Ten years ago, after making piles of money gambling with other people’s money, Wall Street nearly imploded, and the outgoing George W. Bush and incoming Obama administrations bailed out the bankers.

America should have learned three big lessons from the crisis. We didn’t, to our continuing peril.

First unlearned lesson: Banking is a risky business with huge upsides for the few who gamble in it, but bigger downsides for the public when those bets go bad.

Which means that safeguards are necessary. The safeguards created after Wall Street’s 1929 crash worked for over four decades. They made banking boring.

But starting in the 1980s, they were watered down or repealed because of Wall Street’s increasing thirst for profits and its growing political clout. As politicians from both parties grew dependent on the Street for campaign funding, the rush to deregulate turned into a stampede.

It began in 1982 when Congress and the Reagan administration deregulated savings and loan banks – allowing them to engage in risky commercial lending, while continuing to guarantee them against major losses.

Not surprisingly, the banks got into big trouble, necessitating a taxpayer-funded bailout.

The next milestone came in 1999, when Congress and the Clinton Administration, under then Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, repealed the Glass-Steagall Act – a 1930s safeguard that had prohibited banks from gambling with commercial deposits. (For the record, I was no longer in the Cabinet.)

Then in 2000, Congress and Clinton barred the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating most over-the-counter derivative contracts, including credit default swaps.

The coup de grace came in 2004, when George W. Bush’s Securities and Exchange Commission allowed investment banks to hold less capital in reserve.

All of this ushered in the 2008 near meltdown – which was followed by another attempt to impose safeguards, the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010.

And now? The Street’s political clout is as great as ever, which explains why the Dodd-Frank safeguards are now being watered down – clearing the way for another crisis.

The second lesson we should have learned but didn’t is how widening inequality makes our economy susceptible to financial disaster.

In the decades leading up to 2008, stagnant wages caused many Americans to go deep into debt – using the rising values of their homes as collateral. Much the same thing had happened in the years leading up to 1929.

Wall Street banks were delighted to accommodate – lending willy-nilly and often in predatory ways – until the housing and debt bubbles burst.

And now? The underlying problem of stagnant wages, with most economic gains going to the top, is still with us. Once again, consumers are deep in debt – inviting another crisis.

The third big lesson we didn’t learn concerned the rigging of American politics. After the crisis, many Americans realized that Wall Street, big corporations, and the wealthy had essentially bought up our democracy.

Americans saw the Street get bailed out while homeowners, suddenly owing more on their homes than the homes were worth, got little or nothing.

Millions lost their jobs, savings, pensions, and homes, but the bankers and big investors came out richer than before.

Bankers who committed serious fraud escaped accountability. No executive went to jail. Big banks like Wells Fargo continued to break laws with impunity.

Many officials involved in deregulating the Street became top executives in the Wall Street banks that benefited from deregulation. Some involved in writing the Dodd-Frank Act are now employed by the same financial institutions that are watering it down.

Meanwhile, big corporations and wealthy individuals continue to flood Washington with money, making it the capital of “crony capitalism.”

Widespread outrage at all this fueled the Tea Party on the Right and the brief “Occupy” movement on the Left. Both eventually morphed into the two anti-establishment candidacies of 2016 – authoritarian populist Donald Trump and democratic populist Bernie Sanders.

And now? Anti-establishment fury remains the strongest force in American politics.

Trump has been using it to conjure up racist and xenophobic conspiracies and to create the most authoritarian regime in modern American history. He promised to “drain the swamp” but has made it bigger and filthier.

Democrats don’t know whether to simply oppose Trump and his authoritarianism, or get behind a reform agenda to wrest control of politics and the economy from the moneyed interests.

But to do the latter they’d have to take on those that have funded them for decades. I wish I had more confidence they will.

Sad to say, ten years after the near meltdown of Wall Street we seem to have learned very little. Only worse: We now have Trump.

The earth beneath our feet isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when people think about the impacts of climate change. However, a study by a UC Riverside-led team of researchers predicts a climate-induced reduction in large soil pores, which may intensify the water cycle and contribute to more flash flooding and soil erosion by the end of the 21st century.

In a paper published Sept. 5 in Nature, the scientists studied the impact of climate change on macroporosity–the amount of large pores in the soil. Macropores, which are greater than 0.08 mm in diameter, allow water to be absorbed easily into the surrounding soil, where it can be used by plants, transport nutrients, and eventually make its way back into underground aquifers.

“It is important to predict the response of macroporosity to climate change because of its role in the water cycle, and ultimately in water scarcity, food security, human health and loss of biodiversity,” said Daniel Hirmas, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and lead author on the study.

Using a large database of soils collected over 50 years from across the continental U.S. combined with atmospheric data from a network of weather stations, the researchers examined changes in macroporosity across a rainfall, temperature, and humidity gradient. They found macropores were more likely to develop in drier climates than humid climates, and that climate-related changes in macroporosity occur over shorter timescales than previously thought.

The researchers then used climate projections for the end of the 21st Century to predict that increasing humidity by 2080-2100 will reduce soil macroporosity in most regions of the U.S. (with the exception of the southern coastal plain, which comprises Alabama and Louisiana).

he consequences could be less infiltration of water into the ground, more surface runoff and erosion, and more flash flooding.

“This is the first study to show that the development of macropores is influenced by climate at short timescales and it reinforces the hypothesis that climate change will probably intensify the water cycle,” Hirmas said. “Our results suggest that macroporosity should be incorporated into global climate models to better understand the water cycle, anticipate changes, and prepare for the future.”

The title of the paper is “Climate-induced changes in continental-scale soil macroporosity may intensify water cycle.” In addition to Hirmas, authors include Daniel Giménez from Rutgers University; Attila Nemes from the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO); Ruth Kerry from Brigham Young University; and Nathaniel A. Brunsell and Cassandra J. Wilson from the University of Kansas. The work was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (USDA-AFRI) and NIBIO.

A Hong Kong Protestant group has urged the faithful to express their discontent with mainstream churches in the Chinese territory turning a blind eye to China’s recent crackdown on Protestant churches.

Yeung Ho-yin, the founder of HKBCBS, wrote on the group’s Facebook page on Sept. 12 that the crackdown is thought to be the largest since the Cultural Revolution.

He said the suppression started in Henan province in late August as the provincial government demolished crosses, burned Bibles, arrested church members and seized churches. It soon spread to other cities and provinces. “The government is planning to tighten preaching on the internet,” he wrote.

Yeung said 90 percent of Hong Kong churches had kept silent about the issue. “Do the Hong Kong churches honor God or Emperor Xi?” he asked.

A few pastors have voiced their concerns and some Protestant communities in Hong Kong are planning to organize meetings to raise awareness of the issue.

Yeung wrote that Hong Kong churches’ silence on social injustice had long incurred discontent among progressive and radical believers.

According to Radio France Internationale on Sept. 10, more than 7,000 crosses have been demolished in Henan, far more than the 1,700 demolished in Zhejiang province since 2014. Even government-sanctioned churches have not been spared.

The report also said that house churches that refused to sing the national anthem or accept socialist core values were forcibly dismantled. Government personnel raided churches to remove crosses, smash pianos and furniture, arrest pastors, beat those who resisted, confiscate church property and burn Bibles and hymn books.

Two-thirds of Henan churches have been forced to close, according to media reports. Many preachers and pastors had to undergo political assessment. Only those who advocated socialist core values were allowed to preach.

In addition, the Zion Church, the largest house church in Beijing, has also been repressed by authorities.

Seven Zion churches have been forced to close after being accused of holding religious activities without registration, but a Zion pastor said house churches had no channel to register under the current system.

Authorities in Wenzhou city in Zhejiang province recently requested schools to investigate students’ religious beliefs.

In Guangzhou city of Guangdong province, some pastors who run house churches were penalized by the local government for organizing illegal religious gatherings.

In Chengdu city in Sichuan province, the Early Rain Covenant Church has been repeatedly disrupted by authorities.

Professor Ying Fuk-tsang, director of the divinity school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in an interview with Voices of Germany that Chinese authorities were suppressing the growth of Protestant churches, “reflecting [President] Xi Jinping’s ideological fight and his belief that Protestant churches threaten the Communist Party.”

The White Paper on Religious Policy released by the State Council Information Office in April indicated that China’s Christian population is more than 38 million, a significant increase of 65 percent from the 23 million recorded by the Academy of Social Sciences in 2010.

The state-run Global Times published an editorial on Sept. 11 saying that Chinese citizens are enjoying full freedom of religious beliefs but simultaneously religions need to be managed according to the law. “And management is needed since, in some places, people are violating the law to organize illegal activities.”

It said it is almost impossible for outsiders to fully understand China’s religious affairs as there is a serious ideological difference between China and the West, but the management of religious affairs in China has “the backbone to resolutely act according to the law.”

Pastor Jin Mingri, director of the Zion Church, said the government is obviously hostile to religions and believes that all religious communities including Islam, Buddhism and Catholicism should be politicized.

Some kindergartners and first-graders suspended from school can find it challenging to reverse the negative trajectory in their academic life, says a University of Michigan researcher.

These young suspended students–especially boys–are likely to be suspended again later in elementary school, according to Zibei Chen, a research fellow at the U-M School of Social Work, and colleagues at Louisiana State University.

Schools often use suspensions to discipline students, but questions arise about how effective suspension can be in addressing future behavior problems and the impact on academic progress, Chen says.

The result when a solution isn’t found? More students dropping out of school.

“Not only are children who are suspended at a young age missing out on time spent in early learning experiences, but they are also less likely to be referred to services and supports they need to thrive in later school years,” Chen said.

Among the findings: Boys rated by teachers as aggressive, defiant and disruptive are more likely to be suspended than girls. They are also less engaged in school.

Girls rated by teachers as disruptive and lacking in parental school involvement are more likely to be suspended. Significant predictors of suspension in kindergarten and first grade also predicted suspension one and three years later.

Boys and African-American students are more likely to be suspended than girls and white and Hispanic students, respectively, the study indicated.

Mi-Youn Yang, LSU assistant professor of social work and the study’s lead author, says their findings show that black students experience disproportionate suspensions, but these incidents are not always straightforward. Sometimes these behavioral issues can be reported by teachers who may hold implicit racial biases and not issue the same penalties to white students, she said.

The study appears in Children and Youth Services Review. It used data from an initiative of the Social Research and Evaluation Center at the LSU College of Human Sciences and Education. Other authors include LSU researchers Erin Harmeyer and Blaine Masinter Lofaso.

The US and China take contrasting approaches to digital trade, according to new research published in the Journal of International Economic Law. By acknowledging and understanding the different stance each country takes, policy makers may find ways to bring down trade barriers, says Associate Professor Henry Gao of the Singapore Management University School of Law, who led the first-ever comparative study of the two countries’ differing approaches to digital trade issues.

With the advent of the internet, the sale of goods and services is no longer limited to physical storefronts or geographical borders. Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is now worth trillions of dollars globally, raising the stakes for companies engaged in digital trade. Yet, in many cases, the precise definitions of digital products and whether they should be subject to tariffs, customs duties or other fees have yet to be ironed out at the international level.

