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Saudi Official Dismisses Turkish Claims Jamal Khashoggi Was Killed In Istanbul Consulate

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An official at Saudi Arabia’s Consulate General in Istanbul has strongly dismissed reports that Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed within the consulate, state-news agency SPA reported.

The official strongly denounced the report by Reuters news agency, calling them “baseless allegations”, adding that he has doubts they came from Turkish officials “who are informed of the investigation or are authorized to comment on the issue.”

The official said that a security delegation consisting of Saudi investigators arrived in Istanbul on Saturday to participate in the investigations into the disappearance of Khashoggi.

The source said the relevant authorities in the Kingdom are diligently following up to uncover the complete facts.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday he was awaiting the results of an investigation into Khashoggi’s disappearance and maintains positive expectations on about his fate.

“I am following the case and we will inform the world whatever the outcome,” he said.

“We hope to have results very quickly. I am waiting, with high hopes.”

The president said police were examining CCTV footage of entrances and exits at the consulate and Istanbul airport.

Erdogan described the missing man, who had lived in the US for the past year, as “a journalist and a friend,” and added: “God willing we will not be faced with a situation we do not desire.”


South Asian Nuclear Stability: Anticipations And Fear – OpEd

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The advent of Nuclear weapons in the International system preserved peace and security by maintaining nuclear deterrent capability. In South Asian framework, India and Pakistan thrive to get the status of de-facto Nuclear Weapons States in nuclear order to counter their security apprehensions. Both nuclear rivalries’ nuclear journey is of 70 years to attain and upgrade their Nuclear Weapons capability. At present both states have marinated their arsenals in accordance Credible Minimum Deterrence to preserve the strategic stability of South Asia.

On the demand of contemporary strategic environment, India and Pakistan bid for membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group to enter into legitimate Nuclear Regime to gain Global recognition, Power, Prestige, and Security. Apart from Nuclear energy needs which is pivotal and beneficial for both states, the Nuclear politics is most instigating to indulge the nuclear rivalries into this race. In the period of 20 years, Nuclear India and Pakistan have maintained Credible Deterrence Posture to sustain the Strategic Stability in South Asia.

In Global Nuclear Order and Politics, the Great Game of big powers have great influence in Asia Pacific Region. Nuclear India and Pakistan with their Geo Strategic importance kept them in the limelight of world political setting. In the Cold War era, 5 States attained de-jure Nuclear Power Status. At that time, they introduced the Non-Proliferation Regimes to further avert the spread of nuclear and maintained the peace and Stability of Global nuclear order. Unfortunately, now the same States with their Great Game to grasp the Power politics of Asia Pacific Region is quaking the realities of Nuclear South Asia which is conflict Prone Region by induction of new technology in the South Asia.

India bid for NSG membership is disguise as it is proved in the history of Smiling Buddha. India real bid is to have access to Nuclear technology from International market, entree to international arena of nuclear commerce, Nuclear Reactors-Uranium and fulfil their demands of thermonuclear weapons, Import Nuclear weapons (Russia-France), projecting in Asia nuclear politics and easy to produce missile capabilities. The aggressive aims are undermining the guidelines of NSG and grave threat for regional stability. In addition to that, India Strategic ambitions eminent from its recent Strategic collaborations with France and $5 billion defense deals Russia showed their future plans are not just for the peaceful use of Nuclear Technology. Moreover, India is acquiring S-400 Truimf, Eurofighter Typhoon, LCA-Tejas Mark 1A, Mig-21s, Su-30 MKI, Rafale, AK-103 assault rifles, Nuclear Submarines from different defense deals. The existence of India’s secret nuclear city Chellakere highlights India’s ambitions to become a world power. Their stance of matching the nuclear arsenal of China and Pakistan is big bluff.

This is the reason back in 2008 India did an intense lobbying which forced US to invest its political capital to secure a special NSG waiver for India. President Obama explicitly committed himself to facilitate India’s entry into the four components of the international export control regime, namely the MTCR, the Australia Group, the Wassenaar, and the NSG. India recently granted with STA-1 status and avail new strategic opportunities under 2+2 Framework which opened the doors of international nuclear commerce for India. It is an open threat to regional stability and violation of NPT Regime.

On contrary, Pakistan has defensive Nuclear Posture which had maintained Full Spectrum deterrence to counter Indian Cold Start Doctrine. Pakistan Nuclear policy is not aggressive to obtain more fissile material for nuclear weapons. Pakistan is a state party to various international instruments including IAEA Code of Conduct on Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources, the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM), and participates in the IAEA Incident and Trafficking Database (ITDB). It also actively participates in the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) and regularly submits reports to the UN Security Council 1540 Committee. Pakistan has streamlined and strengthened its export control regime and enhanced its engagement with multilateral export control regimes.

On September 2018, Pakistan diplomatic achievement is to become the member of IAEA Board of Governor. It is the Pakistan recognition as a responsible nuclear power state and the positive advances in the nuclear field. The re-election of Pakistan to the Board reflects the acknowledgment of the country’s nuclear safety and security credentials in accordance with the international standards. By using the platform of IAEA, Pakistan must take up critical non-proliferation issues including criteria-based approaches & push again for Multilateral Approaches to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle.

The reality of Nuclear South Asia is that whatsoever, the Nuclear Treaty, Group or Agreement have to be signed, India and Pakistan evaluate their Strategic calculations with each other to keep their National Security foremost. Pakistan is adherence to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and a bilateral moratorium on nuclear testing, Nuclear Restraint Regime which exclusively aimed at preventing an arms race in the region. Pakistan proposed India to initiate peace signaling. But Indian Stated that “ No question to sign NPT”. Pakistan cannot take initiative step due to Indian aggressive policies that will destabilize the deterrent capabilities of Pakistan.

In the same way, If India gets the membership of NSG, it did not show its consensus for Pakistan membership and it will sabotage Pakistan sovereignty. Pakistan wants its global recognition as the 70 years struggle of Pakistan defensive policies will be in dangers due to US and India aggressive aims. The US exempts India from rules and regulations for civilian nuclear trade and facilitate it with a legal right for the sake of their own Great Game in Asia Pacific Region and threatened the strategic stability for South Asia. It is vital to strengthen the criteria and norm-based approach and revisit multilateral approaches to strengthen the Proliferation Regime.

Currently, there are two groups who are supporting India and Pakistan. US administration and Congress look unwilling to lend their support for Pakistan’s cause. Out of 48, 41 members are with India while China, Ireland, New Zealand, Austria, Turkey, South Africa have objections to exceptionalism and insistence on development of uniform criteria for the entry of all non-NPT nuclear states.

Accordingly, Pakistan’s case for entering as a recognized nuclear state globally is strong. Pakistan must strong its diplomatic lobbying and to collaborate with others NSG member states to defend Pakistan strong stance and regional urgencies to get membership of NSG along with India. Tasnim Aslam, head of the UN desk at the Foreign Office stated that “Pakistan has the expertise, manpower, infrastructure and the ability to supply NSG controlled items, goods, and services for a full range of nuclear applications for peaceful uses,”.

In new emerging threats, there is need for the dialogue process for stability. India’s policy of isolating Pakistan and the hostile attitude adopted by the Modi administration towards Pakistan is hazardous for the South Asian Stability.

