-Yamani said that the government will not wait “indefinitely” for the Houthis to attend the talks.

Sources in Geneva said the UN envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, had met with the Yemeni government delegation to discuss the Houthi no-show, and had been told that talks could not begin until the militia delegation arrived.

Al-Yamani said that divisions within the Houthi militia were hampering peace talks.

“The Houthi representatives’ ridiculous excuses are an attempt to cover up a fundamental issue: The rebel militia is divided over who should represent them in Geneva,” he said.

“There are hawks who, on instructions from Iran, refuse to engage in any peace process. Iran wants to use the Houthi movement as a claw to destabilize and insecure Yemen.”

The Yemeni foreign minister denied reports that the government had given the Houthi delegation an ultimatum.

“We are not setting any deadlines. We came to Geneva at the invitation of UN … to participate in negotiations to strengthen confidence-building measures,” he said.

By Ellen R. Wald*

Washington, D.C., is the capital of the US, but these days it seems like every international interest is being pushed in the offices, bars and restaurants of the city. American public relations firms have contracts from Gulf countries, lobbying firms advocate for Chinese state-owned business interests, pro-Iranian non-profits operate with unknown sources of funds, and think tanks are funded from a range of foreign powers. There are groups in Washington that support almost every political and geopolitical side. Everyone wants to influence the US government, and it seems all too possible with the free and open form of government that America has.

The US permits Americans and foreigners to advocate and lobby for the interests of other countries, but technically those persons engaged in such activity are required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Until very recently, however, there was essentially no repercussion if a lobbyist for a foreign government failed to register, and even today the assumption is that thousands of people — Americans and foreigners — are paid to pursue the interests of foreign governments within the US capital without notifying the authorities.

FARA is a law that originated in 1938, as the US feared the rise of international communism and the world was on the brink of war precipitated by Nazi and Japanese aggression. At the time, the US understandably feared foreign interference in its government, which was made easier by a Constitutionally-enshrined dedication to free speech. The dilemma is that, if every person within the US is guaranteed the right to speak freely about politics, it becomes impossible to stop those speaking on behalf of foreign powers. The solution is to require those people to simply register so they cannot work surreptitiously. During World War II, 23 people were prosecuted for violating the law, but it was used sparsely thereafter.

Now FARA has reemerged as prominent legislation, but not because foreign agents are being forced to comply en masse. Rather, it is because FARA is being used in the prosecution of Paul Manafort, President Donald Trump’s one-time campaign chairman. Manafort is accused of failing to register as an agent of pro-Russian Ukrainian elements before the president ever ran for office. Supporters of Trump, and others, say that the prosecution of Manafort is part of the history of selective enforcement of the law. In their argument, so few people and organizations have been prosecuted under the law despite so many thousands of people and institutions having violated it. To them, this is evidence that the selective enforcement of FARA is being used to prosecute political opponents only. It is a sign that the law has failed.

Yet FARA could work. The US government should issue notice that violators have some time — perhaps one year — to register. The government should further issue guidance on who is expected to register so it is clear if registration is necessary. Once the registrations come pouring in from across the capital, the government should publish lists of foreign agents. Some businesses and people will halt their work for foreign governments rather than suffer the ignominy of publicly admitting to working as an agent for another country.

Still, the question remains: Just how effective are all of the millions of dollars spent by other countries in Washington? There is a good chance that much of it is ineffective.

Take the case of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on the campaign Qatar put together to lobby Trump through his friends and confidants. Saudi Arabia has, meanwhile, devoted money and time to public relations campaigns and official visits to further solidify its relationship with Trump. And yet none of that time, effort, planning and money will truly impact how Trump handles the situation between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Trump will not take sides in the dispute because the entire situation boils down to the fact that Saudi Arabia is America’s largest trading partner in the Gulf and Qatar hosts an American military base. Those two realities are much more powerful than all of the money these countries can pour into the pockets of Washington lobbyists.

Even the most successful foreign public relations campaigns have had little impact on the American political system. In 1987, a non-profit was formed in London called Free Tibet. It soon started operating in the US, advocating for Tibetan freedom from China. Bumper stickers and T-shirts calling for a “Free Tibet” became commonplace nationwide. The campaign convinced almost every American that Tibet should be free of Chinese subjugation. And yet the US did nothing to bring freedom to Tibet. After all, the US had its own interests with China, and no T-shirts were going to change that. Free Tibet’s advocacy efforts changed the views of Americans, but it did not change America’s behavior.

Foreign lobbying falls under the protection of free speech, enshrined in the US Constitution. At best the government can restrain it by enforcing FARA. And yet, it is unclear if all of this foreign lobbying money really buys what the foreign governments pay for.

*Ellen R. Wald, Ph.D. is a historian and author of “Saudi, Inc.” She is the president of Transversal Consulting and also teaches Middle East history and policy at Jacksonville University. Twitter: @EnergzdEconomy

Trump is ramping up his lies through his three amplifiers: Fox News, his rallies, and his Twitter account.

His lies aren’t subject to the filters traditionally applied to presidential statements, because Trump doesn’t respond to questions from the mainstream press. He doesn’t meet in public with anyone who disagrees with him, and he shuns experts.

This means his lies go out to millions of Americans, unfiltered. So what can you do?