In this study, Professor Gao tracked the regulation of digital trade by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), highlighting that its members have thus far been unable to arrive at a consensus on the rules governing e-commerce. The study also noted that the world’s ten largest internet companies – Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Priceline, eBay, Netflix, JD.com, Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu – are all based in the US or China, suggesting that the two countries are poised to play significant roles in crafting international e-commerce rules.

By examining proposals made by the US and China at various economic fora and to the WTO, as well as e-commerce clauses in their respective free trade agreements, the study documented a stark contrast in the two countries’ positions on digital trade. “The US tends to focus more on the ‘digital’ side [of e-commerce], which includes internet search and social networking. China, however, focuses more on the traditional ‘trade’ side, that is, trade in goods,” explained Professor Gao. “In other words, the US trades bits while China still trades atoms.”

This being the case, the US cares more about digital barriers like internet censorship and restrictions on cross-border data flow, whereas China is more concerned about traditional trade barriers like tariffs, argued Professor Gao in the study.

Further, the two countries’ distinct domestic regulatory frameworks affect their stances on the regulation of digital trade, the study found. With its historical preference for letting market forces determine acceptable boundaries for the internet and e-commerce domestically, the US has also voiced its preference for deregulation when it comes to digital trade at the international level. On the other hand, China has traditionally opted for stronger government control over the internet, a standpoint that is embedded in its e-commerce proposals to the WTO, the study noted.

“These deeply entrenched differences will require time to reconcile. To move forward, perhaps both countries could start with issues where they share some common interests, such as a permanent moratorium on customs duties on e-commerce,” suggested Professor Gao.

By Jeoffrey Maitem, Karl Romano and Luis Liwanag

Philippine rescuers reported on Sunday that dozens of gold miners and their families could be trapped by a landslide that buried an old shaft and areas converted into living spaces in Benguet province as the death toll from Typhoon Mangkhut rises.

The typhoon slammed into the Philippines on Saturday bringing winds of 170 kph (105 mph) with gusts of 260 kph (160 mph), killing as many as 60 people and government and municipal officials expect the death toll to grow.

Francis Tolentino, a senior government official sent by President Rodrigo Duterte to manage relief and response efforts, said at least 42 landslides were triggered by heavy rains dumped by Mangkhut.

Mayor Victorio Palangda of Itogon town in Benguet province said that 32 people were confirmed dead in his town alone, while up to 50 are still missing. A small scale mining bunkhouse believed to shelter dozens of people also was buried.

“I can’t begin to accept this, but it looks like the casualties here are going to go up to at least 100,” he said.

The town teems with small scale mining operations. Palangda said mining company Benguet Corp. abandoned the bunkhouse long ago, but miners had often used it as living quarters.

“The casualties can rise because we fear there are people in the bunkhouse and we are not certain of the numbers,” he said. “We are saying that 40 to 50 people were there. They were inside when the building went missing, people saw that.

“That is what I fear. That if this is true, the number of dead here due to Ompong could really rise beyond 100,” he said using the Philippine name for Mangkhut.

Another official said he was caught off guard by the outcome of the storm

“We were prepared for the typhoon buy we cannot do anything with the landslide. The problem is it’s unexpected,” said Mayor Mauricio Domogan, of the nearby mountain resort city of Baguio.

In Cagayan province to the northeast, Gov. Manuel Mamba on Sunday said evacuees whose houses were destroyed remain at shelters while others have started to return.

“We received no reports of casualties so far. Hopefully, we will be zero casualty,” he said.

“While the typhoon has slowed down and continued to weaken according to our weather reports, its threat is not yet over. So, let us not be complacent. I urge the people to continue to be alert and on guard of the possible effects of the typhoon,” she said.

Mangkhut moves on

After devastating the Philippines, the storm appeared headed to Hong Kong where an estimated 227,000 Filipinos working there mostly as maids or care givers were advised to stay indoors. The typhoon, spared Hong Kong and hit southern China with sustained winds of 160 kph (100 mph).

Virginia Orogo, secretary of the department of Social Welfare and Development, said relief is being provided to more than 31,000 families affected by the typhoon.

The Philippines sits on a typhoon belt and endures up to 20 storms a year, some of them devastating.

In 2012, more than 1,000 people died as Typhoon Bopha swept across eastern Mindanao bringing with it winds gusting up to 200 kph (124 mph). A year earlier, more than 600 died when Tropical Storm Washi slammed into the southern island. Last year, Typhoon Haima hit the country.

In November 2013, Supertyphoon Haiyan left at least 6,300 people dead and scores missing. With winds of up to 235 kph (146 mph), Haiyan blew away homes and triggered massive flooding.

By Maja Zivanovic

Large amounts of weapons and drugs have been seized in a major cross-border joint police action coordinated by Europol, designed to counter crime originating from the Western Balkans.

A major police action involving 8,300 police from 28 countries and designed to curb crime orginating from the Balkans has resulted in almost half a million people, vehicles and premises being checked on the ground, Europol said on Friday.

A Europol press release said the latest Joint Action Days was conducted between September 5 to 9 and involved police from Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia.

Police from 20 EU states were also involved, as were police from Switzerland, the US, Europol and Frontex.

In one example of a joint action, on 6 September, a Turkish lorry with 34 migrants on board was stopped in Hungary near the Romanian border.

“Several hundred pieces of information were exchanged between all partners, 32 suspects were arrested, 102 firearms seized and 60 houses searched,” a Europol press release said.

It listed 159 firearms, explosives and other weapons being seized, as well as 1,462 pieces of ammunition and 286 kilograms of drugs.

Police arrested migrant smugglers, illegal migrants and refugees, drug traffickers, firearms traffickers and document fraudsters.

Joint Action Days are regular cross-border law enforcement operations conducted by Europol.

Last November, a Joint Action Days operation, directed against arms trafficking in the Western Balkans, resulted in over 135 firearms and 7,000 rounds of ammunition being seized in “Operation Calibre”.

Undocumented Latino immigrants have some of the lowest rates of health care use – and signs point to it getting worse.

A Drexel University study used information from a health survey conducted between 2011 and 2015 in California to analyze health care access and use among Latinos. Led by Alex Ortega, PhD, a professor in Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, the researchers found that immigrant Latinos – especially undocumented immigrants – have much lower rates than U.S.-born Latinos and white citizens.

Worse yet – the numbers have trended downward from a similar study Ortega did 15 years ago.

“There are significant disparities in access to and utilization of health care by legal authorizations status,” Ortega said. “And given the current political climate that is very hostile to immigration – especially from Latin America – we can only expect the disparities to get worse.”

In this most recent study – published in Medical Care – less than half of the undocumented immigrants (who amounted to roughly 3,000 survey respondents) had any type of health insurance. Moreover, with roughly four in 10 not having a regular source of care or having seen a doctor at all, undocumented immigrants were at the bottom of both of those categories, too.

The survey showed that 61 percent of white people reported being in “excellent” or “very good” health, compared to just 25 percent of undocumented immigrants.

However, undocumented immigrants were among the least likely to have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, heart disease, or asthma.

“They have lower risk of chronic disease than other immigrants and U.S. citizens,” Ortega pointed out. “The political talking point that undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. and overburden our health care system is not evidenced by our findings.”

So how is it possible that this population is less likely to see a doctor but still seems less prone to chronic disease?

“There are two ways to interpret this,” Ortega explained. “One way is that immigrants are not accessing services because they do not have a medical need. Another way is that they do not have physician-based diagnoses of chronic disease because they have not used primary care and preventive services that would provide the opportunity to be screened and diagnosed.”

While both are possibilities, further research would be needed to why the dichotomy exists.

One concerning finding from the study was that the vast majority of undocumented immigrants (77 percent) said they would not seek help for mental health concerns because the cost of treatment was too high. Likely tied to that, this population was also the least likely to see a mental health professional in the last year (fewer than one in 20 said they had).

“When people do not access needed mental health services, it is problematic for the person, his or her family and society as a whole,” Ortega said. “Delaying seeking necessary mental health care can lead to more serious disease and exacerbation of symptoms in many cases.”

While Ortega said the patterns “seem to be getting worse for immigrants according to documentation status,” there are some potential solutions to close the gaps.

California and some of its municipalities have created health policies to allow Latino immigrants to access medical care no matter where their documentation status stands.

“Delaying care can result in having diseases that become more difficult to treat and manage, making their medical costs more expensive in the long-run,” Ortega said. “California and its localities have learned that providing care – particularly preventive care – can save costs and improve population health.”

There’s plenty of proof that the U.S. Government protects Al Qaeda in Syria. Right now, America is protecting Al Qaeda’s main center throughout the world, which is the province of Idlib in Syria. This protection is part of a bigger picture, no merely isolated phenomenon.

For example: the key point of difference between the Obama Administration in America and the Putin Administration in Russia, regarding the establishment of a cease-fire in the Syrian war, was that Obama refused to allow Al Qaeda in Syria to be bombed during the proposed ceasefire, but Putin insisted that both Al Qaeda in Syria and ISIS in Syria must continue to be bombed during the ceasefire. Obama was protecting Al Qaeda in Syria, but Putin insisted upon bombing Al Qaeda and not only ISIS during any ceasefire there. (See the proof at that link, and you will also understand why Obama was protecting Al Qaeda in Syria.)

Right now, the U.S. Government and some of its allies are threatening to go to war against Russia if Russia will bomb the world’s highest concentration of Al Qaeda terrorists. Those terrorists are located in the only province of Syria that has always preferred Al Qaeda and ISIS to the Government of Syria’s secular President, Bashar al-Assad. That’s Idlib province, which now is Al Qaeda central, like Afghanistan used to be before 9/11 (and for which the U.S. bombed Afghanistan right after 9/11).

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A 30 July 2017 speech makes this clear. The speech wasn’t given by an opponent or critic of the U.S. Government, but by a high official of the U.S. Government who speaks for the President of the United States on Syria and who has been doing this not only under Trump, but under Obama. This official is the neoconservative and rabidly anti-Assad and anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi and pro-Israeli Brett McGurk, who is U.S. President Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, at the U.S. Department of State. He publicly acknowledged that “Idlib province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11, tied directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri. … Leaders of Al Qaeda who make their way to Idlib province often do not make their way out of there.” He acknowledges there that Idlib is like the pre-9/11 Afghanistan was. McGurk, who consistently supports Sunni Saudi Arabia against Shiite Iran, blames Shiite Iran for Al Qaeda, and for everything that Al Qaeda does. He gives as his reason for blaming Iran, Iran’s having been insufficiently hostile toward Al Qaeda members. (One can say the same about any Muslim-majority nation, but especially regarding Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni-Muslim ones, particularly because Al Qaeda is itself an intensely Sunni organization, not at all Shiite.)

Likewise, the neoconservative scholar Kyle Orton wrote on 21 July 2017 (just days before that U.S. official, McGurk, spoke) saying that Al Qaeda threatens to apply terrorism against Iran if Iran goes too hard against Al Qaeda, and yet Orton also said that Iran is to blame for what Al Qaeda does.

In other words: Iran is in fear of Al Qaeda, and yet (according to Orton and the U.S. Government, including McGurk) Iran is responsible for Al Qaeda — that’s actually the official U.S. viewpoint, crazy though it sounds (and it can be understood only by understanding the broader picture).

The fact that Al Qaeda is totally a Sunni operation, and the fact that Al Qaeda believes that all Shia should be killed, are simply being ignored by U.S. officials. 9/11 is instead blamed on Shiites, though its perpetrators (other than Bush, Cheney and their friends) were almost entirely fundamentalist-Sunni Saudis, and none at all were Shiites, from anywhere.