*Adeela Ahmed, Independent Researcher/ Freelance Columnist Area of Interest: Defence and Security Issues MPhil from Quaid e Azam University Islamabad in Defence and Strategic Studies, Master from Bahhahudin zakaria University Multan in International Relations

Macedonian Opposition Leader Urges New Election, End To Name Change Deal

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(RFE/RL) — The leader of Macedonia’s opposition is urging the government to break off a deal to change the country’s name and to call early elections.

Hristijan Mickoski, head of the conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, said a caretaker government should be installed until elections are held, which he said should happen in late November.

“Macedonia is entering a new political crisis. The solution is catastrophic and unacceptable both for VMRO-DPMNE and the majority of citizens. A new crisis will completely destroy the economy,” he said.

Macedonians on September 30 voted 91.5 percent to back the deal to change the nation’s name to North Macedonia, a move that would help move the country toward eventual membership in the European Union and NATO.

However, the referendum did not attract the required 50 percent voter turnout for a valid result, finishing at 36.9 percent of the country’s 1.8 million eligible voters.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has vowed to keep pushing for a change to the Balkan nation’s name to end a decades-old dispute with neighboring Greece.

However, the ruling coalition does not have the two-thirds majority that would be needed to complete the necessary a constitutional amendment.

President Gjorge Ivanov also has opposed the name change, saying the Macedonian people “clearly” rejected the accord with Greece.

The name dispute between Macedonia and Greece dates back to 1991, when Macedonia peacefully broke away from Yugoslavia.

Greece says the name Macedonia implies territorial and cultural claims on the northern Greek region of the same name.

Greece, an EU and NATO member, has cited the dispute to veto Macedonia’s bids to join the two organizations.

In June, Athens and Skopje hammered out a tentative compromise to end decades of squabbling if Macedonia adopts the new name.

Nationalists in both countries have opposed the deal. In Macedonia, many say it would constitute and sacrifice of sovereignty, while in Greece, many say it would its neighbor to continue to use the historic Macedonia name.

Macedonia’s economy is sputtering after a two-year financial crisis that pushed unemployment above 20 percent, one of the highest rates in the Balkans, and an average monthly net salary of about $400, the lowest in the region.

Analysts say further integrating Western Balkan countries such as Macedonia into European and transatlantic structures is the best way to ensure the stability and development of a region still healing from the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Lawyer Claims Second Woman Accuses Cristiano Ronaldo Of Sexual Assault

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The lawyer for Kathryn Mayorga, who claims she was raped by Cristiano Ronaldo in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2009, says he has been contacted by a second woman claiming to have been sexually assaulted by the football star.

Leslie Stovall, representing American former model Mayorga, now 34, told The Mail on Sunday: “I have had a call from a woman who claims to have had a similar experience.” He refused to name the woman in question.

Ronaldo is accused of anally raping Mayorga in a bedroom while she cried “no, no, no”, having grabbed her from a separate room in a Las Vegas penthouse where she was changing.

He is also accused of coercing Mayorga into accepting $375,000 hush money, which her lawyers claim she was ‘bullied’ into signing, per The Mail.

Las Vegas police confirmed they had reopened a sexual assault case from 2009 by request of the woman named in a lawsuit filed on September 27.

The allegations against Juventus winger Ronaldo were first published by German news outlet Der Spiegel as a result of their investigation.

READ MORE: Ronaldo accused by US woman of rape in Las Vegas hotel room – reports

Ronaldo labeled the claims “fake news” and on Wednesday tweeted his resolute denial of the allegations, writing: “Rape is an abominable crime that goes against everything that I am and believe in.”

In a follow-up tweet, the Portugal national team captain then insisted his “clear conscience will thereby allow me to await with tranquility the results of any and all investigations.”

The 2018 Nobel Prize: Spotlighting An Epidemic Of Sexual Violence – OpEd

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By Baria Alamuddin*

It was her unbearably sorrowful eyes that struck me most viscerally when I first met Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad. These eyes bore hauntingly eloquent testimony to the unbearable atrocities she had endured.

As Daesh attacked the Sinjar region of Iraq, Murad and hundreds of other Yazidi girls witnessed family members and neighbors slaughtered. These girls were enslaved, violently raped, tortured and traded from one fighter to another. Many were killed, many are still being held, and the fate of many will never be known.

Having faced brutal reprisals for an earlier attempt to escape, Murad risked her life by fleeing when her captor left the door unlocked. But she did not just survive. She courageously stood up and told the world about the brutality that women like her had faced, as beatings and gang rape became routine. When asked whether she had contemplated suicide, she responded that they had already died many times over, yet lived in constant fear that the future held far worse horrors.

Another thing that struck me about Murad is that she does not have an ounce of self-pity. She rarely talks or thinks about herself. I ask her how she is, and she immediately tells me about the wellbeing of those who escaped from captivity. Coming from a culture where speaking of sexual violence is an absolute taboo and victims face ostracization, Murad demanded that she be named and photographed to shatter the wall of silence and shame against innocent victims of rape.

In doing so, she facilitated the traumatic process of released women being welcomed back by communities that may once have shunned them. She consequently enjoys heroic status among the women of Sinjar. Murad and her legal team spearheaded the international campaign for Daesh personnel to be held to account for crimes against humanity. She visits refugee camps in Iraq, Greece and other locations, where Iraqis remain in harrowing conditions and vulnerable women continue to face the threat of sexual violence.

Dr. Denis Mukwege was awarded the Nobel Prize along with Murad for his work in treating thousands of women who had been violently raped during the Congolese conflict. He continued his work despite assassination attempts after publically criticizing the Congolese government’s failure to protect women.

The joint recognition of Murad and Mukwege was an ingenious way for the Nobel Prize Committee to highlight sexual violence against women worldwide. In conflict zones and supposedly civilized nations whose political elites should know better, this recognition does not come a moment too soon.

I was deeply touched by Murad’s harrowing autobiography, which she named “The Last Girl,” hoping that her campaign would ensure that she would be the “last girl in the world with a story like mine.” However, as the committee chairman observed, women in these conflicts are “used as a weapon of war.” Systematic rape has recently been documented against Rohingya women.

Even in Iraq, there are plentiful warning signs that such a scenario could repeat itself. The specters of terrorism, militancy and religious hatred have not been banished. Daesh is once again reconstituting itself in remote parts of central Iraq.

Meanwhile, Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi paramilitary forces — which themselves have been complicit in systematic war crimes such as sectarian cleansing and sexual attacks against displaced women — are today consolidating their position in government. The unleashing of sectarian forces was among the factors that tore Iraq apart in 2014 and allowed Daesh to embark on its genocidal campaign against the country’s minorities. Are the same mistakes being repeated?

I was overjoyed at this year’s choice of Nobel Prize, not least because this avoided the farcical scenario of the award going to US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Yet for Murad, this is a bittersweet moment: Nobody could envy the horrors she endured to achieve this pinnacle of global recognition. Responding to the award, she said: “I think of my mother, who was murdered by Daesh, the children with whom I grew up, and what we must do to honor them. Persecution of minorities must end.”

The most recent occasion I met Murad, there was a twinkle of happiness in those still-sad eyes. She was with her fiancé, and her human rights activism had given her a cause toward which she could focus her energies.