1. First, boycott Fox News advertisers. Many of Trump’s lies originate with Fox News; Fox News amplifies the ones that originate with Trump. Trump has even appointed Bill Shine, the former number two at Fox News, as his deputy chief of staff for communications.So you can vote with your wallet and starve the beast.

2. Second, stop his rallies from becoming free propaganda events rebroadcast by most TV and radio outlets. If Trump and his enablers hold a rally in your community, write a letter or op-ed to your local newspapers calling out his lies and outlining why you oppose his agenda.

3. Third, his tweets, also brimming with lies, go out to over 50 million Americans each day. You can write Twitter and tell it to stop enabling those lies. Twitter defines its mission as providing a “healthy public conversation.” Let them know that demagoguery isn’t healthy.

No democracy can function under a continuous bombardment of unmediated lies.

We’re not going to get Trump to stop lying but we can at least limit his ability to amplify those lies. It’s time for all of us to take action and defend the truth. Now.

Twitter has permanently banned Alex Jones and Infowars from its platforms for “abusive behavior,” after the controversial conservative pundit was filmed berating a CNN journalist on the sidelines of a Senate social media hearing.

“Today, we permanently suspended @realalexjones and @infowars from Twitter and Periscope,” Twitter said. “We took this action based on new reports of Tweets and videos posted yesterday that violate our abusive behavior policy, in addition to the accounts’ previous violations.”

The company added it will continue to hunt for “other accounts potentially associated” with Alex Jones to prevent any attempts to circumvent the ban.

“I was taken down not because we lie but because we tell the truth and because we were popular, and because we dared to go to that committee hearing and stand up to Rubio, stand up to the lies of mainstream media and speak the truth,” Jones stated following his suspension.

“And then we ran into Oliver Darcy who is the secret police captain, who admits he goes around and gets people like Infowars taken off other platforms because we confronted that monster that has abused us and lied about us,” Jones said about the encounter that reportedly got him banned.

Prior to his suspension, the commentator had about 900,000 followers on Twitter, while his Infowars account was popular with roughly 430,000 users. Calling the ban an act of “war” against conservative voices, Jones urged his supporters to resist “the full-on assault on this country.”

“This signifies that gloves are off, they are trying to destroy our basic birthright of the First Amendment,” Jones added. “The political establishment does not like Democrats or Republicans being challenged and they want to go out after the president… They are panicking, they are scared. They are making a move against all of us.”

Twitter banned Jones from its platforms a day after the company’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, testified before Congress where he insisted Twitter was impartial and denied any political bias against conservatives.

On the sidelines of Wednesday’s hearings, in which Facebook and Twitter participated, Jones could not contain his rage over the subject and clashed with Sen. Marco Rubio over the political censorship by the Silicon Valley giants. He later confronted CNN journalist Oliver Darcy in a Capitol Hill hallway, and recorded himself aggressively heckling his ‘biased’ reporting and attacking his appearance.

Back in August Jones’ website, Infowars, was banned from Facebook, YouTube, and Apple over alleged violations of community their standards and spreading “hate speech.” The controversial commentator was also temporarily banned from using Twitter after he used the platform to call on US President Donald Trump to “take action” against tech companies for censoring his content. The controversy around Jones sparked a fierce debate about free speech in the country and the rise of political censorship by private tech companies.

By Jim Garamone

U.S.-Indian defense cooperation has emerged “as the most significant dimension of our strategic partnership and as a key driver of our overall bilateral relationship,” Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said at the conclusion of the two-plus-two talks Thursday.

Sitharaman and Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj hosted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis for the talks between India and the United States.

The two nations signed the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement just before the news conference. Mattis called the agreement a significant step in U.S.-Indian defense cooperation. “The landmark agreement deepens our military-to-military cooperation and our ability to share the most advanced defense technology, making us both stronger,” he said.

“The two-plus-two meeting has helped shared efforts of both sides to promote a whole-of-government approach for our strategic priorities,” Swaraj said at a news conference at the conclusion of the talks.

‘To Cooperate in Every Possible Way’

“The commitment of India and the United States to defend our shared values and common interests is clear and unwavering,” Sitharaman said. “We reaffirmed our intention to cooperate in every possible way, to ensure peace and stability as well as to realize the aspirations of our people for continued economic growth, prosperity and development.”

Both nations have the highest respect for each other’s sovereignty, Mattis said. The result is they are committed to work together “for a safe, secure, prosperous and free Indo-Pacific, one that is underpinned by the rule of law,” he said.

“We appreciate India’s role as a stabilizing force on the region’s geographic frontlines,” Mattis added. “Your nation understands better than many: Peace and prosperity are only attainable when all respect the principles of territorial integrity, freedom of navigation and freedom from coercion — all of these are fundamental to the rules-based international order.”

During the meeting the leaders spoke to regional and global concerns like Afghanistan, North Korea and terrorism, Pompeo said. He stressed the shared values the U.S. and India possess.

“We have a responsibility to advance those shared values: rule of law; national sovereignty; good governance; the protection of fundamental freedoms, rights and liberties; free, fair and reciprocal trade relationships and peaceful resolutions of territorial and maritime disputes,” he said.

India already has a robust military training and exercise program with the United States, but the leaders agreed to ramp it up.

“To enhance our facilities in this area, we have decided to carry out for the first time a tri-services joint exercise with the United States off the eastern coast of India in 2019,” Sitharaman said. “We are also putting in place an enabling framework for further cooperation between our forces.”