Orton cites the Obama-Trump Administrations’ McGurk as providing support for his view that Iran needs to be conquered, and that, as the Trump Administration says and the Obama Administration had said, “Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world today.” Not Saudi Arabia, but Iran (which the Saud family have sworn to destroy). The U.S. Government blames Iran, regardless of the evidence, and blames it for everything bad in and from the Middle East. The U.S. Government know better, but lies.

Putin, Erdogan, and Rouhani, met in Tehran on September 7th to discuss the threat by Trump (from condemnation backed not only by Trump’s allies but by the ‘humanitarian’ agencies of the U.N.), the Trump Administration’s threat to go to war against Russia for ‘humanitarian’ reasons if Russia assists Assad’s effort to exterminate the jihadists in Idlib. Russia didn’t want World War III, and so this meeting in Tehran occurred. TIME magazine headlined on September 7th, “Presidents of Russia, Turkey and Iran Meet to Plot Future of Syria Ahead of Battle for Last Rebel Stronghold” and reported that “Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a cease-fire and an end to airstrikes in the northwestern province of Idlib, something that wasn’t immediately accepted by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.”

No public announcement was made of what had been agreed-to at the conference. On September 9th, the Wall Street Journal reported that, “President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has approved the use of chlorine gas in an offensive against the country’s last major rebel stronghold, U.S. officials said.” So, the Trump Administration was continuing its planned false-flag operation to have its terrorists in Idlib unleash an Idlib chemical-weapons attack that’s been set up to be blamed against Assad as an excuse for the U.S. and its allies to launch WW III against Syria, Iran, and Russia in order ‘to protect civilians’ in Idlib.

On September 10th, I headlined “Prelude to World War III” and argued why, “Unless Syria will simply hand its most heavily pro-jihadist province, Idlib, to adjoining Turkey, which claims to have 30,000 troops there and is planning to add 20,000 more, World War III will probably happen soon.” I argued there that:

The way for the plan to avert that outcome to be carried out would be:

Assad and Putin both will announce that due to the complaints from the U.S. Government and from the United Nations and from the Turkish Government, Syria will give up Idlib province, and will construct on the border between it and the adjoining areas of Syria, a DMZ or De-Militarized Zone, so that not only will the residents in Idlib be safe from any attack by Syria and its allies (such as America and its allies have been demanding), but Syrians — in all the others of Syria’s provinces — will likewise be safe against any continued attacks by the jihadists that have concentrated themselves in Idlib.

This way, Turkey’s President Erdogan can safely keep his 50,000 troops in Idlib if he wishes; America’s President Trump can claim victory in Syria and finally fulfill his long-promised intention to end the U.S. occupation of (most of the jihadist-controlled) parts of Syria (which they’ve occupied), and maybe WW III can be avoided, or, at least, postponed, maybe even so that people living today won’t be dying-off from WW III and its after-effects.

Also on September 10th, Erdogan headlined a WSJ op-ed, “The World Must Stop Assad: If the Syrian regime attacks Idlib, the result will be a humanitarian and geopolitical disaster.” He argued from Trump’s standpoint. Erdogan now had 50,000 Turkish troops in Idlib. And yet, Russia had already begun a very limited bombing campaign in Idlib. But Turkey’s troops weren’t being hit. Nor were the jihadists being hit that were in place awaiting their camp to be bombed and that had set up the chemical weapons to go off there and so to serve as Trump’s excuse for WW III to begin in Syria.

It was now several days after the September 7th meeting, and yet Trump’s plan for WW III still couldn’t yet be exercised; the excuse for it was still not present. For some reason, a limited cease-fire appears to have been occurring in Idlib.

Evidently, Erdogan had persuaded Putin (if he even really needed persuading — given Trump’s threat, Putin himself might have come up with this plan) that Turkey was going to assume responsibility for Idlib. Russia’s minor bombings in Idlib were just for show, so as not publicly to reveal that Erdogan’s proposal (if it originated with him, instead of with Putin) had won out at the September 7th meeting. If that plan had been publicly first espoused by Putin, then the U.S. side would far more likely have condemned it; but, coming from NATO member Turkey, the U.S. side would be able to present implementation of “Turkey’s position” as being ‘a win for The West’.

But what was the September 7th agreement that was reached in Tehran, really? What was the plan that Putin, Rouhani, and Erdogan, agreed-to?

Clearly, Assad was opposed to it — at least in public. My argument that it would help him and Syria was not publicly shared by him, at all. Whatever the Tehran plan was, with 50,000 Turkish troops now in Idlib, Syria might now, indeed, ultimately have to cede Idlib (the world’s highest-intensity jihadist center) to Turkey.

On September 11th, Peter Korzun at the Strategic Culture Foundation (which favors Russia and its allies, including Syria), argued

Syria needs Idlib — the last stronghold of the jihadists and the shortest route from Latakia to Aleppo. The M5 international highway crosses Idlib, linking Turkey and Jordan through Aleppo and Damascus. Control of the province would greatly facilitate the negotiations with the Kurds and strengthen Syria’s position at the UN-brokered Geneva talks. If the negotiation process succeeds, the only territories left to liberate would be the zone controlled by the US, such as the al-Tanf military base and the surrounding area, the northern parts of the country under Turkish control, and small chunks of land still held by ISIS.

On that same day, SyriaNews.cc (another pro-Syrian site) poured forth venomously against Erdogan for his statements. Linking to this, that commentator said:

“objecting to a major operation there because it would likely cause a major exodus of refugees across the border, with extremists potentially sneaking in with refugees.”

Double whammy to have you keeled over with laughter…or should that be tears.

Concerns for refugees??!! Erdogan steals their organs. Refugee camps in Turkey became harvesting centers for it.

The U.S. alliance is, indeed, now referring to not only Al Qaeda in Idlib but also ISIS in Idlib as being ‘rebels’ and ‘refugees’; and Erdogan does, too. That’s the U.S. side’s propaganda. That SyriaNews commentator was correct to be appalled at it. Erdogan and the U.S. side are accurately represented there. But this does not necessarily mean that Russia and its allies (especially Syria) cannot win with this strategy that’s being condemned by Assad, and by Strategic Culture Foundation, and by Syria News. If that strategy turns out to be the one that I proposed on September 10th, I think that they will win with it. Certainly, for Syria to retain Idlib would be horrible both for Syria and for Assad (who has always been loathed by the residents there, who see him as being either a Shiite or an atheist).

And Erdogan is in both camps — America’s and Russia’s — and playing each side against the other, for what he wants. But he could turn out to be the biggest loser from ‘his’ success here.

If he exterminates Idlib’s jihadists, then the U.S. side will condemn him for it. But if he instead frees those jihadists to return to their home-countries, then both sides will condemn him for having done so.

The biggest apparent ‘winner’ from all this, Erdogan, could thus turn out to be the biggest real loser from it. And the biggest apparent ‘loser’ from it, Assad, could turn out to be the biggest real winner from it.

NEWS UPDATE: On Friday, September 14th, Turkey’s Yeni Safak newspaper bannered “Idlib locals flee to Turkish-controlled areas for safety”, and reported that, “The locals of Syria’s Idlib have started to flee as fears of a looming offensive by the Assad regime and his allies grip the province.” They also headlined “Turkey deploys more armored vehicles to Syrian border”, and reported that, “More military reinforcements including tanks, according to reports from the ground arrived at the Syrian border in Turkey’s southern Hatay province.” These reports are consistent with the plan’s being for Turkey to segregate-out the active jihadists in Idlib so as for Russia and Syria to slaughter those. Another headline there was from Reuters, “Turkey’s Erdoğan, Russia’s Putin to meet in Sochi on Monday”, and this suggests that there is extremely close coordination between Putin and Erdogan on the plan as it proceeds forward. Russian intelligence knows where the al Qaeda and U.S. chemical weapons are located. Presumably, the goal is to kill all the other jihadists first, and then to leave till the end the killing of the ones who are operating the Al Qaeda and U.S. false-flag event. Idlib will remain in Syria. Erdogan doesn’t want it.

*Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010

A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests beer brewing practices existed in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia before the earliest known evidence, discovered in northern China. In an archaeological collaboration project between Stanford University in the United States, and University of Haifa, Israel, archeologists analyzed three stone mortars from a 13,000-year old Natufian burial cave site in Israel. Their analysis confirmed that these mortars were used for brewing of wheat/barley, as well as for food storage.

“Alcohol making and food storage were among the major technological innovations that eventually led to the development of civilizations in the world, and archaeological science is a powerful means to help reveal their origins and decode their contents,” said Li Liu, PhD, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University, USA. “We are excited to have the opportunity to present our findings, which shed new light on a deeper history of human society.”

The earliest archaeological evidence for cereal-based beer brewing even before the advent of agriculture comes from the Natufians, semi-sedentary, foraging people, living in the Eastern Mediterranean between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic periods, following the last Ice Age. The Natufians at Raqefet Cave collected locally available plants, stored malted seeds, and made beer as a part of their rituals.

“The Natufian remains in Raqefet Cave never stop surprising us,” said Prof. Dani Nadel, Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Israel, who was also an excavator of the site. “We exposed a Natufian burial area with about 30 individuals; a wealth of small finds such as flint tools, animal bones and ground stone implements, and about 100 stone mortars and cupmarks. Some of the skeletons are well-preserved and provided direct dates and even human DNA, and we have evidence for flower burials and wakes by the graves.

“And now, with the production of beer, the Raqefet Cave remains provide a very vivid and colorful picture of Natufian lifeways, their technological capabilities and inventions.”

After five seasons of excavations and a wide range of studies, the current study employed experimental archaeology, contextual examination, use-wear and residue analyses. The results indicate that the Natufians exploited at least seven plant types associated with the mortars, including wheat or barley, oat, legumes and bast fibers (including flax). They packed plant-foods in fiber-made containers and stored them in boulder mortars. They used bedrock mortars for pounding and cooking plant-foods, and for brewing wheat/barley-based beer, likely served in ritual feasts 13,000 years ago.

The use-wear patterns and microbotanical assemblage suggest that two of the three examined boulder mortars were used as storage containers for plant foods – including wheat/barley malts. Likely, they were covered with lids, probably made of stone slabs and other materials. The foods are likely to have been placed in baskets made of bast fibers for easy handing. The deep narrow shafts may have provided cool conditions suitable for storing food, especially for keeping cereal malts.

Combining use-wear and residue data, the third mortar studied was interpreted as a multi-functional vessel for food preparation, which included pounding plant foods and brewing wheat/barley-based beer, probably with legumes and other plants as additive ingredients.

The evidence of beer brewing at Raqefet Cave 13,000 years ago provides yet another example of the complex Natufian social and ritual realms. Beer brewing may have been, at least in part, an underlying motivation to cultivate cereals in the southern Levant, supporting the beer hypothesis proposed by archaeologists more than 60 years ago.

By K. V. Kesavan

In the midweek of this month, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan is scheduled to hold election for the party presidency and the present incumbent Shinzo Abe is contesting again for the post for the third time which is unprecedented. If elected, he will hold the party presidency as well as the prime ministership until 2021. He will set a new record as the prime minister holding the longest tenure in Japan’s political history. Till 2017, a party president could hold the office only for two terms. But since then, the party rules have been amended to give one more term to the incumbent.