Murad’s and Mukwege’s awards must not just be a complacent slap on the back, but a reminder to us all of how women are disproportionately victimized in conflicts. It has been estimated that in the US, a women is raped every two minutes, and a child is raped every 15 minutes in India.

Yet such statistics are dwarfed by epidemic levels of sexual violence in the Congo, South Sudan and other warzones, creating a climate of constant terror for women, whose best hope when they hear soldiers attacking their village is to flee into the jungle to avoid being strung up to a tree, repeatedly violated, tortured and left to die.

All forms of sexual harassment and assault are acts of violence. While not all cases are equally extreme, they are all calculated to humiliate, violate and abuse imbalances of power. Along with the #MeToo movement and Christine Blasey Ford’s statements to the US Senate, Murad has become a voice for victims of sexual violence worldwide.

This recognition conferred by the Nobel Prize tosses the ball into our court. We can no longer pretend to be unaware of this plague of sexual violence by powerful men against defenseless women worldwide. But what will we do about it?
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate, and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

Pakistani Poker: Playing Saudi Arabia Against China – Analysis

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Desperate for funding to fend off a financial crisis fuelled in part by mounting debt to China, Pakistan is playing a complicated game of poker that could hand Saudi Arabia a strategic victory in its bitter feud with Iran at the People’s Republic’s expense.

The Pakistani moves threaten a key leg of the USD60 billion plus Chinese investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a crown jewel of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative.

They also could jeopardize Chinese hopes to create a second overland route to Iran, a key node in China’s transportation links to Europe. Finally, they grant Saudi Arabia a prominent place in the Chinese-funded port of Gwadar that would significantly weaken Iran’s ability to compete with its Indian-backed seaport of Chabahar.

Taken together, the moves risk dragging not only Pakistan but also China into the all but open war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Pakistan’s first move became evident in early September with the government’s failure to authorise disbursements for road projects, already hit by delays in Chinese approvals, that are part of CPEC’s Western route, linking the province of Balochistan with the troubled region of Xinjiang in north-western China.

In doing so, Pakistan implicitly targeted a key Chinese driver for CPEC: the pacification of Xinjiang’s Turkic Muslim population through a combination of economic development enhanced by trade and economic activity flowing through CPEC as well as brutal repression and mass re-education.

The combination of Pakistani and Chinese delays “has virtually brought progress work on the Western route to a standstill,” a Western diplomat in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad said.

Pakistani Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid, in a further bid to bring Pakistani government expenditure under control that at current rates could force the country to seek a $US 12 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has cut $2 billion dollars from the US$8.2 billion budget to upgrade and expand Pakistan’s railway network, a key pillar of CPEC. Mr. Rashid plans to slash a further two billion dollars.

“Pakistan is a poor country that cannot afford (the) huge burden of the loans…. CPEC is like the backbone for Pakistan, but our eyes and ears are open,” Mr. Rashid said.

The budget cuts came on the back of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party projecting CPEC prior to the July 25 election that swept him to power to as a modern-day equivalent of the British East India Company, which dominated the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century.

PTI criticism included denouncing Chinese-funded mass transit projects in three cities in Punjab as a squandering of funds that could have better been invested in social spending. PTI activists suggested that the projects had involved corrupt practices.

Pakistan’s final move was to invite Saudi Arabia to build a refinery in Gwadar and invest in Balochistan mining. Chinese questioning of Pakistan’s move was evident when the Pakistani government backed off suggestions that Saudi Arabia would become part of CPEC.

Senior Saudi officials this week visited Islamabad and Gwadar to discuss the deal that would also involve deferred payments on Saudi oil supplies to Pakistan and create a strategic oil reserve close to Iran’s border.

“The incumbent government is bringing Saudi Arabia closer to Gwadar. In other words, the hardline Sunni-Wahhabi state would be closer than ever to the Iranian border. This is likely to infuriate Tehran,” said Baloch politician and former Pakistani ports and shipping minister Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo.

Pakistan’s game of poker amounts to a risky gamble that serves Pakistani and Saudi purposes, puts China whose prestige and treasure are on the line in a difficult spot, could perilously spark tension along the Pakistan-Iran border, and is likely to provoke Iranian counter moves. It also risks putting Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, who depend on China economically in different ways, in an awkward position.

The Saudi engagement promises up to US$10 billion in investments as well as balance of payments relief. It potentially could ease US concerns that a possible IMF bailout would help Pakistan service debt to China.

A refinery and strategic oil reserve in Gwadar would serve Saudi Arabia’s goal of preventing Chabahar, the Indian-backed Iranian port, from emerging as a powerful Arabian Sea hub at a time that the United States is imposing sanctions designed to choke off Iranian oil exports.

A Saudi think tank, the International Institute for Iranian Studies, previously known as the Arabian Gulf Centre for Iranian Studies (AGCIS) that is believed to be backed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, argued last year in a study that Chabahar posed “a direct threat to the Arab Gulf states” that called for “immediate counter measures.”

Written by Mohammed Hassan Husseinbor, an Iranian political researcher of Baloch origin, the study warned that Chabahar would enable Iran to increase its oil market share in India at the expense of Saudi Arabia, raise foreign investment in the Islamic republic, increase government revenues, and allow Iran to project power in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

Mr. Husseinbor suggested that Saudi support for a low-level Baloch insurgency in Iran could serve as a countermeasure. “Saudis could persuade Pakistan to soften its opposition to any potential Saudi support for the Iranian Baluch… The Arab-Baluch alliance is deeply rooted in the history of the Gulf region and their opposition to Persian domination,” Mr. Husseinbor said.

Noting the vast expanses of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Mr. Husseinbor went on to say that “it would be a formidable challenge, if not impossible, for the Iranian government to protect such long distances and secure Chabahar in the face of widespread Baluch opposition, particularly if this opposition is supported by Iran’s regional adversaries and world powers.”

Saudi militants reported at the time the study was published that funds from the kingdom were flowing into anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian Sunni Muslim ultra-conservative madrassas or religious seminaries in Balochistan.

US President Donald J. Trump’s national security advisor, John Bolton, last year before assuming office, drafted at the request of Mr. Trump’s then strategic advisor, Steve Bannon, a plan that envisioned US support “for the democratic Iranian opposition,” including in Balochistan and Iran’s Sistan and Balochistan province.

All of this does not bode well for CPEC. China may be able to accommodate Pakistan by improving commercial terms for CPEC-related projects and Pakistani debt as well as easing Pakistani access to the Chinese market. China, however, is likely to find it far more difficult to prevent the Saudi-Iranian rivalry from spinning out of control in its backyard.

Diabetes May Begin More Than 20 Years Before Diagnosis

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Early signs of type 2 diabetes can be identified more than 20 years before diagnosis, according to new research presented at this year’s European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting in Berlin, Germany (1-5 October).

The Japanese study tracked over 27,000 non-diabetic adults (average age 49 years) between 2005 and 2016 and found that increased fasting glucose, higher body mass index (BMI) and impaired insulin sensitivity were detectable up to 10 years before the diagnosis of diabetes as well as prediabetes.