India will continue to work with U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, but will now also work with U.S. Central Command, Sitharaman said.

Following the meeting, the four leaders also met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

By Maja Zivanovic

Possibly with Ukraine, Macedonia and even Montenegro in mind, the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch has written to the global head of Orthodoxy, saying new countries should not necessarily have their own independent churches.

As the battle hots up over whether a number of countries in the region should get their own Orthodox Churches, Serbian Patriarch Irinej has written to Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople warning him about the danger of introducing the principle of giving ecclesiastical independence, or autocephaly, to new states or nations.

“This principle could directly jeopardize the unity of the Orthodox Church,” Irinej said, the Serbian daily Blic reported on Thursday.

The head of the Serbian Church also expressed concerns that the principle could be invoked by the “separatist Macedonian Church”, which threw off Serbian Church control in the 1960s.

The Macedonian Orthodox Church remains unrecognised by other Orthodox Churches due to a long-lasting dispute over its ecclesiastical independence from the Serbian Orthodox Church, to which it was formerly united.

The Serbian Church, which has close ties with other Orthodox churches, has blocked recognition of the Macedonian Church ever since it unilaterally declared “autocephaly”, or ecclesiastical independence, in the 1960s.

Irinej’s letter, according to the Blic report, said granting church independence to new states went “against the canonical and historical rights of the Church”.

In Montenegro, however, the media reported that behind Irinej’s letter to Bartholomew was also a fear that Constantinople might acknowledge another breakaway church, the Montenegrin Orthodox Church.

Suppressed after Montenegro lost its independence after World War 1, it was refounded in 1993 and has only regained some influence since the country declared independence in 2006.

“From Irinej’s letter his fear can be seen that our church, as well as the Ukrainian Church, will get a tomos [a Church decree of independence],” the vice-president of the Council of the Montenegrin Church, Stevo Vucinic, told the Montenegrin paper Pobjeda.

A recent gathering of clerics affiliated with the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople confirmed that Bartholomew has the right to decree the autocephaly of local churches.

Bartholomew has also made it clear that, despite Russian opposition, he is mulling granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which the media say would be “a tectonic shift”.

Another issue for the Orthodox Church is also the situation in Moldova, where two rival churches are in dispute.

The main Moldovan Orthodox Church is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Its rival is the younger Orthodox Church of Bessarabia, [the historic Romanian name for Moldova], which is subordinated to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Marijuana use is becoming more prevalent among middle-aged and older adults, with 9 percent of adults aged 50-64 and nearly 3 percent of adults 65 and older reporting marijuana use in the past year, according to a study by researchers at NYU School of Medicine and the Center for Drug Use and HIV/HCV Research (CDUHR) at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing.

These new figures, which use data from 2015-2016, demonstrate a substantial increase in marijuana use over the past near-decade – double the percentage of adults aged 50-64 (4.5 percent) and more than seven times the percentage of adults 65 and older (0.4 percent) reporting use in 2006-2007.

The new findings, published online in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, build on an earlier Addiction study by the same researchers to illustrate this growing trend among baby boomers.

Attitudes towards marijuana use are changing in the U.S., with a growing number of states legalizing medical and recreational marijuana. Although marijuana users are more likely to be young adults, the baby boomer generation is unique, having more experience with recreational use of drugs than previous generations.

“The baby boomer generation grew up during a period of significant cultural change, including a surge in popularity of marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s. We’re now in a new era of changing attitudes around marijuana, and as stigma declines and access improves, it appears that baby boomers–many of whom have prior experience smoking marijuana–are increasingly using it,” said lead author Benjamin Han, MD, MPH, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine’s Division of Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Care and Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health.

In this study, the researchers analyzed responses from 17,608 adults aged 50 and older from the 2015-2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. Participants were asked about marijuana use, including when they first used it and whether they used it in the past year. The researchers also looked at respondents’ demographics and several health factors, including other substance use and chronic disease.

In the past year, 9 percent of adults aged 50-64 and 2.9 percent of adults 65 and older reported using marijuana. In addition, more than half (54.5 percent) of adults 50-64 have used marijuana at some point in their lives, and over a fifth (22.4 percent) of adults 65 and older have ever used it.

When people first started using marijuana varied by age group. Nearly all adults aged 50-64 (92.9 percent), but only roughly half of adults 65 and older (54.7 percent), first used marijuana when they were 21 years of age or younger.

“Most baby boomers who recently used marijuana first used as teens during the 1960s and 1970s. This doesn’t mean these individuals have been smoking marijuana for all these years, but most current users are by no means new initiates,” said CDUHR researcher Joseph Palamar, PhD, MPH, the study’s senior author and an associate professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU Langone Health.

In addition, some adults who used marijuana in the past year (15 percent of users aged 50-64 and 22.9 percent of those 65 and older) reported that a doctor had recommended it to them, reflecting the substantial use of marijuana for medical purposes.

A concerning finding from the study was the correlation between marijuana use and other unhealthy substance use. Adults who used marijuana were more likely to also report alcohol use disorder, nicotine dependence, cocaine use, and misuse of prescription medications (including opioids and sedatives) than non-users.

“Marijuana has been shown to have benefits in treating certain conditions that affect older adults, including neuropathic pain and nausea. However, certain older adults may be at heightened risk for adverse effects associated with marijuana use, particularly if they have certain underlying chronic diseases or are also engaged in unhealthy substance use,” said Han, who is also a CDUHR researcher.