In the 20 September election, pitted against Abe is another long-standing LDP leader, Shigeru Ishiba who has held key positions both in the party and government. Younger than Abe, Ishiba had unsuccessfully challenged him in the 2012 party presidential election.

What adds an extra element of interest to the present contest is that it is a straight fight between two party stalwarts. Some of the aspirants like Fumio Kishida and Ms. Seiko Noda, who were expected to contest, withdrew at the last moment. Kishida, former foreign minister, long considered as a potential successor to Abe, chose to wait in the wings for some time instead of trying his luck right now. He took that   decision because “it would be  more appropriate to deal with the various political issues facing us under a structure centered on Prime Minister Abe.”  Ms. Noda, presently construction minister under Abe, could not gather the requisite 20 Diet members to sponsor her candidature. Both of them know that if they contest and lose, there is a real risk of being  marginalised by the winner.

In recent years, a minimum of three candidates have contested in the presidential elections since a straight fight between two candidates could generate a great deal of heat contributing to tensions in the intra-party management after the election. One has to wait and see how much the intra-party atmosphere would be affected by the Abe-Ishiba contest.

As per the party rules, the president is elected by a combination of Diet members and registered party members from the prefectures across the country. Presently, there are 405 voting members under each category.  Abe is reported to have secured the support of a large number of Diet members who belong to different factions. In LDP politics, it is well-known that factions play a key role in the election of the party president. Since no single faction is large enough to win the election on its own strength, three or four factions come together to support a common candidate and  form the so-called mainstream   factions with an eye on capturing power. In addition to his own faction (Hosoda faction) which is the largest, Abe  is strongly supported by  other factions led by Taro Aso (finance minister), Fumio KIshida (LDP’s chairman, Policy Council Research), Toshihiro Nikai (party executive chief )   and Nobuteru Ishihara besides a major chunk of the Takeshita faction. This means Abe is likely to garner more than 75% of the 405 votes of the lawmakers.

As for the 405 party representatives, both Abe and Ishida have vigorously travelled across the prefectures to canvass their support. One may recall that in the 2012 presidential election, Ishiba succeeded in gathering huge support from the party representatives. He polled 55% of the local votes as against 29% gathered by Abe. But this time around, it is reported that Abe is enjoying their support in majority of the prefectures. Both contestants will maintain the tempo of their campaign until the last day.

Opinion polls conducted by major newspapers like the Asahi and the Mainichi suggest that Abe would be able to win his third term fairly comfortably. While there is a good deal of public criticism about Abe’s involvement in certain financial and personal controversies like the Kake and Moritomo issues, many still concede that Abe has provided a certain degree of stability to Japanese politics  and  a strong leadership to the LDP. In support of this, they cite how Japan was hampered by political instability during 2007-12, when there were more than six prime ministers.

The third term will definitely fulfil Abe’s political ambition to be Japan’s longest serving prime minister. He had made all arrangements to achieve his aim when he amended the party rules  last year to provide for a third term to the incumbent president. One overarching consideration at that time was that Abe was keen to amend the Japanese Constitution when he was at the helm. But in the meantime, Abe was grappling with two major political controversies that seriously implicated   him personally and  Abe  could not push the constitutional amendment with the kind of vigour he displayed earlier. Even now, public opinion on the issue is very sharply divided and Abe will have to work hard to build a national consensus on the issue. Apart from Ishiba who is not enthusiastic about the amendment, many of the faction leaders like Kishida would advise Abe to move with caution in the matter. In addition, the issues that will keep Abe extremely busy include the next Upper House election in July next year, the abdication of the Heisei Emperor, US protectionist policies,  North Korea and the abduction issue, the contemplated increase of consumption tax and the 2020 Olympic Games.

Recent years have seen dramatic progress in the predictive power of artificial intelligence in many areas, including speech recognition, but empirical evidence documenting its concrete economic effects is largely lacking. This column analyses the effect of the introduction of eBay Machine Translation on eBay’s international trade. The results show that it increased US exports on eBay to Spanish-speaking Latin American countries by 17.5%. By overriding trade-hindering language barriers, AI is already affecting productivity and trade and has significant potential to increase them further.

By Erik Brynjolfsson, Xiang Hui and Meng Liu*

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most important technological advances of our era. Recent progress in AI and, in particular, machine learning has dramatically increased predictive power in many areas such as speech recognition, image recognition, and credit scoring (Agrawal et al. 2016, Brynjolfsson and McAfee 2014, Mullainathan and Spiess 2017). Unlike the last generation of information technology that required humans to codify tasks explicitly, machine learning is designed to learn the patterns automatically from examples (Brynjolfsson and Mitchell 2017). Because this capability potentially affects so many parts of the economy, AI has been called a general purpose technology, just as the steam engine and electricity. If this is true, then AI should ultimately lead to fundamental changes in work, trade, and the economy.

However, empirical evidence documenting concrete economic effects of using AI is largely lacking. In particular, contributions from AI have not been found in measures of aggregate productivity. Brynjolfsson et al. (2017, 2018) argue that the most plausible reason for the gap between expectations and statistics is due to lags in complementary innovations and business procedure reorganisation. If the gap is indeed due to lagged complementary innovation, the best domains to empirically assess the impact of AI are settings where AI applications can be seamlessly embedded in an existing production function. In particular, various digital platforms are at the forefront of AI adoption, providing ideal opportunities for early assessment of AI’s economic effects.

In a recent paper (Brynjolfsson et al. 2018b), we provide evidence of direct causal links between AI adoption and economic activities by analysing the effect of the introduction of eBay Machine Translation (eMT) on eBay’s international trade. As a platform, eBay mediated more than $14 billion of global trade among more than 200 countries in 2014. The focal AI technology, eMT, is an in-house machine learningsystem that statistically learns how to translate among different languages from different language sources. These machine learning models are trained on both eBay data and other data automatically scraped from the web[EN1] .Some hand-crafted rules are also applied, such as preserving named entities (e.g. numbers and product brands), so that eMT is more suited for the existing eBay environment.eMT is optimised to work in real-time, yielding high-quality translations within milliseconds. We exploit the introduction of eMT for several language pairs, most notably English–Spanish, as natural experiments, and study their consequences on US exports on eBay.

Results

To identify the effect of machine translation, we compare the post-policy change in US exports to the treated countries with the change in exports to the control countries. The treated countries are Spanish-speaking Latin American countries. Our main control group consists of all other countries that US sellers export to on eBay. In Figure 1a, we show parallel trends between the two groups. Using this control group, we find that eMT increases US exports on eBay to Spanish-speaking Latin American countries by 17.5%.

Figure 1 Parallel trends assumption

a) US exports on eBay, Latin America and non-Latin America

b) US exports to Latin America, online and offline

Notes: Exports in Figure 1a are measured in quantity and normalised to the level in April 2013. Exports in Figure 1b are measured in dollars and normalised to the level in April 2013. The dashed and dot-dashed lines indicate the introduction of query and item title translations, respectively.

More interestingly, we identify the following heterogeneous treatment effects: the increase in exports is more pronounced for (1) products with more words in listing titles, (2) differentiated products, (3) cheap products, and (4) less experienced buyers. Each of these effects is consistent with a causal effect of translation. First, translation-related costs should generally increase with the number of words. Second, differentiated products (such as antiques, jewellery, and clothing) have more variation in product attributes. Therefore, translation-related search costs should be higher for differentiated products because of higher language requirements (and hence higher translation costs) of translating the specifics of these products into local languages. Third, the fixed costs of translation are higher as a fraction of item value for cheap items. Lastly, inexperienced buyers generally spend less time on eBay, and have high search costs and likely high costs for alternatives to eBay’s translation. In each case, the heterogeneous effects are consistent and suggest that the benefits of machine translation are greater in categories where language barriers were higher to begin with.

Identification

To causally identify the effect of machine translation on international trade on eBay, we face two challenges. First, eMT may confound with other contemporaneous marketing activities in treated countries. We mitigate this concern in three ways. First, we narrow the estimation window to +/-4 weeks and +/-2 weeks of eMT’s introduction to minimise potential confounding effects, and find similar estimates. Second, we show that exports increase more for listings with longer titles (Figure 2). This strongly suggests that larger exports are due to reduced translation costs, provided that eBay’s marketing activities are independent of title length. Lastly, if the increased sales were due to some unobserved marketing activities,we would expect a general increase in the number of new eBay buyers. However, we do not observe any such increase during or shortly after the introduction of eMT.

Figure 2 Export increase by number of words in listing titles

a) Export increase by no. or words in titles

b) Difference relative to titles with 20+ words

Notes: Figure 2a: treatment effects interacted with different title lengths. Figure 2b: treatment effects relative to listings with 20+ words. The bars represent 95% confidence intervals. ‘20+’ on the x-axis includes listings with 20 or more words in the title.

The second identification challenge is the validity of the control group. To address this, we show parallel trends between the two groups both graphically and in a leads-and-lags regression. We do not identify any significant difference between exports to the treatment and control countries prior to the introduction of eMT. Next, to mitigate spillover effects after the policy change, we adopt a second control group – overall US exports (online and offline exports) to the affected countries – and obtain similar estimates. Lastly, we exploit eMT‘s rollouts in the EU and Russia in different months, and estimate comparable eMT effects for other language pairs: English–French, English–Italian, and English–Russian. The large effect across languages is consistent with AI being a general purpose technology.

Takeaway

Our results have two main implications. First, language barriers have greatly hindered trade, especially among small enterprises. This is true even for digital platforms where trade frictions are already smaller than offline trade. In our study, the introduction of eMT on eBay generated an export increase of 17.5% in quantity and 13.1% in revenue. This is consistent with research by Lohmann (2011) and Molnar (2013), who argue that language barriers may be far more trade-hindering than suggested by previous literature. Because it is impossible to easily change the language spoken by millions of inhabitants of different trade partner countries, and because language is often confounded with other cultural similarities, prior research has had difficulty identifying the specific effects of language on trade. However, the introduction of eMT provides a natural experiment to assess the importance of language as a trade barrier.

To put our result in context, Lendle et al. (2016) have estimated that a 10% reduction in distance would increase trade revenue by 3.51% on eBay. This means that the introduction of eMT is equivalent to an export increase from reducing distances between countries by 37.3%. Furthermore, Hui (2018) has estimated that removal of administrative and logistic export costs increased export revenue on eBay by 12.3% in 2013, which is less than the effect of eMT. These comparisons suggest that the trade-hindering effect of language barriers is of first-order importance. Machine translation has made the world significantly more connected and effectively smaller.

Second, our findings demonstrate that AI is already affecting productivity and trade, and it has significant potential to increase them further. Besides machine translation, AI applications are also emerging in other fields such as speech recognition and computer vision, with applications ranging from medical diagnosis and customer support to hiring decisions and self-driving vehicles. As the new applications are introduced online, they will provide new opportunities to assess the economic impact of AI via natural experiments such as the one we examined in this paper.

*About the authors:
Erik Brynjolfsson, Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy; Schussel Family Professor, MIT Sloan School

Xiang Hui, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Washington University

Meng Liu, Visiting Assistant Professor of Marketing, Washington University in St. Louis

References
Agrawal, AK, JS Gans and A Goldfarb (2018), “Exploring the impact of artificial intelligence: Prediction versus judgment”, NBER Working Paper No. w24626.