“As the vast majority of people with type 2 diabetes go through the stage of prediabetes, our findings suggest that elevated metabolic markers for diabetes are detectable more than 20 years before its diagnosis”, said Dr Hiroyuki Sagesaka from Aizawa Hospital in Matsumoto, Japan who led the research, along with Professor Mitsuhisa Komatsu, Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Japan and colleagues.

Previous research suggests that risk factors like obesity and elevated fasting glucose may be present up to 10 years before someone is diagnosed with diabetes. However, the time point at which individuals who go on to develop diabetes and those who don’t first become substantially different from each other was not known until now.

Sagesaka and colleagues assessed the trajectories of fasting blood glucose, BMI, and insulin sensitivity in individuals who developed diabetes and prediabetes separately. At the start of the study, 27,392 non-diabetic individuals had a fasting glucose and average blood glucose (HbA1c) measured and were followed until a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, or the end of 2016, whichever came first.

Over the study period, 1067 new type 2 diabetes cases were identified. Findings showed that on average, several risk factors were more common among individuals who went on to develop type 2 diabetes compared with those who didn’t. In particular, BMI, fasting glucose, and insulin resistance were increased up to 10 years before diagnosis, and these differences widened over time.

For example, mean fasting glucose: 10 years before diagnosis – 101.5 mg/dL developed diabetes vs 94.5 mg/dL those who didn’t; 5 years before diagnosis – 105 mg/dL vs 94 mg/dL; and 1 year before – 110 mg/dL vs 94 mg/dL.

Of 15,778 individuals with normal blood glucose at the initial health exam, 4781 went on to develop prediabetes over the study period, and the same abnormalities, although to a milder degree, were present at least 10 years before diagnosis of prediabetes.

The research has important implications given that an estimated 425 million adults (aged 20-79 years) were living with diabetes in 2017, and this is predicted to rise to 629 million by 2045.

“Because trials of prevention in people with prediabetes seem to be less successful over long term follow up, we may need to intervene much earlier than the prediabetes stage to prevent progression to full blown diabetes. A much earlier intervention trail, either drug or lifestyle related, is warranted,” said Dr Sagesaka.

Romania: Family Referendum Fails To Meet Turnout Threshold

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By Ana Maria Luca

Romanian conservative organizations and the Orthodox Church failed to mobilize enough voters to pass a referendum aiming to change the definition of the family in the constitution to “the union between a man and a woman.”

Romanian human rights activists and some politicians cheered on Sunday night as a referendum aiming to change the constitution so that it would only allow marriage between a man and a woman has failed to overcome the 30 per cent turnout threshold.

Despite the government keeping polling stations open for two days and the country’s powerful Orthodox Church making efforts to mobilize supporters, only 20.4 per cent of Romanians cast ballots on Saturday and Sunday.

“We showed that we, as citizens, want a Romania based upon democratic values, a country where respect, equality and common sense guides society,” Romanian LGBT rights organization Accept said in a press release sent to the media.

“We have been demonized for three years,” Vlad Viski, director of MosaiQ LGBT rights organization said on Sunday, as a handful of activists celebrated in a pub in central Bucharest. “This is a signal that Romanians are not a people who like to hate. And it’s a signal for the Orthodox Church that religion has no place in politics,” he added.

Romanians were called to the polls after three years of intense political debates over LGBT rights, after the conservative Coalition for the Family – an umbrella organization for right-wing and church-backed NGOs – raised 3.2 million signatures and submitted a bill to parliament to ban gay marriage in the constitution.

Romanian Civil Code adopted in 2009 already bans same-sex marriage.

Despite calls from local and international rights organizations to drop the bill that has been deemed an infringement of human rights, the Romanian Senate voted in favour of the referendum on September 11, after the lower chamber approved it in June 2017.

The Social Democratic Party, which holds a large majority in parliament, amended the referendum law in the summer to lower the participation threshold from 50 per cent to only 30 per cent.

The government also decided at the end of September to allow two days for the vote, in order to increase the participation rate.

Although over 19 million Romanians were called to the polls, the participation was very low on Saturday, only 5.72 per cent. It increased on Sunday afternoon after the powerful Romanian Orthodox Church called on supporters to vote. Patriarch Daniel told believers during his sermon on Sunday that voting was an “honour”.

However, many civil society activists and human rights organizations called for a boycott of the plebiscite.

The Coalition for the Family expressed outrage on Sunday at the low voting turnout. In a statement sent to the press on Sunday afternoon, the organization said that Romanian political factions have generally boycotted the family referendum by not lowering the turnout threshold enough when they voted on the new referendum bill.

The organization also accused the government of “organizing the referendum in a superficial and unprofessional manner, as not even elementary information over the object of the referendum was communicated to the Romanian public.”

The Catholic Church also stressed in a statement on Sunday night that, despite the low turnout, “at the base of the family lied the consented union between a man and a woman.”

Some opposition parties hailed the result of the referendum. Leader of Save Romania Union Dan Barna told journlaists on Sunday nigh that the result shows that “Romania is a European, tolerant country.”

Liberal leader Ludovic Orban, however, blamed the lack of popularity of the ruling Social Democrats for the failure of the “marriage” referendum. “This was the Romanians’ impeachment vote for the Social Democrat Party,” he said.

Secretary-General of the ruling Social Democrat Party Condrin Stefanescu said that the referendum was “a failure of Romanians and of Romania in general”.

“It was an important matter, maybe two weeks for the promotion campaign was not enough, we needed more debate,” he told journalists.


Concerns About A US Defense Agency Program Aimed At Modifying Crops

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Representing a dramatic change in the way scientists would genetically modify crops – one that could allow these crops to respond more readily to factors like changing climate – a research program under development in the United States proposes introducing genetic changes into already-planted fields, using infectious viruses.

The approach – distinct in its targeting of crops already planted – is referred to as HEGAAs. In this Policy Forum, Richard Guy Reeves and colleagues highlight concerns associated with this approach in the way that a high-profile funder, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), envisions it.

Specifically, the DARPA-funded approach for dispersing genetically modified viruses directly into fields mandates that these viruses be delivered not through traditional means like overhead sprays, which are more easily monitored and controlled, but by insects, citing lack of spraying equipment among farmers as the rationale.

“It would have been perfectly possible for the DARPA work program to have proposed the development of HEGAAs to be deployed using agricultural spraying equipment,” say the authors, “without the involvement of insects.”

Their opinion is that DARPA’s approach reflects “an intention to develop a means of delivery of HEGAAs for offensive purposes,” such as defense. If such an approach comes to be, Reeves and colleagues say, “easy simplifications” could be used to generate a new class of biological weapons – weapons that would be extremely transmissible to susceptible crop species due to insect dispersion as the means of delivery.

This perceived intent, Reeves and colleagues say, is of critical consideration in regard to international treaties that prohibit the use and development of certain weapons. The authors call for more transparency from DARPA as this program develops, as well as for more opportunities for public deliberation on this paradigm-shifting strategy.

Hoover, Truman, Trump And Cross Atlantic Relations – OpEd

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How Hoover and Truman made ‘America First’ by Helping European Countries become ‘Europe First’

In his speech during the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, US President Donald Trump, while reiterating his ‘America First’ and ‘Making America Great Again’ policy, claimed that it meant standing up for America, the American people and also for the world.

He clearly said America respects the sovereign independence of other nations and wants the same in return. A reciprocally fair trade and commitment not to surrender ‘America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.