Because using multiple drugs may have additive adverse effects–for instance, simultaneously using marijuana and alcohol can be detrimental for cognitive and motor functioning–the researchers suggest that clinicians screen older patients who use marijuana for other substance use to ensure they are educated on the potential risks of using multiple drugs, especially concurrently.

High poverty rates, low education and lack of insurance are all social determinants that are expected to lead to high mortality rates and negative health outcomes.

Despite a 62 percent minority population with these characteristics in California, the state’s health profile was significantly better than the nation’s as a whole. This profile was largely driven by the state’s minority population. California’s death rate from all causes in 2016 was 619.1 per 100,000 population, compared with the nation’s 729.9. Broken down by racial/ethnic group, death rates were 686.4 for non-Hispanic whites, 514.4 for Latinos, 807.6 for African-Americans, 394.5 for Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 380.2 for American Indian/Alaska Natives.

California’s population shifted from 22 percent racial/ethnic minority in 1970 to 62 percent in 2016. From about 1965 through the early 1990s, researchers and policymakers had focused their attention on the high levels of unemployment and poverty; and a lack of education among minorities, positing that these dysfunctions were a result of poor personal values that led to poor personal choices. As a result of these characteristics, the historical narrative held that minorities were likelier to live shorter lives and suffer poorer health outcomes. Subsequently, health care and social policies were built around this framework.

The researchers examined data from the National Center for Health Statistics and other sources.

Cultural differences in the ways that racial and ethnic minorities interact and take action to compensate for lack of access to health care and other public and private services may help to facilitate good health outcomes.

For instance, to address unmet health care needs in the 1970s during California’s demographic shift, Latinos created an alternative system of health care and policy that has since grown to more than 1,300 nonprofit, community-based clinics serving underserved communities. These findings could form the basis for the development of theoretical models and methods to assist in identifying and tracking health disparities. These new models, based on the “epidemiology of diversity,” would be better able to make use of the roles that race, place and diversity play in health outcomes.

(RFE/RL) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said the military alliance is “ready to welcome” Macedonia as its 30th member once Skopje finalizes an agreement with Athens to change the former Yugoslav republic’s name.

Stoltenberg was speaking on a September 6 during a visit to Macedonia aimed at expressing support for the “yes” campaign in a national referendum set for September 30.

“NATO’s door is open, but only the people of this country can decide to walk through it. So, your future is in your hands. We wait for you in NATO,” he said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.

The Macedonian and Greek foreign ministers signed a deal on June 17 to rename the country the Republic of North Macedonia — North Macedonia for short — and resolve a 27-year dispute between Skopje and Athens.

Macedonian lawmakers later voted in favor of the bill to ratify the agreement, which paves the way for talks on Macedonian membership in both NATO and the European Union.

But hurdles remain for the deal to come into effect, including the support of Macedonian voters in the upcoming referendum.

‘Taking This Country Forward’

Western leaders have also backed Zaev’s “yes” campaign ahead of the referendum, in which Macedonians will be asked, “Are you in favor of NATO and EU membership, and accepting the name agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and Greece?”

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is due to visit Skopje on September 7 and German Chancellor Angela Merkel the following day.

In Skopje, Stoltenberg also congratulated Zaev on Macedonia’s reforms.

“I congratulate you on the progress you made, taking this country forward,” the NATO chief said. “The economy is peaking up and the reforms are being implemented, including on the rule of law, security and intelligence, and the defense sector.”

He also called on the Macedonian prime minister to continue with reforms, saying, “This will make you safer, stronger, and even better able to work side by side with NATO allies.”

The name dispute between Skopje and Athens dates back to 1991, when Macedonia peacefully broke away from Yugoslavia, declaring its independence under the name Republic of Macedonia.

Neighboring Greece has objected to the name Macedonia, saying it implies territorial claims on the northern Greek region with the same name.

Because of Greek objections, Macedonia was admitted to the UN under a provisional name, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).

By Georgi Gotev

(EurActiv) — French President Emmanuel Macron wants to shake up the EU political ecosystem, hoping to forge a new progressive alliance at the end of this year for the 2019 European Parliament elections, a source in his office said on Wednesday (5 September).

France’s Europhile leader is seeking to build a loose, pan-European campaign of like-minded progressives to hold back the tide of anti-immigrant nationalists.

“The idea is to make a coalition that brings progressives together around a joint platform transcending well-structured existing political families,” a source at the Élysée presidential palace said, as quoted by Reuters.

“We are at an important moment for Europe where we’ve got to rebuild ourselves because the nationalists won’t hesitate to rebuild themselves. So we must not remain prisoners of political badges,” the source added.

Campaigning for the 23 and 26 May election is likely to get under way in earnest early next year, which means the joint platform has to be thrashed out “around December-January”, the source said.

Manfred Weber said on Wednesday he would seek nomination as the European Peoples’ Party’s lead candidate for the election with the aim of taking over as president of the European Commission.

Meanwhile, Macron has been active in reaching out to possible allies around Europe for a campaign confounding traditional party moulds, much as he did in his successful bid for the French presidency in 2017.

The Élysée source downplayed the importance of having a lead candidate to embody the new political movement, saying that was not voters’ priority.

“What they want to see is five or six themes that the candidates want to make happen in Europe and that they are able to do it. That’s what we’re going to work on,” the source said.