Brynjolfsson, E, and A McAfee (2014), The Second Machine Age: Work, progress and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies,  Norton.

Brynjolfsson, E, and T Mitchell (2017), “What can machine learning do? Workforce implications”, Science 358(6370): 1530-1534.

Brynjolfsson, E, D Rock and C Syverson (2017), “Artificial intelligence and the modern productivity paradox: A clash of expectations and statistics”, in Economics of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chicago Press.

Brynjolfsson, E, D Rock and C Syverson (2018a), “The productivity J-curve: How intangibles complement general purpose technologies”, working paper, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy.

Brynjolfsson, E, X Hui and M Liu (2018), “Does Machine Translation Affect International Trade? Evidence from a Large Digital Platform”, NBER Working Paper 24917.

Hui, X (2018). “E-commerce platforms and international trade: A large-scale field experiment”, SSRN.

Lendle, A, M Olarreaga, S Schropp and PL Vézina (2016). “There goes gravity: eBay and the death of distance”, The Economic Journal 126(591): 406-441.

Lohmann, J (2011). “Do language barriers affect trade?”, Economics Letters 110(2): 159-162.

Molnar, A (2013). “Language barriers to foreign trade: Evidence from translation costs”, working paper, Vanderbilt University.

Mullainathan, S, and J Spiess (2017). “Machine learning: An applied econometric approach”, Journal of Economic Perspectives 31(2): 87-106.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian is in the middle of rolling out her Classic Blossom Collection, but it’s already being met with controversy, Complex reports.

Jewelry designer Tanaya Henry is accusing Kardashian of stealing the creative vision from her jewelry line, Lace By Tanaya. Henry also said Kardashian also used the same photographer, Marcus Hyde.

“Shoutout to @kimkardashian and @marcushyde for completely jacking NOT ONLY my concept, but #LIPLACE too!” read Henry’s Instagram post. “Crazy part is @marcushyde was my friend long before he started working with @kanyewest & @kimkardashian and has shot @lacebytanaya countless times, but because he got a check out of this, he says it’s not his problem. Kim, you’ve pulled my product & you could’ve again for this shoot. Your whole family’s worn @lacebytanaya. You guys know who I am and you know my shit but pretend you don’t. I just said hi to Kanye on FaceTime 4 days ago. You guys are trash.”

Henry’s message was accompanied by photos of the Armenian-American beauty’s promo images for the lipstick collection, which feature close-up shots of her red-painted lips with jewelry decorating it. Afterward, Henry posted photos of her line with similar close-up shots. Henry’s promo also features the lips next to different kinds of fruit.

Kardashian and Hyde have yet to make a public statement about the allegations, but Instagrammers have been flooding Kardashian’s comments section criticizing her.

India signed a tripartite agreement for the first time with Russia and Bangladesh for civil nuclear cooperation on March 1, 2018. Nuclear Power Cooperation of India Limited (NPCIL) is intended to play an active role for the construction of a nuclear power plant with the proposed supply of equipment, being built by Russia in Bangladesh. Simultaneously, India would train Bangladesh’s nuclear scientists for the project.

The agreement was signed in Moscow by Deputy Director General of Rosatom (Russia’s Alex civil nuclear body) Nikolay Spassky, Ambassador of Bangladesh in Russia S.M. Saiful Hoque and Indian Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran. Furthermore, Rosatom will construct a nuclear power plant in Bangladesh on a contract basis and assist in design, production and supply of equipment, installation, pre-commissioning and commissioning, Rosatom officials said.

It has its unique combination of active and passive safety systems providing the maximum resistance against external and internal impact, including tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and plane crash.

Earlier, India established its nuclear power plant station and operated the Kudankulam Plant built by Russia’s assistance and participated in the Russian project in Bangladesh. Indian companies may be involved in construction and installation works and the supply of material of non-critical category in this project, officials told Economic Times. “Today was a landmark event for both of our countries – and the industry as a whole.

We are confident that this is the first step toward the formation of a new, forward-looking cooperation agenda in the region,” Spassky said. This would be the first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh. India and Bangladesh have smooth trade ties and would be sharing good working experience with Russia in the field of civil nuclear energy.

This tripartite civil nuclear cooperation between Russia, India and Bangladesh would be the first occurrence where New Delhi will be involved in a civil nuclear project in Bangladesh. This demonstrates India’s entry into nuclear mainstreaming. At the same time, India is promoting its “Make in India” initiative in its proposal to Russia to make nuclear power reactors in India.

US global influence is relatively declining and other emerging powers such as Russia, India and China are pursuing their strategic interests globally and regionally. In this changing global international political environment, Pakistan is also seeking its partners other than the United States such as Russia and China. Pakistan’s policy makers must accommodate the country in regional developments through joint ventures with Russia, China and Bangladesh etc in order to avoid any of India’s policies to isolate it from the regional politics.

The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant involves two units, each with a capacity of 1200 MW and is situated on the bank of Padma River. It will be based on VVER-1200 reactors of the 3+ generation technology which is the most powerful reactor in Russia.

Pakistan is an energy starving country; it should formulate its policies to attract Russia to civil nuclear cooperation. Russia is India’s traditional defence partner since the Cold War era. Last year in April, 2017, India announced a $4.5 billion line of credit for development projects in Bangladesh and another $500 million for defence hardware purchases for Dhaka in order to deepen political and strategic ties between the two countries, during Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to India.

Both countries have no steady and trusted relationship with Pakistan and their growing ties are giving an impression that they are deliberately isolating Pakistan from regional politics. Earlier, Indian Atomic Energy Commission chairman Sekhar Basu said at the 61st general conference of the global nuclear watchdog IAEA, “We are collaborating with our Russian and Bangladeshi partners on establishing Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh, in Sep 2017 as India’s first atomic energy venture abroad. Now, this initiative has been signed formally.”

The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant involves two units, each with a capacity of 1200 MW and is situated on the bank of Padma River. It will be based on VVER-1200 reactors of the 3+ generation technology which is the most powerful reactor in Russia. It has its unique combination of active and passive safety systems providing the maximum resistance against external and internal impact, including tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and plane crash.

With active efforts underway, it will be interesting to see if Bangladesh and India are successful in isolating Pakistan in the region. Should Pakistan now focus its attention on improving ties with Russia?

*Asia Maqsood has done M. Phil in Defence and Strategic Studies from Quaidi-Azam University Islamabad. She frequently writes on China Pakistan Economic Corridor and South Asia’s Strategic and Regional issues.

Even while India and China attempted to reset their relations post-Doklam standoff from Wuhan meeting in April 2018 through a meeting on the sidelines of SCO to BRICS summit meeting in July 2018 and Indian Prime Minister Modi distanced New Delhi from any group or policy primarily that aimed at containing China in the Indian Ocean at the Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore on June 1, 2018, New Delhi is poised to beef up its defence preparedness in view of growing Chinese activities in the Indian Ocean and along the Himalayan borders.

China has not only acquired a naval base in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, there are reports of Chinese warships and nuclear submarines making port calls in Colombo. In the Maldives, Chinese influence has grown but it has allegedly come about Beijing muscling its way into diminishing Indian influence in the archipelago state.

While China and Pakistan are developing the Gwadar port as part of China-Pakistan economic corridor – purely a commercial venture – but there were reports which suggested that China planned to deploy nuclear submarines at the port.

Nepal while declined to participate in the New Delhi-proposed first ever joint military exercise within the framework of BIMSTEC, it expressed its readiness to participate in a 12-day long Sagarmatha Friendship-2 joint military exercise and in Sri Lanka, the Sirisena government which was perceived pro-India has leased out Hambantota port to Beijing for 99 years under Chinese debt pressure indicating rising Chinese prominence as well as enhanced Indian threat perceptions in the Indian Ocean and South Asian region.

India, while has not explicitly endorsed any anti-Chinese strategy, the defence pact signed between India and the US known as Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) on September 6, 2018 during the 2+2 dialogue was not only designed to facilitate Indian military platforms’ access to encrypted, cutting edge and high-end secured communication equipments from the US and end its reliance on less secured commercially available communication systems on high-end American platforms but more important bilateral strategic achievement seems to be the shared American and Indian perspective in keeping Chinese moves in the Indian Ocean and Himalayan region under close surveillance.

While this agreement would allow interoperability and technological information sharing between the US and Indian armed and naval forces and the US would be able to notice and guide Indian military operations in the Indo-Pacific and South Asian region not only to contain the rising China’s strategic ambitions pursued under ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ but to enhance its own influence.

India to allay Chinese suspicions might have persuaded the US to maintain ASEAN centrality to the Indo-Pacific region in the joint statement. For instance the joint statement noted: “Both sides committed to work together and in concert with other partners toward advancing a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region, based on recognition of ASEAN centrality and on respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, rule of law, good governance, free and fair trade, and freedom of navigation and over-flight” (For details see, Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Ministry of Defence, “Joint Statement on the Inaugural India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue”, 06, September 2018, available at http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=183300).

India concluded the agreement primarily to contain the growing Chinese threat in the Indian Ocean and Himalayan region in the shape of ‘String of pearl’ strategy which became more pronounced following Chinese submarines began to traverse the Indian Ocean and 73-day long Doklam standoff took place in the strategic tri-junction of Bhutan, India and China along the Himalayan region.

While post-Doklam standoff, reports of Chinese incursions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have reduced but still continue sporadically. New Delhi considered the agreement important despite the legitimate concerns that it might compromise India’s strategic autonomy by facilitating American intrusion into the Indian defence communication systems. Earlier, India was less interested in strengthening the quadrilateral format of US-Japan-India-Australia primarily as a means to contain Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region and it took a broader view of its Indo-Pacific policy by expressing its desire to work with Russia and the ASEAN member-states to maintain free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.

In the 2+2 dialogue, India expressed its willingness in joining the US-led infrastructure development projects to counter Chinese sponsored BRI. For instance, the joint statement noted: “Noting the importance of infrastructure and connectivity for the Indo-Pacific region, both sides emphasized the need to work collectively with other partner countries to support transparent, responsible and sustainable debt financing practices in infrastructure development”.

The Trump Administration has indicated its resoluteness in invigorating its role in the Indo-Pacific region primarily to contain Chinese global strategic ambitions. While the countries of the region viewed American security umbrella with suspicions as its resources and commitments to the region kept fluctuating post-9/11, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo allayed these doubts by announcing $113 million investment in new technology, energy and infrastructure initiatives followed by his pledge to provide $300 million in new security funding for the region. India, while seems to be interested to fall back on American initiatives as the joint statements indicate but it still wishes to pursue a nuanced stance by keeping away from anti-Chinese statements.

Indian concerns towards rising Chinese threat perception is clearly discernible from Russian news agency Sputnik’s report that pointed to India’s willingness to purchase a remotely piloted aircraft system that could operate at an altitude of more than 5,500 meters above sea level primarily aimed at detecting military activities along the mountainous border with China (“India Looks to Procure Spy Drones to Operate at High Altitudes”, Sputnik, 3 September 2018). India’s move towards enhanced military preparedness seems to be in the direction of meeting the rising Chinese threat perception in the Indian Ocean and Himalayan region.