Mr. Trump made an outright rejection of the ideology of globalism with his assertion that America is to be governed by the Americans themselves following the doctrine of patriotism. However, in his speech, he admitted American responsibility for the peace and prosperity of people anywhere in the world with the commitment to the defense of America’s allies, nevertheless, he did not shy away from avowing that they too have to pay ‘their fair share for the cost of their defense’. His message was clear as he said ‘peace without fear, hope without despair, and security without apology’ will be the governing principle of his foreign policy.

His speech, as expected, invited severe criticism from the American and European press as Donald Trump′s UN speech makes authoritarians great again, Trump Speaks Out on Globalization, and Trump urges the world to reject globalism in UN speech that draws mocking laughter. From the same venue, French President Emmanuel Macron defended globalism and took aim at Trump.

However, it is not Mr. Trump that has initiated tensions in America’s relations with Europe.

America’s friendship with Europe has been horribly damaged since the early years of US President Barrack Obama. Indeed, Mr. Obama had initiated a crisis in Trans-Atlantic Relations while ignoring Europe in his major foreign policy formulations.

Sir Winston Churchill the wartime Prime Minister of Britain is considered one of the most revered foreign leaders in America, for his great leadership role that ensured the victory of allied powers during World War II. But immediately after Mr. Obama entered White House he removed the bust of Churchill from the Oval Office and replaced that with one of Martin Luther King. It was an example of America’s shifting priorities in its relations with its most important allies in Europe.

His successor Donald Trump is charged to have a plan to end Europe and is doing much damage to the deepest and most broadly agreed foreign-policy interests of the United States, as well. The bust removed, was returned to the British embassy in Washington. However, immediately after Donald Trump took office, the Churchill bust was placed back in Oval Office again.

Trump tried to reset its relations with Britain, but his style of diplomacy, controversy related with his Russian link and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitious strategic approach in European and Middle East affairs followed by President Trump’s withdrawal from Paris climate pact and Iranian Nuclear deal has distanced the US and Europe much farther. This has left a deep sense of insecurity and aloofness among America’s European allies.

Mr. Trump’s strategy of “America first” is considered as a major departure in the US foreign policy and the defense outlook that the United States has been following for decades. Marked as populist, it has invited vehement criticism from various circles, linking it with its toxic past and leaving ‘America alone’.

This way, Mr. Trump has ignored the strategic thinking that made America great and seems to undermine the old bedrock of U.S. grand strategy— that according to Melvyn P. Leffler was “Europe First” – that in essence was the other part of America First strategy.

Besides, Mr. Trump looks more concerned with the price America has been paying for its strategic presence in Europe and wants to retreat from the established strategic principle and practices that America has followed since World War II. His strategy of America First has created a deep sense of mistrust and insecurity among its allies in Europe. Undeniably, Trump Seeking and working with democratic allies around the globe, in safeguarding democracy, freedom has greatly served the most vital interests and values of the United States—abroad and at home.

Present and Past of Cross Atlantic Alliance

The liberal democratic values and international order that the United States and Europe shared and promoted not only sustained the political stability across the Atlantic, it also played a crucial role in maintaining peace, stability, and progress around the world providing the lead role to both America and Europe.

In the core of this partnership was their commitment to their shared values.

What they share in common and how they governed themselves became the common aspirations of humanity and model for governing their country.

Indubitably, seeking and working with democratic allies around the globe in safeguarding democracy and freedom has greatly served the most vital interests and values of the United States—abroad and at home.

The true pillars of American Foreign Policy are the continued strengthening of its relations with its allies in Europe and Asia. With shared values, freedom, democracy, common security and free trade, Mr. Trump, since taking office have abandoned the traditional European strategy and in turn, earned loss for its global stature.

Equally, it is truer that Europeans also need the alliance more than the Americans do for their stability in an ever-changing world since the authoritarian powers with much more economic, political and military strength than the former Soviet Union, have been threatening the basic values and interests that Europe is sharing with America. Therefore, if Europe – tries to distance with America and stand alone, Trump in return can safely ignore Europe and thus the basic foundation on which European security and European integration are constructed will go shattered.

Jeremy Shapiro may not be wrong in his notion that the United States doesn’t need the European alliance for its security, as Trump has implied many times and Europeans too could simply band together and provide for their own security. Because when combined, they create as much economic weight and military power as the United States and far more than any of their potential rivals. However, in practice, they still prefer relying on the United States for their security rather than relying on one another. They have yet to earn strategic confidence on their own for their security – that was exhibited during the military intervention in Libya.

More often, the US President Harry Truman and his Secretary of State George Marshall are considered the main creator of the trans-Atlantic alliance that provided Europe an era of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and security with institutions that promoted and protected those values. However, the real groundwork of this alliance was commenced by Herbert Hoover. Hoover, on behalf of the President Woodrow Wilson administration, had  ensured a smooth supply of food, clothing and other relief aids to war-ravaged Europe. As mentioned by Peter Beinart in The Icarus Syndrome, four million Europeans had written letters or signed petitions thanking him for his brilliant job.

According to Beinart, the people of Finland invented a new verb: ‘‘hoover” meaning ‘‘to help” and in the American lexicon, it meant ‘‘to conserve”.  Hoover had become a national hero in Belgium as he succeeded in feeding 9 million starving people in Belgium and Northern France caught between two warring armies. The impact of his works and success was so tremendous that it gave birth to a new discipline named Relief or Humanitarian Diplomacy. Earlier he had managed the safe return of 100,000 Americans to their homes from Belgium – a country trapped between the fighting armies of Britain and Germany.

Recognizing his success as a great relief administrator and diplomat, President Wilson appointed him as the Head of American Food Administration agency. In this capacity, Hoover encouraged Americans to reduce their consumption of food and other daily essentials in order to ensure the continued supply of those commodities to the Europeans during the war and after the war.

A. Scott Berg,  in his book ‘‘Wilson’’,  has stated that Hoover appealed Americans to observe ‘meatless day’, ‘wheatless day’ and ‘sweet less day’ in order to save food for the Europeans. At the beginning of the War America exported 141 million bushels of wheat and 500,000 tons of sugar and thousands and thousands of tons of meat to Europe. American food saved millions of people in Europe including in the Soviet Union. Quoting renowned Soviet writer Maxim Gorky, William E. Leuchtenburg has written in The American President,  that Hoover had saved from death three and one half million children, five and a half million adults. ‘‘… in the history of practical humanitarianism I know of no accomplishment [to] which in …magnitude and generosity [it] can be compared.” During that time a young Franklin Roosevelt who later became one of the great presidents of his country wished ‘‘we could make him president. There certainly couldn’t be a better one’’, Leuchtenburg states in the aforementioned book.

To be continued….

Pakistan-US Relations: Resettlement Or Re-Stalemate – OpEd

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Pakistan-US relations have witnessed a severe decline especially after January 2018. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State, Mr. Mike Pompeo, who was accompanied by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Joseph Dunford, stayed in Islamabad for nearly five hours during which he met Prime Minister Imran Khan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, and Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Bajwa in the anticipation of resettling the deteriorating bilateral relations.

During the visit, Pakistan and the United States decided to reset the bilateral ties by giving another shot after the positive initial engagement which resulted in an understanding between the Trump administration and the new Pakistani government on delivering on each other’s expectations.