Odd man out

In fact, Macron hasn’t decided to join any of the existing political families, and hasn’t attempted to create his own group either. The Spitzenkandidaten system is therefore a game in which he cannot participate.

The Spitzenkandidaten process was first used in the 2014 election, when Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was appointed.

The Lisbon Treaty stipulates that the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, nominates a Commission president for the European Parliament’s approval while taking into account the results of the European Parliament election.

The EU Treaty does not make any reference to the Spitzenkandidaten procedure. In 2014, it was used following a “gentlemen’s agreement” among EU leaders. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had initially expressed concerns.

The term “progressives” favoured by Macron is already in use by the group of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, whose official Twitter handle is even @TheProgressives.

Christophe Castaner, who acts as spokesperson to the French government, recently told a gathering of Frenchmen in Brussels that the Spitzenkandidaten system was a “democratic anomaly”.

The French president is possibly attempting to repeat his national experience at European level: breaking the political mould and creating a dominant force in which politicians both from the centre left and the centre right are in command.

This strategy has weakened the French traditional centre-left and centre-right.

Macronists of all countries, unite!

Some new political forces in EU countries have declared themselves close to Macron’s “En Marche!”.

And while Macron is trying the change the rules of the game by trying to rally pro-European forces, anti-EU forces are getting organised as well. A clash between “Macronists” and supporters of the Spitzenkandidaten system risks to play in the hands of the anti-immigrant, anti-EU and anti-system forces.

Observers say that confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to become President Trump’s second pick for a lifetime job on the Supreme Court will make the Court more conservative. It is more accurate to say Kavanaugh will make the Court more corporatist.

With Kavanaugh, it is all about siding with corporations over workers, consumers, patients, motorists, the poor, minority voters, and beleaguered communities.

Repeatedly Kavanaugh’s judicial opinions put corporate interests ahead of the common good—backing the powerful against the weak, the vulnerable, and the defenseless.

Apart from his declared views pouring power and immunity into the Presidency (which is why Trump wants him), Kavanaugh could be the most corporate judge in modern American history. Two meticulous reports on his judicial decisions, one by the Alliance for Justice (AFJ) and one by Public Citizen demonstrate that for him it’s all about corporations uber alles.

Here is AFJ’s summary:

Kavanaugh has repeatedly ruled against efforts to combat climate change and the regulation of greenhouse gases. He also repeatedly ruled against protections for clean air. He has repeatedly sided with the wealthy and the powerful over all Americans. He has fought consumer protections in the areas of automobile safety, financial services, and a free and open internet. Kavanaugh has also repeatedly ruled against workers, workplace protections and safety regulations.

Do you want him to be on the Supreme Court?

Kavanaugh is a corporate supremacist to a fanatic level of protecting corporate cruelty and greed. Giving him an unaccountable lifetime position on the Court will weaken our democracy and empower the corporate state.

What will he do when cases involve robots harming workers or consumers; corporate algorithms corkscrewing consumers; corporations turning the governments against their citizens; and corporate criminals being bailed out by taxpayers?

Fortunately, Kavanaugh gives us more than a clue from his many judicial decisions and dissents, especially with healthcare cases coming before the Court. Public Citizen’s factually-based report on Judge Kavanaugh’s opinions in split-decision cases provides insight into his judicial philosophy.

He ruled 15 times against worker rights, 2 times for worker rights. On environmental protection, he ruled 11 times for business interests and 2 times for the public’s interest. On consumer and regulatory cases, he ruled 18 times for businesses and 4 times for consumer protection interests. In the area of antitrust or anti-monopoly, he ruled 2 times for the corporations and zero times for market competition.

He seems to love government power when it is arrayed against the people, ruling 7 times for police or human rights abuses versus zero rulings for the victims. But he rules against government agencies when they are protecting the interests of the people over those of corporations.

Even more extreme, he does not like human beings to sue corporations or sue the government. But if you are a corporation, the courthouse doors are always open.

Kavanaugh rules like he is a corporation masquerading as a human. But in his introductory statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he wanted us to see him a regular guy, weirdly remembering the row and seat number at two professional sports games his father took him to as a child and listing all the names of his sixth grade daughter’s basketball team.

Shame on Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) for severely restricting the voices from civil society allowed to testify before the Judiciary Committee. No wonder Code Pink had to protest from the galleries.

Watch out for a cruel man with a folksy smile. Watch once again the Democratic Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee minimizing Kavanaugh’s bias for corporations— except for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

Given the lives, injuries, and sickness at stake; given the dictatorially approved taxpayer-funded corporate welfare and bloated corporate contracts with governments draining the peoples’ necessities, given Kavanaugh’s mindless support for corporate dollars corruptly buying elections, maybe the motto against this awful nomination should be “Kavana-ugh!”

Most discussions of Vladimir Putin’s plan to boost retirement ages have assumed that he has been driven to that by the need to save money, but in fact, a new analysis says, the plan is less about that than about finding new workers for the Russian economy without bringing in immigrants and the problems they represent.

The pension plan once it is approved will not save Moscow very much money, certainly not the amount that some Russian officials claim and that many assume is the reason Putin has taken such an unpopular step, according to newly released budget figures for the coming three years (sobkorr.ru/news/5B9126AED4912.html and kommersant.ru/doc/3732806).