The never ending disputes over a semi-enclosed sea, the South-China Sea (SCS) was culminated in the consensus between the Philippines and China in bringing the case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). While the PCA under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS 1982) ruled in favor of the Philippines and declare that China’s nine-dash line claims are illegal, China has asserted that they will not obeys the final award of the PCA. This paper seeks to analyze legal implications upon China’s refusal on PCA’s award to Indonesia’s border security over the waters around Natuna Islands. It further proposed what should be done by Indonesia in anticipating both legal as well as political consequences of such assertive reaction taken by China.

Prior to the PCA’s award, Indonesian President, Mr. Joko Widodo, commented on the matter of the SCS disputes saying that while Indonesia is located considerably near to the SCS, yet Indonesia does not have a direct interest in the SCS. However, recent development shows different position. During President Jokowi’s visit to Natuna Islands recently, it was reminded that in 1996 China has recognized Natuna’s waters as Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

This paper argues that while the SCS disputes so far does not have direct impact on Indonesia, yet, some areas of Indonesia’s EEZ in Natuna Islands overlap with the China’s nine-dash line. Since China has declared to refuse the award of PCA, Indonesia should make further legal and policy framework in implementing its sovereign rights over its EEZ in Natuna Islands. In addition to this strong political assertion should also be taken in anticipating china’s movement in the SCS through its nine-dash line claim.

1. Introduction

Coastal State’s claim over the ocean has been accommodated by the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) though a quid pro quo arrangement, that is something for something. While Coastal States are given certain degree of sovereignty over their surrounding oceans, yet other states interests should also be respected, which include rights of navigation as well as ocean resources usage rights. While such arrangement can be seen as a ‘package-deals’ offered by the LOSC, however, in practice things would never be as easy as it could be. Complication arising from LOSC’s arrangement varies from geographical condition of both the coastal state and the ocean itself, to broader interests of other states, in this case user maritime states. In addition to this, the problem of maritime delimitation between adjacent states poses another problem.

A never-ended problem related to maritime delimitation as well as access to ocean resources, has been the issue of South-China Sea (SCS). The SCS is a semi-enclosed sea which is surrounded by at least eight States; China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan. Such geographic location has made SCS surrounded by the land territory of many states and thus the sovereignty as well as sovereign rights of the surrounding states upon the SCS became complicated. In addition to this, the SCS area consists of four islands, which include Pratas, Macclesfield Bank, Paracels and Spratlys. Upon such geographical complexion, China declared its claim upon the SCS based on its map known as the nine-dashed lines which encircle almost the entire SCS and within which China claims are China’s historical waters over which it has sovereignty. On the other hand, other littoral states are also claiming sovereignty over small islands in the SCS, namely, Vietnam claims the Spartly Island, while the Philippines and Brunei claims the Kalayan Island Group (KIG).

While the overlapping claims remain, in May 2009 China submit a claim before the United Nations, claiming several islands, which include Spartly, Scarborough Soal, Paracel and others to be included within its territory based on the nine-dashed lines map, combined with occasional references to “historic waters.” In April 2012, the Philippines Navy caught eight Chinas’ fishing vessels in Scarborough Soal waters, that is 220 km off-shore Philippines. Is should be bear in mind that the Scarborough Soal is claimed by several states, namely China, the Philippines and Taiwan. In January 2013 the Philippines submit its objection to the China’s nine-dashed lines to the Permanent Court of Arbitration demanding the cancelation of the nine-dashed line map proposed by China.

Permanent Court Arbitration (PCA) resulted on the illegitimate China’s claim, China has asserted that they will not participate on the proceeding and neither obeys the final award of the PCA.
This paper seeks to analyze legal implications upon China’s refusal on PCA’s award to Indonesia’s border security over the waters around Natuna Islands. It further proposed what should be done by Indonesia in anticipating both legal as well as political consequences of such assertive reaction taken by China.

2. The Philippines vs. China before the Permanent Court of International Arbitration

While conflict between affected littoral states over the South-China Se remains, in 2013 the Philippines brought the case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The disputes concerned was on the legal basis of maritime rights and entitlements in the South-China Sea, the status of certain geographic features in the South-China Sea and the lawfulness of certain actions taken by China in the South-China Sea. In brief, basically there are 4 (four) claim submitted by the Philippines before the PCA. Firstly, the Philippines seek advice from the PCA to solve existing disputes over the SCS regarding the rights to occupy the SCS. More specifically, asking PCA to declare that the rights to occupy the SCS should be based on the 1982 Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) rather than based on ‘historic rights’. Secondly, the Philippines seek advice from PCA to solve maritime delimitation disputes over the Scarborough Shoal and certain resources in Spratly Islands, which has been claimed by both Philippines and China.

Thirdly, the Philippines asking the PCA to solve matter related to the validity of China’s claim over the SCS. The Philippines required PCA to deliver award that China has conducted wrong doing upon their actions, as follows:

Intervening Philippines’ rights in accordance with the LOSC with regard to fishing, navigation and other natural resources exploration and exploitation as well as the establishment of artificial islands;

Has failed to save ocean environment by giving support to China’s fishermen, who has caught the endangered species as well as the use of non-environmental friendly fishing method which lead to the destruction of coral reef ecosystem in the SCS; and

Causing the damage on marine environment by the establishment of artificial islands as well as reclamation in the area of seven coral reef areas in Spratly Islands.

Fourth, that China has worsened the dispute by limiting Philippines’ access to Marine Detachment in Second Thomas Shoal.

The SCS case between the Philippines and China, in fact involves various legal aspect. However, crucial aspect that worth to be discussed is the concept of ‘historical rights’ which has been used as legal basis by China in claiming its sovereignty over the SCS. As this turn out, PCA only used the LOSC as valid legal basis in deciding the case. PCA further stated that:

“This arbitration concerned the role of historic rights and the Sumber of maritime entitlements in the South China Sea, the status of certain maritime features and the maritime entitlements they are capable of generating, and the lawfulness of certain actions by China that were alleged by the Philippines to violate the Convention. In light of limitations on compulsory dispute settlement under the Convention, the Tribunal has emphasized that it does not rule on any question of sovereignty over land territory and does not delimit any boundary between the Parties”.

In its decision, PCA was unanimously giving award to the Philippines and declared that “the Tribunal concluded that, to the extent China had historic rights to reSumbers in the waters of the South China Sea, such rights were extinguished to the extent they were incompatible with the exclusive economic zones provided for in the Convention. While the award clearly stated that ‘historical rights’ were incompatible with LOSC, it is interesting to find out the origin of ‘historic claim’ as well as analyzing whether the term ‘historic rights’ and ‘historic waters’ ever exist within both LOSC and other customary international law of the sea.

3. Legal Implication on China’s refusal upon PCA Award

Upon PCA award, Chinese Government insists on the position that it will not obey PCA Award due its absence during the trial. This position was stated clearly by China through diplomatic notes titled “Position Paper of the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the Matter of Jurisdiction in the South China Sea Arbitration Initiated by the Republic of Phillipines” dated 7th December submitted before the court and Netherlands Government. In sum, the diplomatic notes declared as follows:

“It is the view of China that the Arbitral Tribunal manifestly has no jurisdiction over this arbitration, unilaterally initiated by the Philippines, with regard to disputes between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.

Firstly, the essence of the subject-matter of the arbitration is the territorial sovereignty over the relevant maritime features in the South China Sea, which is beyond the scope of the Convention and is consequently not concerned with the interpretation or application of the Convention.

Secondly, there is an agreement between China and the Philippines to settle their disputes in the South China Sea by negotiations, as embodied in bilateral instruments and the DOC. Thus the unilateral initiation of the present arbitration by the Philippines has clearly violated international law.

Thirdly, even assuming that the subject-matter of the arbitration did concern the interpretation or application of the Convention, it has been excluded by the 2006 declaration filed by China under Article 298 of the Convention, due to its being an integral part of the dispute of maritime delimitation between the two States.

Fourthly, China has never accepted any compulsory procedures of the Convention with regard to the Philippines’ claims for arbitration. The Arbitral Tribunal shall fully respect the right of the States Parties to the Convention to choose the means of dispute settlement of their own accord, and exercise its competence to decide on its jurisdiction within the confines of the Convention. The initiation of the present arbitration by the Philippines is an abuse of the compulsory dispute settlement procedures under the Convention. There is a solid basis in international law for China’s rejection of and non-participation in the present arbitration.

Furthermore, China added more statement “[t]his shall by no means be interpreted as China’s participation in the arbitral proceeding in any form.” Upon such situation, Article 288 of the LOSC and Article 9 of LOSC’s Annex VII provide:

a. Article 288 of the Convention provides that “In the event of a dispute as to whether a court or tribunal has jurisdiction, the matter shall be settled by decision of that court or tribunal.

b. Article 9 of Annex VII to the Convention provides that “If one of the parties to the dispute does not appear before the arbitral tribunal or fails to defend its case, the other party may request the tribunal to continue the proceedings and to make its award. Absence of a party or failure of a party to defend its case shall not constitute a bar to the proceedings. Before making its award, the arbitral tribunal must satisfy itself not only that it has jurisdiction over the dispute but also that the claim is well founded in fact and law.”

It is clearly stated that in the situation whether the arbitral have competence in deciding certain case, the authority to decide is the arbitral itself and not the parties. In addition to this, in the absence of one party in the dispute, another party have the right to ask the arbitral to continue the proceeding. Thus, it is submitted that the absence of one party cannot prevent the proceeding to be continued. On the awards on jurisdiction, PCA considered the application of Article 281 and 282 of the LOSC, which allow a state to apply other dispute resolution method outside the LOSC, if the parties agreed to. Article 281 and 282 of the LOSC read:

“If the States Parties which are parties to a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention have agreed to seek settlement of the dispute by a peaceful means of their own choice, the procedures provided for in this Part apply only where no settlement has been reached by recourse to such means and the agreement between the parties does not exclude any further procedure.

If the States Parties which are parties to a dispute concerning the interpretation or application of this Convention have agreed, through a general, regional or bilateral agreement or otherwise, that such dispute shall, at the request of any party to the dispute, be submitted to a procedure that entails a binding decision, that procedure shall apply in lieu of the procedures provided for in this Part, unless the parties to the dispute otherwise agree.”

PCA considered the application of Article 281 dan 282 upon the following documents to find out whether both parties have agreed on other dispute resolution method; (a) the 2002 China–ASEAN Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (the “DOC”), (b) a series of joint statements issued by the Philippines and China referring to the resolution of disputes through negotiations, (c) the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, and (d) the Convention on Biological Diversity (the “CBD”) .

Nevertheless, PCA refused China’s argument which stated that the Document of Conduct (DOC) agreed between ASEAN and China was a political agreement and did not intended to be a binding agreement which is applicable in disputes resolution method. Since the DOC is silent on the binding settlement mechanism, and does not exclude any other dispute resolution method, it is argued that PCA can decide based on Article 281 and 282 of the LOSC. PCA also finds out the same conclusion relating to Joint Statement mentioned in China Diplomatic Notes. In relation to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and the CBD, PCA declared that while both agreements bind parties in the disputes resolution chosen by the parties, there is no binding mechanism within the agreement whatsoever. To conclude, there is nowhere in those agreements prevent the Philippines to bring the case before the PCA.