A positive aura was established during the meeting signaling an encouraging way forward for the relations by both countries. Hopes were paved in finding solutions to the common problems of both countries e.g. Afghanistan. Initially, the goodwill signaled optimism following a press conference by Pakistan’s FM. FM described how “positive” the meeting had been and is sure to bear fruit in future. Hopes were established on matters resolving between the two countries.

It was not long before the situation started to revert. Mr. Pompeo visited New Delhi the very next day after which a joint statement was released at the conclusion of the US-Delhi 2+2 dialogues. The statement made clear that everything Mr. Qureshi had painted in regards to the new set of Pak-US relations was worth no serious consideration. Both Delhi and Washington revealed to “have trained their guns towards Islamabad on the counter-terror front. They held, without vague signals or hidden intentions, Pakistan responsible for spread of terror through proxies. They named groups with Pakistani affiliations and have recalled past events like Mumbai, Uri, Pathankot to point to the alleged plots of terror whose perpetrators need to be brought to the book”. A new series of strategic partnership was also vowed to have began between India and the US to counter the growing military and economic strength of China (and/or Russia) in the region with massive arms trade treaties and other military assistance for each other during the visit.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office denied these allegations quite late- a week after they were presented. The delay helped paint yet another bleak picture on the strength of Pakistan’s foreign standing- giving chance to the critiques to point out Pakistan’s shortcomings in foreign affairs.

In the aforementioned scenario, what strikes the mind is that if Washington was actually serious in helping Pakistan out of the Afghanistan problem and establish fresh start to relations, it should have restrained India’s aggressive design. US had given a surety of security to Pakistan from the Eastern front to let Pakistan focus on stabilizing the Western front in Afghanistan by engaging with the Taliban to harbor a peace process. On the contrary, Washington has sandwiched Pakistan between two hostile neighbors from the east and the west creating a security dilemma or a stalemate for Pakistan both militarily and diplomatically.

Washington was fast to allege Pakistan of leaving terrorist harbors in Afghanistan and not doing action against them but when it had to help Pakistan make sure in achieving victory in Afghanistan (its own interest), it reverted the game by picturing Pakistan as the biggest problem.

Pakistan currently is in no position to create enmity with a regional power- India with the championship of a super power- the US to make it difficult for an economically, politically strained country- Pakistan for the ability to counter it likewise.

A popular notion among the masses of Pakistan is that China or Russia may prove to be better allies to help Pakistan despite the US backing out so prominently. This too is an unreliable dimension since Islamabad’s ties with Moscow are not well enough for Moscow to jump into any military fallout faced by Pakistan in assistance during the foreseeable future.

On the other hand, China, if history is studied, has never set an example of backing Pakistan militarily in the times of need against India. China will never perturb its economic ties with India to help Pakistan out. In this scenario, it is not Pakistan that can determine Chinese or Russian assistance for itself but China and Russia themselves determine how much can they bear for Pakistan keeping their own interests safe.

This grave lesson was not learnt by Pakistan’s government when none of our perceived friends countered Pakistan’s nomination in the FATF grey list by the US. It does not seem to be popular even now when Pakistan is facing a severe strategic threat from both its sides.

Pakistan is facing serious ramifications in its diplomatic as well as strategic arena with the abruption of expected hostility from Delhi and Washington. This is a crucial time where we need to shift our focus towards our foreign policy rather taking a cloak of false ego under the slogan of “Pakistan First” addressing internal matters like the dam fund or tree plantations rendering to be more important.

Pakistan-US bilateral relations are on their lowest ebb in history where vague future prospects are being witnessed. US’s intention to remain significant in the region coupled with its intention to contain China (and/or Russia) in the region has sought it to develop its partnership with India. This partnership has serious implications for Pakistan, foreseeing no future betterment in relations with the US in the short term to midterm time frame. US relations with Pakistan currently are focused more on re-stalemate rather than resettlement.

It is therefore direly vital for Pakistan to shift its focus on severe issues like its foreign standings, diplomacy and international strategic partnerships rather meager internal issues. A wake up call is needed for the government to address this issue on priority and stop living in an age of self-deception that is intentionally promoted at the price of the reality.

*Hareem Aqdas, Researcher at Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad and student of International Relations and Politics at Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad.

Media Literacy: Ideology Of Manipulation Or Manipulation Of Ideology – Essay

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GENERAL ELECTIONS in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ruling classes and ruling ideas

Concept of ideology1, just for an example, forces readers to notice that all cultural texts have a certain bias, interest, and embedded values and represent the opinion or attitude of their producers and often the values of a dominant social group. Today, unlike the times that the Marxists have been addressing (XIX century), in the time of high technology and global capitalism, ideas that promote globalization, digital technology, and the market society without any limitations of action have become the prevailing ideas – in other words, concepts that follow the interests of ruling elite in the global economy.

How does this reflect in such small, but extremely divided societies as Bosnia and Herzegovina is? Sociologically, the examples are innumerable. In addition to the prevailing attitudes of those in power2, there are also the inability to express the attitudes of the “others”, whether they are anything other than Bosniaks (Muslims), Serbs (Orthodox) and / or Croats (Catholics), but also a certain group of multiculturalists, feminists, LGBT populations and a wide range of the subordinate groups.

That is eo ipso – ideologies are the ones that produce relationships of domination within the arena of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality … The feminists, again – examples work, criticize sexist ideologies that they enhance the dominance of men over women in the way of propagating the male superiority.

Racist ideologies and their advocates have been criticized for speaking and working for the goal of subverting one race to another. In a broader sense, as a logical sequence of this, ideologies produce social domination by enacting the right of prevailing groups in society to be above the “subordinate” groups, and by doing that helps to repeating of the existing inequalities and establishing of the hierarchical control within that empowered power and decision-making.

Lately, and especially in Western countries3, an understanding of Marxism is growing precisely within the concept of ideology and the relationship between media and cultural studies4.

For classical Marxism, ruling classes employ intellectuals and cultural producers who produce ideas that glorify the dominant institutions and way of life, and propagate their dominant ideas within cultural forms such as literature, press, or, today, through film and television, as well as over the Internet.

Examples of the domestic people who are older than anybody else in the World:

  • Bosniaks (Muslims): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOLvtez6E3E
  • Serbs (Orthodox): http://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/832272-naucno-dokazano-srbi-najstariji-narod-iz-cijeg-gena-poticu-hrvati-bosanci-i-arijevci
  • Croats (Catholics): http://www.hazud.hr/postoje-dokazi-da-hrvati-nisu-slaveni-vec-jedini-narod-koji-je-svoje-korijene-sacuvao-6500-godina/

Further on, the Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci5, developed these ideas, pointing to the fact that different social groups reach “hegemony” or dominance during different times using the fact of causing the consent of subjugating the majority, according to the given socio-political groups. Interestingly, Gramsci states that, while the predominant groups mostly shape through the state (as during the revolution in America or the unification of Italy during the XIX century), the “civil society” institutions also play a role in establishing the hegemony. Civil society, among other things, in this discourse includes institutions of church, education, media and forms of pop culture. It mediates between the private sphere of personal economic interests and the family and public authority of the state itself, serving as a place which Jurgen Habermas described as a “public sphere”. According to Gramsci, societies maintain their stability through a combination of “domination”, or force and “hegemony,” defined as the consent of “intellectual and moral leadership.