Indeed, the current retirement ages could have been maintained for a decade or more without serious problems for government finances. The changes were driven by the authorities’ need to increase the number of workers” without increasing immigration, the articles report.

According to new government figures, boosting the retirement age will increase the number of Russians employed in the economy by 137,000 people by 2019 and 1.8 million by 2024, the latter a number that will go a long way to compensate for the demographic decline in which Russia continues to find itself.

That conclusion explains two other things as well: On the one hand, it is why the government has not been willing to back down because demography is much less unforgiving as far as the country’s economy goes than is any budget shortfall caused by pension costs.

And on the other, it also explains why Putin made the concession to women, whose rate of participation in the work force is less than that of men and whose earlier retirement than originally projected will affect the size of the workforce commensurately less.

The irresistible allure of invasion and interference has never been far from US law makers. The imperium needs its regular feed and what a feed it has been over the decades, notably within the sphere of influence discomfortingly termed Washington’s backyard. The current US president has shown himself a keen follower of the idea that the US military, that old, and not yet diminished strongman of capitalism, might come into play to rid Washington of various irritations in Latin America. Venezuela has featured very highly in that regard.

It was Venezuela’s Chávism that turned so many policy makers off in Washington, spurred on by an attempt to quell what Dan Beeton and Alexander Main described as “Latin America’s resistance to the neoliberal agenda”. Any policy reeking of poverty alleviation tends to set bad precedents for those in the United States. The poor must be kept in docile ignorance of their lot as the money is made.

Interest in Venezuela has verged between cognisance and complicity. In 2002, when dissident military officers and members of the opposition in Venezuela were chewing over the prospects of a potential coup against President Hugo Chávez, the Central Intelligence Agency swooned: this more than mildly disruptive man might be on his way out. And he was, if only briefly, returning to power on April 14 emboldened and popular.

The Agency noted then that “disgruntled senior officers and a group of radical junior officers are stepping up efforts to organize a coup against President Chávez, possibly early as this month.” The level of detail, and insight into the mind of the plotters, was extensive. Those involved would attempt to “exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month”. The response from the Bush administration was a plea of ignorance: the leader had brought it all upon himself.

The Latin America WikiLeaks files go further, showing the habitual nature of Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of countries in the region. They show threats and cajoling to left-wing populist government figures, and logistical support for right wing dissenters wishing to cause mayhem. As one cable noting the words of the US ambassador to Bolivia, David L. Greenlee, goes, “When you think of the IDB (International Development Bank), “you should think of the US.” Not that this was “blackmail”, continues the ambassador. This was “simple reality”. President Evo Morales had been put on notice.

The campaign against Caracas over time has been characterised by variously fashioned weapons, most notably sanctions. Destroy the economy, and you foment the basis for reaction. These have been weapons of choice for the policy planners in Washington, featuring such blows as those against the state oil company PDVSA in 2011 and the state arms manufacturer CAVIM in 2013. The following year, specific government officials were also targeted.

In 2017, Trump added his little cameo in entertaining options for overthrowing the Maduro government. This was yet another example of Trump as the apotheosis, high-water mark of US aggression, outing the nastier habits of the imperium. No soft treading required, nor the graceless posture of non-interference, just an open use of force with charging marines.

Statements in August about an outright invasion were coupled with other possibilities. As he told his staff, “We have many options for Venezuela and by the way, I’m not going to rule out a military option.” Then secretary of state Rex Tillerson was perplexed; then national security adviser H.R. McMaster recoiled. The next day, Trump elaborated his views at his New Jersey golf course at Bedminster: “We’re all over the world and we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away, Venezuela is not very far away and the people are suffering and dying. We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.”

When these suggestions made the light of day, they were treated as acts of dizzy lunacy, the fantasies of an insane steward of empire. As José Miguel Vivanco, America’s director for Human Rights opined on August 11, “No one had helped Maduro as much as Trump and this nonsense that he said today.”

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida has been the latest voice to join an already heavily laden bandwagon, giddy from the rum of democracy he hopes to export. In an interview with Univision 23 in Miami, he explained how he had for years “wanted the solution in Venezuela to be a non-military and peaceful solution, simply to restore democracy.” While the US armed forces “are only used in the event of a threat to national security”, an argument could be made “at this time that Venezuela and the Maduro regime has become a threat to the region and even to the United States.”

Such fairy floss logic barely withstands scrutiny, taking the issue of desperation within Venezuela as the starting point for regional instability and threat to US security, an instability, it should be added that has not been helped by the more than occasional fiddle by US authorities.

This fantasy of military backed intervention comes with a slight twist: the comments from Cruz grudgingly acknowledged the prospects of a multilateral negotiated transition, one that might permit perpetrators to get away in a new Venezuelan order. “We’ll have to bite our lips a little bit and watch a solution that has perhaps some form of forgiveness.” Ever the sentiment of the imperial brute, appropriating the means of molestation, punishment and ultimate forgiveness.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel held talks at Meseberg residence for the honorary guests on August 18, where they discussed a number of topical issues, including situation in Syria, Iranian nuclear dossier, settlement of Ukrainian conflict and Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project.

According to Angela Merkel, the meeting became a continuation of the conversation that took place between the leaders of the two states three months earlier in Sochi.

“I believe that disputable issues can be resolved through dialogue, and this is why I am very happy to welcome Mr. Putin,” German Chancellor said prior to the talks.