As this turn out, PCA reward the Philippines and declared that China’s Claim over the SCS with its nine-dashed lines as illegal and found China to be guilty of conducting illegal maritime activities inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Upon such award, as stated, China refused to apply the award in any cases. Furthermore, instead of moving away from the disputed area, Chinese military and non-military vessels have regularly undertaken activities to strengthen their de facto control of the area. China seems to undertaken the passive assertiveness over the area and avoiding assertive action which could lead to incident, while also expanding its movement in the SCS. This condition brings several legal implications to the neighboring adjacent states surrounding the SCS, especially to ASEAN’s member states. This includes an increase of China’s maritime power within the South Asia region, which also effect the South-East Region. In addition to this, it is assumes that China will strengthen its domestic law in claiming several areas in the SCS. This way, a potent disputes may arise between China and other claimant states, in particular ASEAN’s member states.

China aggressive response to the PCA’s award might also bring further legal implication for less affected state like Indonesia. While the SCS dispute does not directly affected Indonesia at the moment, however, it might affected in the near future. As an archipelagic state, Indonesia is entitled to draw archipelagic baselines connecting the outermost point of its outermost islands. Despite the fact that Indonesia does not claim any of the disputed islands located in the SCS, Indonesian has an outer island group, the Natuna Islands, which are adjacent to the SCS. These Islands are used as Indonesian basepoints. Due to Indonesia’s sovereignty over the Natuna Islands, consequently Indonesia has the rights over certain areas of waters measures from Natuna’s baselines in accordance with international law. From this baselines Indonesia also entitles various maritime zones established by the LOSC. This results in the fact that Indonesia has to share such ocean with neighboring states which are also claimant states in the SCS dispute, namely Malaysia and Vietnam.

While agreement has been reached over delineating the continental shelf between states, Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) delimitation remains unsolved. If China strengthen its nine-dashed line claim and keep asserting its military power within the area, it is possible that China and Indonesia involve in a disagreement on maritime delimitation around Natuna Islands.

4. Conclusion

Prior to the PCA’s award, Indonesian President, Mr. Joko Widodo, commented on the matter of the SCS disputes saying that while Indonesia is located considerably near to the SCS, yet Indonesia does not have a direct interest in the SCS. However, recent development shows different position. During President Jokowi’s visit to Natuna Islands recently, it was reminded that in 1996 China has recognized Natuna’s waters as Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

This paper ahas rgued that while the SCS disputes so far does not have direct impact on Indonesia, yet, some areas of Indonesia’s EEZ in Natuna Islands overlap with the China’s nine-dash line. Since China has declared to refuse the award of PCA, Indonesia should make further legal and policy framework in implementing its sovereign rights over its EEZ in Natuna Islands. In addition to this strong political assertion should also be taken in anticipating china’s movement in the SCS through its nine-dash line claim.

Mr. Trump has gathered the hawkish cohort of advisors led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the national security adviser, John R. Bolton to smoothen the internal resistance in his administration on the face of unreasonable policies. One of them appears in the form of US withdrawal from Iran Nuclear deal.

Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) drawn and secured by P5+1 countries in 2015 was hailed as a commendable example of multilateral diplomacy. Imminently, it was considered a fruitful aversion to potentially calamitous new confrontation in volatile and conflict ridden Middle East region. Now the antennas in Washington sturdily indicate that the confrontation is likely to be back on track.

Mr. Obama laid out the comprehensive plan and carried a painstaking diplomatic work for successful negotiations with Iran. In the early 2000s, Britain, France and Germany initiated negotiations with Iran and kept the US out. By October 2003, Iran suspended uranium enrichment. It was resumed again in 2006 under hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Immediately, Tehran was locked out of the global economy by World powers imposing crippling UN sanctions. Obama administration launched secret talks with Iran in Oman after President Hassan Rouhani took office. Eventually, the US and world powers reached the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran.

Given its business interests, Iran appears to retain its criticism of the US, but won’t back out of the deal despite Mr. Trump’s withdrawal and revolting epithets to describe the agreement — “insane, the worst deal ever” etc. President Hassan Rouhani declared that the Iranians intended to abide by the terms of the deal while criticizing Trump for his history of not honoring international treaties. China and Russia are also signatories to the deal and are likely to back Iran in accusing the United States of violating the multi-lateral accord.

Mr. Trump backed by Israel and his administrative advisors and aides reasoned the deal in Iran’s favour. In view of Iran’s regional activities- geopolitical involvement in Yemen and Syria, missile tests etc- US administration decided to wreck the deal instead of opening up channels of dialogue with Tehran. All neutral observers expounded that clubbing together other issues with a successful diplomatic deal is not a canny foreign policy.

Besides, torpedoing the atomic deal may potentially transport the catastrophic implications in region. Undeniably, the US pullout of JCPOA will weaken moderate Rouhani’s position in Iranian politics and potentially strengthen hard-liners who the US believes candidly aspire nuclear weapons. It not only stimulates hard-line forces in Iran to go for bomb but will also add to threats of Iranian retaliation against Israel. Multiple avenues might be cracked to fuel the grueling arms race in the Middle East. Apart from that, sectarian conflict from Syria to Yemen will be aggrandized in lethality and intensity.

Mr. Obama has also rebuked Mr. Trump’s move that “this withdrawal would leave the world less safe, confronting it with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed Iran or another war in the Middle East”. It also manifests the rationality Mr. Obama had while pursuing the successful diplomatic atomic deal venture with Iran.

Mr. Trump’s strategy of force is perhaps reinforced by the North Korea case he views as the success of his policy toward North Korea. He appeared to establish that- with the considerable amount of input by his hawkish team- his policy of maximum pressure had forced Mr. Kim to the bargaining table. The exercise of the same policy of overwhelming pressure toward Iran would enable the US to extract a better deal from Iran.

However, Mr. Trump with his advisors seems unable to gauge the difference between North Korea and Iran in terms of domestic compulsions, international positioning and associated stakes of other countries as the announcement drew a chorus of opposition from European leaders.

Mr. Macron of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain in a joint statement pointed out that the United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing the nuclear deal remained the “binding international legal framework for the resolution of the dispute.” That raises the possibility that the United States will be found to be in violation in the Security Council. Moreover, the international regime against nuclear proliferation will be enervated more and more. These concerns profoundly demand the retention of the deal by other countries.

*Baber Ali Bhatti,the writer is a independent analyst and Islamabad based lawyer. He can be reached at Live.baber@gmail.com. He tweets @alibaberali

As Australia’s tattered yet new government, led by the increasingly oafish and amateurish Scott Morrison trundled into its post-climate phase, states which see their existence as dependent on the cutting of carbon emissions have been more than a touch concerned. Their reality remains divorced from the paper clip conspiracies of Canberra and the energy cliques obsessed with cutting prices.

Morrison’s ascension to power was yet another, existentially imposed headache in the aftermath of US President Donald J. Trump’s announcement that the United States would be making a dash from any obligations and aspirations associated with the Paris Climate Agreement. Pacific Island states were starting to write up their wills.

When the decision by Trump was made in the middle of last year, such states as Samoa and Fiji felt a shudder. “His decision,” came the press release from an assortment of Pacific Island Civil Society Organisations, “is a clear sign of his continued support of the fossil fuel industry which directly threatens the lives of communities living in the Pacific Islands.”

The Australian response, ever mindful of the wishes of its obese cousin and all powerful defender, has reflected a certain bipolar conditioning on matters ecological and climactic. Canberra takes the position, when convenient to its neighbours, that climate change is genuine, dangerous and in need of serious consideration. When necessary, amnesia takes hold.

In the aftermath of Morrison’s replacement of sitting Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama sent a salutary reminder to the new Australian leader couched in a disarming note of congratulation. “I look forward to working with you across a broad front, including the global campaign for action on climate change, the greatest threat facing Australia and all of your neighbours in the Pacific.”

This, to a man who had coarsely brandished a lump of coal in the Australian parliament in February last year, supplied by the good offices of the Minerals Council of Australia. “This is coal,” he guffawed to his opponents, caressing the inert item in his hand with a fetishist’s resolve. “Don’t be afraid; don’t be scared.”

Morrison ought to be suffering jitters from such figures as Samoa’s Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele, who has made it clear how climate change laggards should be treated. “We all know the problem, we all know the solutions,” he explained to the Lowy Institute at the end of last month, “and all that is left would be some political courage, some political guts, to tell people of your country there is a certainty of disaster.”

Then came the delicious blow, landed between the gizzards. “So any leader of any country who believes that there is no climate change, I think he ought to be taken to mental confinement. He is utterly stupid. And I say the same thing to any leader here.”

Despite such cataclysmic promises, Australia’s politicians remain resilient before the inconveniences of reality, and warm to the enticements of stupidity. The big god coal, and associate demigod fossil fuels, call the tune.

The new Foreign Minister, Marise Payne, made the necessary, paternalistic adjustments for her audience earlier this month ahead of the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. This line waxes and wanes along the issue of aid, the condescending drip aid designed to influence more than change. The angle on Australian generosity was pushed (daddy with deep pockets cares), as much to counter the phantom of Chinese influence in the region as anything else. “The largest development assistance in the region is overwhelmingly coming from Australia; in fact it will hit the largest contribution ever during 2018-19 at $1.3 billion.”

Payne also busied herself bribing regional neighbours with such reassurances as employment, a tribute to an old legacy of enticing black labour to an economy short of staffing. Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, she said with soothing corruption, would be added to Australia’s Pacific Labour Scheme, nothing less than a traditional, extracting incentive for the Australian economy. As ever, the benefit would be for Australia more than anybody else: citizens from those countries would be able to fill the necessary jobs in rural and regional Australia. (Well and good – they might, in time, have no country to return to.)

Despite the issue of climate change making its inevitable appearance on the agenda, Payne preferred to see it as one of the items for discussion, rather than the main show. “We really recognise that our Pacific Island neighbours are particularly vulnerable to climate change.” Australia had been purportedly “working hard” towards climate change commitments, though Payne failed to spell out any coherent steps of late.

The internal politics of the governing coalition in Australia remains intimately related to the fossil fuel industries and climate change sceptics. The schismatic Tony Abbott remains convinced that Australia should go the way of Trump, and more than a sprinkling of his colleagues think the same. Central to this is not environmental degradation so much as cheaper energy prices, which has become the holy of holies, the El Dorado of policy makers. Such is the thinking that accompanies the short term aspirations of shop keeping types even as it dooms island states to watery oblivion.

China, in an implicit recognition that at least some of its Belt and Road-related projects risk trapping target countries in debt or fail to meet their needs, has conceded that adjustments may be necessary.

“It’s normal and understandable that development focus can change at different stages in different countries, especially with changes in government. So China can also make some strategic adjustments when cooperating with these countries, but it’s definitely not a reconsideration of the B&R (Belt and Road) initiative,” Wang Jun, deputy director of the Department of Information at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges told the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper.

The Chinese concession, initially made public in an August 27 speech by President Xi Jinping and reaffirmed by the Global Times. came in the same week that Pakistan during a visit of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi demanded that China expand its US$50 billion plus investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the single largest country infrastructure investment related to the People’s Republic’s Belt and Road initiative, to include manufacturing and poverty reduction projects.