In this idea, the social array and order are established and produced with certain institutions6 and groups that represent the violent forces of society while other institutions impose the consent of the dominant array and order through the establishment of hegemony, or ideological domination, of a characteristic social array and order7. In addition to this, societies establish hegemony of men and certain races through the institutionalization of male dominance or the rules of a specific race or ethnicity over non-institutional groups.

Globalism and Social Movements

Globalization, as a phenomenon, within all its aspects, has been the most controversial in the past two decades and has attracted a lot of analyzes, books, and debates just as postmodernism was a form of a novel and controversial issue of the eighties of the last century, which has continued today, in the first decades of the XXI century. Many theorists emphasize that the world is organized by the acceleration of globalization, which strengthens the dominance of the world capitalist society. We can argue about this, both from the scientific and from the everyday, human aspects, and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where people are publicly accused of disenfranchisement within the system of disrupted values ​​over the past two and half decades just because:

  1. They are not members of one or those political options – not any political party;
  2. They are not resourceful in legal, hypocritical theft in the style of “whoever is guilty to him/her because he/she does not know”;
  3. They do not want to accept as idols people from black chronicles of the media.

So, we come to the point of the General elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. From the above listing of 3 (three) you can find almost 70 % of the candidates within the elections.

Modern capitalism, in my opinion, although I myself was the part of those who wrote an article back in 1986 – in that non-people, single-party system – “Gulliver’s Prediction, the Lilliputian Realization”8 – in the simulation of assumed self-imposed taxes and never realized for orientation towards helping those who are needed is nothing more than a realistic awareness of the power of authorities, capital, and manipulation that is implemented at the expense of the weak and insufficiently educated world. Those who defend global capitalism – globalization marks the triumph of capitalism and its market economy (who mentioned the 2008 crisis? – I recommend Michael Moore’s movie “Capitalism, Love Story”). When we look at the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, perhaps the best example of a BOSNALIJEK affair that depicts all the unscrupulousness of the new tycoons in the country, of which the Zurnal.ba portal well-spoken within the analysis in their documentary on YouTube on 26.3.2014.

Discourses of globalization were initially polarized with pros-cons of pleadings and assaults. For critics, the term globalization covers the concept of global capitalism and imperialism and is accused of being a different form of cover for global capitalism and markets on a much larger area of the world and the sphere of life. In other words, capital does not know the boundaries and wants to multiply by expanding, at the expense of the logic of respecting the societies and the concepts of the societies they focus on. For those who defend it, globalization is a continuation of modernization, and it is the power of progress, increase of wealth, freedom, democracy, and happiness9, and the champions of globalization represent it as the benefit of everyone and that it generates fresh economic opportunities, political democratization, cultural diversity and opening up towards a thrilling new world.

I do not think it would be bad to contact the underdeveloped countries to confirm or deny the “libelist” theory that globalization is perceived as damaging that leads to increased domination of developed countries over the poor, underdeveloped countries where hegemony increases „of those who have” over “those who do not.” At the same time, globalization critics point out that globalization undermines democracy, cultural homogenization and increased destruction of the natural environment and species on the planet Earth.

Maybe the last elections ever in the country of lost hopes?

So, what does it all have to do with General elections in such a small country as it is Bosnia and Herzegovina, shape of the hearth and approx. with 3,5 million population?

Would not have anything if there is developed media literacy.

Would not have anything if there is a critical consciousness developed in regards understanding of the social and political environment.

Would not have anything if there is a country of social justice developed where the rule of law exists and not law of rule.

Would not have anything if the whole world is not embraced with populism and exclusivity of “I”, “Me” and “Us”.

Would not have anything if the knowledge exists as “conditio sine qua non” for human existing.

Would not have anything if ignorance, corruption and apt is not on pedestal of working capabilities.

Although, it has to do everything with all above plus with the try to be under the control (or even some parts to become a part of those) surrounding countries (Croatia and Serbia) who are like predators, waiting for the small political “cough” within it, to come and offer there “good will” help which always (in the past) was everything else but not “good will” hand of help.

So, how to overcome it?

With the easy three steps:

  1. Establishing of independent higher education commission (for all level of political establishments in BiH – entity and cantonal) under the control of High representative (to use Bonn powers) that will shape up a curriculum in primary and secondary schools which will be of common interest and not of the interest of so call “parties and people” (but in reality – “groups of interests”) but exclusively of the interest of Bosnia and Herzegovina as the whole.
  2. Introducing media literacy into the primary and secondary schools as separate module thought by professionals.
  3. Complete reform of judicial system where the rule of law is on power and not law of rule.

Again, my proposal is for those who will do as mentioned, after being elected. With deadlines and responsibilities for it. People should try to recognize them prior to the elections…At least to try.

Again, the question raises: “What is older? Chicken or the egg?” How they would recognize it without being media literate?

Yes, that is a question of million $ US dollars?

Although, I still think that there is a critical mass to start doing that and it is those 46 % of population eligible to vote and not going to the voting process. They are the solution, because those on power now will continue to run BiH with only 20% of elected votes. So, those 46 % should come and vote.

Otherwise, we will make the next step on our walk towards the “bright” future. The future that will lead us with that next step (if vote and elect differently) over the cliff into to abyss. Although, we might be in it, but we do not know that yet.

So, to be able to recognize the abyss we need those three steps to be able to build a bridge of hope over it. Without any further delay.

Notes:
1. A system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.
2. Whether the color of the flag is red, blue and/or green.
3. Especially after world economic crises that started after 2008.
4. „Media and cultural studies“ – Key Works, by Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner February 2012, Wiley-Blackwell
5. Antonio Gramsci, “History of the subaltern classes” and “The concept of ‘ideology.’” In Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (eds. and trans.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, pp. 52–3, 57–8, and 375–7. New York: International Publishers, 1971.
6. Police, armies, civic groups for self-defense, etc…
7. Market capitalism fascism, communism, etc..
8. Sabahudin Hadžialić – Article from „Viteški vjesnik“ (1986, biweekly, Vitez, BiH, SFRJ) – republished by DIOGEN pro culture magazine, Annual, October 2010.g. No.1..: http://www.scribd.com/doc/36810988/DIOGEN-Pro-Kultura-Magazin-No1-g#scribd …about self-imposed tax of 5 % from net income on BiH level.
9. I will never forget „happiness „from 1990 when Muhamed Čengić, vice-president of the first Government of democratic SR BiH (still within Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) said that Bosnia and Herzegovina will be the next Switzerland (equal in richness) and from next Monday we will have the state where law ruled. It is so obvious how far away we are today from both, exactly because of the brutality of the application of capitalism in the country of non-built assumptions of adequate transition, within its all shape of appearances. Today BiH is at the end of the successful line of duty: https://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/nov/10/bosnia-bitter-flawed-peace-deal-dayton-agreement-20-years-on

Failed Democracy In Paraguay: Open Letter To The OAS

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A group of Paraguayan citizens, held a peaceful political rally on Saturday, October 29 at the ‘Democracy Plaza’ in downtown Asuncion, the Capital City of Paraguay to express their frustration and concerns as the Paraguayan National Congress has violated the legitimate voting rights for the Colorado Party Senator candidate, Mr. Horacio Cartes, who received over 800 thousand votes for his candidacy, on last April 22,. Election Day.