After the meeting, some foreign media reported on the rapprochement between Europe and Moscow.

“It was the Russian president’s first one-on-one meeting on the home turf of his most implacable European opponent since relations froze in 2014 after his annexation of Crimea. If not a breakthrough, it was at least a thawing of the ice,” says Bloomberg article titled Europe Is Warming Up to Putin.

Commenting on the results of the talks, Patrick Sensburg, German MP from the CDU/CSU fraction, stressed the depth of the dialogue.

“The meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel last Saturday in Meseberg was a continuation of the discussion in the Black Sea resort of Sochi in May – therefore the conversations were intensively deepened. Of course, one important topic was the stabilization of Syria. In this context it has been discussed that the preparations for an exchange between Germany, France, Turkey and Russia are being promoted,” the politician told PenzaNews.

Both Moscow and Berlin have a responsibility when it comes to international conflicts such as those in Syria, he said.

“It is always important to stay in dialogue, because it is the only way to achieve rapprochement in conflicts,” Patrick Sensburg noted, adding that “nations have to talk to each other,” especially when the situation is particularly difficult.

He also stressed that Russia is an indispensable player regarding to solve major conflicts.

“Germany has a strong interest in good relations with Russia and therefore will continue to seek dialogue,” he said.

In turn, Jonathan Stern, Distinguished Research Fellow and Founder, Natural Gas Research Programme, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, drew particular attention to the discussion of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project.

“Possibly the meeting between Putin and Merkel can be important for the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline project but we won’t know that until we see whether and how the trilateral negotiations on Ukrainian transit of Russian gas progress,” the British analyst said.

In his opinion, there won’t be a quick start of this project.

“At least one line of Nord Stream-2 will be built but even this first will not be operational until at least mid or late 2020. It has become a political issue which will need a political solution,” Jonathan Stern explained and added that the meeting won’t change the political atmosphere between Russia and Germany.

Meanwhile, Roberto Castaldi, Research Director of International Centre for European and global governance, Director of the Research Centre on Multi-Level Integration and Governance Processes at eCampus University, noted that the relationship between Russia and Europe are still at a low point.

“There are common trade interests, but diverging geopolitical interests from Ukraine to Syria. [European] public opinion is worried by alleged Russian interference in the democratic processes in many countries and by the murder attempt of a former Russia spy in the UK. However, the fact that Trump is such an erratic President creates an incentive for Europeans to talk with anybody else,” the expert said.

From his point of view, the meeting in Meseberg was very important.

“It signaled Germany’s willingness to consider Russia an indispensable interlocutor on many international crises and issues, beside the trade and economic aspect,” Roberto Castaldi stressed and added that in the past Germany was among the countries more keen on anti-Russian economic sanctions.

“I don’t expect any rapid or dramatic change in the relationship between the EU countries and Russia. But they all have an interest in keeping an open dialogue though,” the analyst said.

Meanwhile, according to him, the position of some EU political parties on relations with Moscow will not be able to provide practical efforts to review anti-Russian sanctions.

“Unless there is a real implementation of the Minsk agreement in Ukraine a significant improvement of the relationship is unlikely. The idea that the Italian, Austrian and Hungarian governments can change the overall European position is based on an overstatement of their influence and ability to work together and build coalitions in the EU,” Roberto Castaldi added.

In turn, William Courtney, former US Ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan, Adjunct Senior Fellow at RAND, shared the opinion that Russian relations with Europe, as well as America, are more strained than ever.

“Europeans see the annexation of Crimea, and war in eastern Ukraine as a direct affront to European values. In the European view, this aggression contravenes the post-World War II security order in Europe, which opposes the use of coercion to seize territory from another country. Europeans are upset that Russia denies responsibility for shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over occupied eastern Ukraine in 2014, and for poisoning Sergey Skripal and his daughter and for the death of British bystander Dawn Burgess earlier this year,” the analyst described the situation.

He reminded that Russian and Germany are the two most populous countries in Europe, which are central to some of the major issues that affect Europe.

At the same time, William Courtney suggested that the meeting may not change the political atmosphere between the two countries unless progress was made on specific issues, and called the Ukraine issue the most important one.

From his point of view, “Europe is determined to maintain sanctions on Russia” until it changes its policies, including with regard to Syria – however, the progress on this issue “may be no more than modest.”

Meanwhile, Pal Steigan, Norwegian politician, publisher, writer, independent entrepreneur in the field of culture and information technology, shared the opinion that the relations between Moscow and Brussels are absolutely not productive and this runs counter to both European and Russian interests.

“The abnormal sanctions regime which was installed by the US was in fact given as an order from Washington to reluctant European allies, former vice president Joe Biden boasted in a speech in 2014. This regime has destroyed European jobs in the hundreds of thousands and harmed industry and agriculture both in Europe and in Russia,” the politician explained.

However, the fact that the meeting was held is a small positive sign, he believes.

“Germany is the second biggest exporter in the world. German industry has lost jobs, incomes and future opportunities by the sanctions regime. German exporters have long been pleading for a change. Also Ms Merkel has come to understand that when the US says America first, it is also directed against Europe and Germany,” Pal Steigan said.

At the same time, in his opinion, Russia is an ideal economic partner for Germany.

“The energy and investment possibilities of Russia combined with the excellence of German industry is a strong combination,” he stressed and added that it will take time for potential changes in relations between countries.