The change in China’s approach towards Belt and Road would in the case of Pakistan involve a substantial recast of CPEC that appeared to position Pakistan as a raw materials supplier for China, an export market for Chinese products and labour, and an experimental ground for the export of the surveillance state China is rolling out, particularly in its troubled north-western province of Xinjiang.

The focus of Chinese investment takes on added significance as Pakistan weighs options to solve its financial crisis, including a request for up to US$12 billion in assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that would involve a straightjacket for structural reform.

An IMF assistance package would require Pakistan to provide chapter and verse of the finances of Belt and Road-related projects that have so far been kept under wrap.

Mr. Wang, the foreign minister, seemed despite the statements suggesting change, cautious in his response to the Pakistani demands. He indicated that that expansion, if not re-orientation of CPEC, would not be immediate. “The two sides have agreed that the CPEC cooperation will gradually shift to industrial cooperation,” Mr. Wang said during his visit.

Pakistan was not the only country that was pushing back at China’s approach towards the Belt and Road. Nepal joined Pakistan last November in withdrawing from dam projects because of China’s commercial terms.

More recently, protests against the forced resettlement of eight Nepali villages have apparently persuaded CWE Investment Corporation, a subsidiary of China Three Gorges, to consider pulling out of a 750MW hydropower project. CWE said it was looking at cancelling the project because it was “financially unfeasible.”

Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has suspended or cancelled US$26 billion in Chinese-funded projects since his election victory in May.

Similarly, Myanmar is negotiating a significant scaling back of a Chinese-funded port project on the Bay of Bengal from one that would cost US$ 7.3 billion to a more modest development that would cost US$1.3 billion in a bid to avoid shouldering an unsustainable debt.

China has written off an undisclosed amount of Tajik debt in exchange for ceding control of some 1,158 square kilometres of disputed territory close to the Central Asian nation’s border with China’s troubled north-western province of Xinjiang.

Zambia, following in the footsteps of Sri Lanka that was forced to give China a major stake in its port of Hambantota because it could not service its debt, saw itself this month left with no choice but to hand over control of its international airport as well as a state power company.

The Chinese concession also comes amid increased international attention on China’s crackdown on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang, including, the roll-out of its 21^st century Orwellian surveillance state.

The concession is part of a concerted effort to downplay the geopolitical nature of the Belt and Road initiative and stress its sustainable development and job creation aspects.

Ray Washburne, president and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), an intergovernmental agency that channels US private capital into overseas development projects, earlier depicted the Belt and Road initiative as a ploy to ingratiate itself with other countries by funding infrastructure projects.

China ”is not in it to help countries out, they’re in it to grab their assets,” Mr. Washburne said. He charged that China was intentionally plunging recipient countries into debt, then going after “their rare earths and minerals and things like that as collateral for their loans.”

That view persuaded Greenland this month to select a Danish rather than a Chinese company to build and upgrade three airports.

“The big fear is that even a small Chinese investment will amount to a large part of Greenland’s GDP, giving China an outsized influence that can be used for other purposes,” said Danish foreign and defence policy scholar Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen.

Mr. Rahbek-Clemmensen’s concern reflects a widespread belief that the sheer scale of Belt and Road, involving up to US$1 trillion in investments in scores of countries across the globe lends it significant geopolitical attributes irrespective of what Chinese leaders may have had in mind.

A recent study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) argued that the Belt and Road is driven by “interest groups within and outside China (that) are skewing President Xi’s signature foreign policy vision.” The study argued that the positioning of the initiative persuaded Chinese local and regional authorities as well as companies to brand their activities as Belt and Road-related to gain economic and political advantage.

Earlier, the Washington-based Center for Global Development warned that “there is…concern that debt problems will create an unfavourable degree of dependency on China as a creditor. Increasing debt, and China’s role in managing bilateral debt problems, has already exacerbated internal and bilateral tensions in some BRI (Belt and Road initiative) countries.”

I am currently reading “Les Désorientés”, the latest novel from Amin Maalouf, the French author born in Lebanon in 1949. I can’t help but draw parallels between his Lebanon of yesterday and the Syria of today. I am contemplating on the lessons we must learn. I am studying the situations between Israel and Syria and Gaza.

I have been to Syria, Israel and Jordan many times during 1989-1990 while I was working for the marketing department for a producer of industrial boilers. I have spent a lot of time in that region, doing many big-scale and profitable business transactions. The business environment over there used to be very similar to ours. We need a working commercial system to make money, unfortunately that isn’t likely to be the case for the next 10 years.

Syria used to be our natural business partner. It was almost our backyard. Sadly, that Syria of the past is no more. Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Deir ez-Zor are in ruins. It is not possible to guess how the new Syria will emerge, how it will develop and become a marketplace again. But in order to avoid war, you have to be ready for it. We, the Turks are not Arabs and therefore not likely to emerge as the leaders of the Muslim world -not that we need to. We must adhere to our policy of “Peace at home, peace in the world”, a principle instilled in us since the early years of the republic, and one that has been put to test many times throughout the years -most notably WW2. Mingling in other countries’ domestic policies gets us into trouble every time. Now the trade has all but ceased, and millions of unemployed, unqualified, uneducated refugees have migrated to Turkey. The well-to-dos didn’t stay in Turkey, though. They moved over to Europe and the US.

There is a large Russian Naval Base situated in Tartus, on the shores of the Mediterranean. This is where Russia receives most of its logistic support in the region. Bashar al-Assad gave this base to Russians because they are working with him.

All Russian warships in the Mediterranean are refueled, restocked and getting maintenance and repair here. They will not even negotiate over Tartus -let alone lose it.

There is also the Russian owned Khmeimin Air Base with two 3km asphalt landing strips, to the southeast of Latakia, close to Assad International Airport. It opened in 2015 after the agreement signed between Syria and Russia, and it gives Russians free access indefinitely. The base has 11 types of Russian warplanes such as SU-57, SU-35, SU-25, SU-24, and SU-22, numbering between 37 -50.
Khmeimin Air Base also has many T-90 tanks and S-400 missile systems deployed. Russia has complete military control of the region and it is impossible for anything to slide by them.

Foreign policy is all about national interests. There is no space there for democracy, human rights and humanitarian efforts. It is not our business to bring democracy to other places. We shouldn’t be involved in the domestic affairs of other countries. If we wish to continue our relations with Russia, we have to pay attention to their interests, red-lines and sensibilities. Russia is not merely the superpower on this side of the Atlantic, they are also our neighbors with whom we have very significant economic and social relations.

It is not possible to pursue a sound foreign policy in the region without taking Russia’s defense sensitivities. They are not the Soviet Union of the past. They have been cultivating their own version of democracy since 1989. They have an electoral and democratic system in place -whether we like it or not. Market economy is slowly installing itself over there. Russians are not “old comrades” anymore. They are businessmen and businesswomen. We don’t see any poorly-made Russian official cars in front of Kremlin. They are all BMWs, and Mercedes-Benz’s and Audis. They can afford to buy the best products out there now. They are content about what they are able to achieve. Plus, they possess superior astronautical and nuclear technologies.

Your writer travelled across Russia, from Moscow all the way to Siberia in 1996, and remembers seeing thousands of 10-MWe domestic combustion turbines that were direct copies from the British Rolls-Royce. If there is a need for 100-MWe, we would probably install 2 50-MWe turbines. Russians were installing 10 turbines with 10-MWe capacity instead. When you look at them now, they purchase the very best combustion turbines available. Our own contractors are setting up combined cycle plants all over Russia.

We signed an agreement with Russia for the Akkuyu NPP. We have to get it finished before we lose the little control we have on it.

There’s no need to go against the grain. Everyone is doing it, so should we. We must build the best one there is under our control.

It is very dangerous to bypass the market competition and sign state-level agreements for commercial contracts. When the Russians were building the Aswan dam in Egypt, they didn’t have any high-capacity hydraulic turbines. All they had were the low-powered turbines designed for the rivers in Siberia, so they installed those. They did get the job done for a while, but they weren’t the right choice for the desert climate. There were high maintenance and repair costs involved as time passed by.

You can see similar Soviet-era practices in the Russian built industrial zones in Turkey. You see the same types of buildings designed for the harsh cold of Siberia erected in the heat of Iskenderun. Similar examples can be observed in Orhaneli thermal power plant, in the industrial plants of Seydisehir and Petkim Aliaga. It remains to be seen what will happen in Akkuyu. Will the NPP, originally designed for cold winter weather, be able to adapt to the tropical warm climate of Akkuyu and the Mediterranean? How will they able to cool the reactors with warm sea water?

Which Turkish businessperson, today, would buy a Russian-made industrial plant? What “made in Russia” product are you, yourself, using? When was the last time you boarded on a Russian Tupolev-154 plane? If you were to choose, would you prefer to fly aboard a Tupolev instead of an Airbus or a Boeing?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been to Turkey many times for 8-hr daytime visits. We wish he visited us more and we had more senior level tete-a-tetes. Then we could talk more about our common interests, red-lines, and cooperation. Lower level meetings are susceptible to mistranslations, and misdirections. That’s why senior-level face-to-face meetings are important. We have so much to learn from each other. It is essential that we keep all channels of communications open at all times.

Vladimir Putin is a very well educated and realist president. He has doctorate degrees from the University of St. Petersburg in International Law and Economy. His German is immaculate. He has learned English (though he doesn’t speak it, he obviously understands it). He knows about the world outside, and most importantly he knows what he wants.

Foreign relations are crucial. We are living in an age where the US Secretary of State doesn’t even speak any foreign languages. His antecedent, Mike Pompeo, didn’t either. Whereas all Russian, Iranian, Arab, European foreign ministers speak English fluently.

Our relations with Russia during the Cold War years weren’t good. But now the iron curtain is lifted and the Cold War is over.

We currently have thousands of qualified workers in construction projects in Russia. There have been more than 200,000 marriages between Turks and Russians. We have more than 60,000 Russian brides -most of them in and around Antalya in the south. Our Russian grooms are, presumably, on the rise as well. Our Russian brides are the grand-daughters of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky. They are all cultured, well-educated and very pretty. Most of the 400 students we have sent over to Russia to study nuclear energy will end up marrying Russians. Russian will be spoken in households. When I look around, I see many Russian brides and grooms within the next generation.

Our natural gas dependency to Russia is all too well-known. It is one of the main reasons for our current deficit. We must also take into account our upcoming dependencies on them in coal and nuclear power. Our energy dependency, which is already unbearable, is still climbing. WE have to put a lid on it, and work towards bringing it down. We have to look for opportunities in other sectors. The world is smaller, freer and more independent -thanks to the internet.

I stayed in Russia for three months in 1976 as part of a United Nations scholarship program. Then, years later, I went there again in 2008 for touristic purposes. The Russians have not changed, but the economic environment has. There is a fairly free market in operation. Black markets are all but over, but the service sector is still lacking. The pressure from the Party cannot be felt anymore. People are drinking beer instead of vodka. The women are still beautiful, the men are business-oriented. And they still manage to maintain a world-class ballet and opera.

When you ask for directions, ten people circle around you and try to explain it to you. If you can’t communicate, they physically take you where you want to go.

We must know ourselves, not meddle in others’ internal affairs, and we must believe in the synergy that we can create. Most importantly let’s not deviate from “Peace at home, peace in the world”. Let us do what we can to stand on our own feet in our region: The Middle East.