“Also the Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin gave some hopes for détente, but almost nothing has happened so far. Of course Merkel doesn’t have the same opposition on the home front, but she has the so called ally over the Atlantic to consider. Will she be allowed to make a new version of the Rapallo Treaty of 1922?” Pal Steigan said, pointing out that the general international development works for rapprochement between Russia and Germany.

“The BRICS+ meeting in Johannesburg, the accord between Russia, China and Iran on economic development, the de-dollarisation of global economy and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative all work for a multipolar world in which the US no longer has a veto,” the politician concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/65646-2018

Synthetic biology is an emerging field in science and technology that can make a positive impact in numerous areas. There are also concerns that it could be misused to exacerbate the illicit drug threat. Authorities worldwide need to nip this potential threat in the bud.

By Nandhakumar Gunasekaran*

Synthetic biology is gaining recognition as an emerging field in science and technology that characterises the fusion of technologies between the physical, digital and biological spheres as part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A multi-disciplinary science that combines elements from the scientific, engineering and technological disciplines, synthetic biology involves the use of biotechnology and DNA manipulation to create or modify living things in order to introduce new functions or improve existing ones.

Synthetic biology can make a positive impact in numerous areas such as agriculture, energy and medicine. One example in medicine is research aimed at being able to synthetically programme bacteria for the production of antibiotics or other valuable biochemical compounds, which opens up possibilities for the production of new drugs to combat diseases. Although the process is synthetic, the end-products would be natural.

However, synthetic biology can also be misused by malevolent actors for the purpose of illicit drug production. They could augment existing drug pipelines as well as create new ones for the production and distribution of harmful drugs. Considering, for example, how fentanyl – a synthetic drug – is out of control now in the United States (US), the authorities need to take appropriate steps to address this potential threat.

Threat from Drug Trade

Criminal elements such as drug syndicates and other organised crime groups could seek to exploit breakthroughs in synthetic biology in order to boost the drug trade with new means of production. Techniques such as DNA editing and DNA synthesis could be used in the production of opiates by processing sugar through genetically-modified yeast. Opiates such as morphine and oxycodone, which are mainly used as pain relief drugs, can cause a user to spiral into dependence and addiction if used improperly. The ease with which such new means of production could be replicated and concealed could work to the advantage of the drug trade.

Drugs created using the capabilities of synthetic biology could be produced and distributed using existing drug pipelines around the world. The first pipeline is the illegal online sale internationally of dangerous synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which is particularly a problem in the US. Second is the pilfering, improper prescription and unauthorised re-selling of prescription pain medications, which coupled with illegal online sales, contributes to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the West.

A third pipeline, which concerns Southeast Asia, involves the production and distribution of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines through Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. Drugs from this region, long known as the ‘Golden Triangle’, are then brought to market in the rest of Southeast Asia and beyond. With the appropriate investment of resources and expertise, these drug pipelines could be adapted to leverage on drugs produced using synthetic biology.

Biohackers: New Threat Dimension?

Another group of actors who could misuse synthetic biology are biohackers from the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) bio-movement. Biohackers largely comprise amateur biologists engaging in experimental activities related to synthetic biology in community- or home-based laboratories. The open-source nature of knowledge and materials in the synthetic biology field enables biohackers to build up their competencies.

The biohacking community is currently deemed to have limited capabilities for malevolent pursuits. However, rapid advances in synthetic biology capabilities, lower costs, and greater knowledge and skills over time may steer certain biohackers to illegally produce drugs for distribution or their own use.

There is also the unwelcome prospect of organised criminal groups recruiting biohackers or subverting their work for illicit purposes. This could lead to the creation of entirely new drug pipelines. Drugs such as yeast-based opiates could be financed by criminal groups, and produced and distributed by biohackers through a decentralised network of underground laboratories. Such drugs could be sold online anonymously and using cryptocurrencies to evade the detection of authorities.

Tackling the Drug Problem

The relevant authorities need to adopt a number of measures to tackle the potential misuse of synthetic biology to produce illicit drugs.

First, they should develop and enforce regulations that prevent deliberate and accidental misuse of synthetic biology research and applications. However, regulations should be balanced so they do not impede research done for legitimate and beneficial purposes. A major challenge for policymakers will be ensuring that regulations keep pace with advances in this fast-growing field. One such area would be the development of new means of drug production using genetically-modified material.

Second, stakeholders from government, industry, academia and the biohacking community could collaborate in inculcating norms related to ethics and conduct to ensure that progress made in synthetic biology is legitimate and beneficial. There is a concomitant need to raise awareness about security risks related to synthetic biology, including the consequences of allowing synthetic biology to be misused for illicit drug production.

Third, drug enforcement should not be overlooked. Strategic plans and operational countermeasures by authorities in law enforcement, intelligence and border security must address the potential threat posed by criminal elements in the drug trade exploiting synthetic biology. This includes potential threats from biohackers, which authorities can keep track of by building a relationship with the biohacker community, most of whom would not have malicious intent, and can serve as a source of intelligence.

To nip this potential drug threat in the bud, it is vital that the emerging field of synthetic biology not be used as an unwitting pathway by malevolent actors in the drug trade. Authorities worldwide need to act in a timely and comprehensive manner before it is too late.

*Nandhakumar Gunasekaran is Senior Analyst in the Science and Technology Studies Programme (STSP) in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.