So far, the Paraguayan Congress is still not allowing the legitimately elected National Senator Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara to assume his position as ‘Active National Senator’. The obstacle inflicted by National Congress is not allowing the legal needed quorum for Mr. Cartes to Swear In, as an Active Senator. Such illegal act we consider to be a serious deteriorating and anti-democratic act of ‘Parliamentary Tyranny’ established by Communist and leftist Senators connected to national and international guerrilla groups.

Through this note, this citizen group is requesting the Paraguayan Senate Chamber to stop any further obstaculizing act and ALLOW the elected Senator Horacio Cartes Jara, to Swear as an ‘Active Senator’ to comply in Accordance to Sentence N° 17/2018 of the Supreme Electoral Justice Court, which provides the final official voting results that proclaim the elected national authorities of the last April 22nd – 2018 General elections.

The ‘Parliamentary Tyranny’ of the current Paraguayan Congress is kidnapping the power that belong exclusively to the Supreme Court which in this case is the Supreme Court and the Supreme Electoral Justice Court, both have issued legitimate Resolutions backed by 800.000 citizens who voted, which endows and enable Senator Horacio Cartes, his right to Swear In as an ‘Active Senator. This is an evident flagrant Illegal violation of the human — political rights of the citizens’ votes that are manipulated by the Paraguayan Congress compromising the still weaker Democracy of Paraguay.

Shall this political storm led by citizens that has been put up since last June, they will promote actions with international institutions to request correcting measures in order to redeem and ensure reinstatement of the rights of over 800.000 citizens who have voted for Mr. Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara.

Respectfully,

*Gloria Barrios, Constitutional Lawyer, Consultant in International Law & Human Rights – Democracy & Environmental Issues, gloriaastrea@gmail.com

*Founder of this CIVIC MOVEMENT’ states that the RIGHT TO VOTE is a HUMAN CIVIL as well as POLITICAL RIGHT that ‘sustains the ‘essence of DEMOCRACY’ and the People’s Freedom that are currently being VIOLATED by the Paraguayan Chamber of Senators. Barrios is a Law Advisor to the ‘Paraguayan Economic Forum’

Has Journalist Jamal Khashoggi Fallen Afoul Of Saudi Arabia’s Escalating Crackdown On Dissent? – OpEd

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Concerns are mounting for the safety of one of Saudi Arabia’s highest-profile critics who has gone missing after a routine visit to the country’s consulate in Istanbul.

Respected journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who authors a regular column for the Washington Post, attended the consulate on 2 October to pick up divorce paperwork but has yet to re-emerge. The Saudi government claimed that Khashoggi had left the consulate before he disappeared, an assertion that failed to convince either his family or Turkey, which summoned the Saudi ambassador and insisted that Khashoggi was still inside the consulate.

Khashoggi’s family and colleagues have good reason to worry about his disappearance, given the context of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s year-long crackdown on dissenters.

Khashoggi’s outspoken opinions

Khashoggi is an influential figure in journalistic circles: a prolific political commentator, well-known for his outspoken views on Saudi affairs. He moved to the United States last year amid growing concerns for his safety, and has used his platform at the Washington Post to throw a spotlight on the darker corners of Saudi foreign and domestic policy.

De facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman – known as MBS – has proclaimed his intent to modernize Saudi Arabia through a series of ambitious reforms. Khashoggi, however, has argued that despite a handful of headline policy decisions – such as finally allowing women to drive – Saudi citizens and activists are still being routinely arrested and jailed.

In a recent interview, Khashoggi expressed his view that the kingdom could never become democratic under MBS’s rule, citing the country’s involvement in the war in Yemen, its activities in Lebanon and the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar as evidence of the Crown Prince’s determination to consolidate his power at all costs.

Intervention in Yemen damaging Saudi Arabia’s international reputation

The bloody conflict in Yemen is increasingly chipping away at Saudi Arabia’s legitimacy on the global stage. Over the last four years, more than 6,000 civilians have died and millions more are on the brink of starvation, thanks largely to the blockade imposed by Saudi and its allies that has prevented vital food and medical supplies from entering the country.

MBS’s government has claimed that the war was sparked as a result of security fears over Iranian involvement in Yemen, but critics – including Khashoggi – have emphasized that how the war began is less critical than the tactics Saudi has since employed to gain the upper hand. As the conflict drags on and more lives are lost—including 40 schoolchildren killed in August in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition—criticism from the international community is mounting.

The Qatar boycott has stoked regional conflict

Yemen is not the only regional dispute Saudi Arabia has become embroiled in: the ongoing Gulf crisis sprang out of a clash between some of Qatar’s foreign policy initiatives—maintaining good relations with Iran, or supporting groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood—and Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabism. The tensions had been simmering for years, but ratcheted up sharply in June 2017 when Saudi Arabia demanded that Qatar meet a list of 13 sweeping conditions—within 10 days.

When Qatar rejected the list as “unreasonable”, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic and economic ties with the tiny emirate. More than a year in, the spat shows no signs of cooling off. Mediation efforts led by Kuwait haven’t borne fruit. If anything, the standoff has escalated, after reports emerged that the Saudi government was planning to build a canal that would effectively turn Qatar into an island, cutting off any land access.

On the sidelines of the recent UN General Assembly, Saudi foreign minister Adel Al-Jubeir confirmed that the kingdom isn’t backing down anytime soon and is ready to keep up the blockade for decades if need be. It’s this very stubbornness on Saudi authorities’ part which Khashoggi frequently criticized before his disappearance, blaming it for the protracted crisis between former Gulf allies.

Turmoil at home

It’s the Saudi government’s internal policies that have particularly provoked Khashoggi, however—the very crackdown on dissent and the free press to which he himself may now have fallen prey.

Last year, MBS embarked on a purge of businessmen, media figures and military leaders, including several members of the royal family—ostensibly as part of a campaign against corruption, but which Khashoggi deemed a naked power grab reminiscent of Vladimir Putin’s strongman style. The crown prince subsequently oversaw a crackdown on intellectuals, clerics, activists and journalists who had criticized the regime—seeking the death penalty for some.

Saudi authorities claim that the arrests netted more than $100 billion in fines; critics argue that the arrests were designed to consolidate the crown prince’s power rather than to pursue corruption. For his part, Khashoggi was outspoken about his belief that Saudi Arabia is becoming a dictatorship, with MBS ready to succeed his father as its supreme leader. As the crackdown escalated, fearing arrest— or worse—Khashoggi fled the country.

No rush to condemn Saudi Arabia

Western countries welcomed Khashoggi in exile, but are reluctant to sanction Saudi Arabia, which they view as a key commercial and political ally. Even President Trump has confined his criticism of the kingdom to economic disputes rather than human rights violations. When Canada’s foreign ministry objected to the imprisonment of civil activists earlier this year, Riyadh reacted fiercely and angrily. The silence from other western nations was deafening.

If the Saudi government really is responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance, it suggests that not only is the Saudi regime intent on pursuing its own policies without interference but that it’s also not afraid of targeting dissidents like Khashoggi who live outside the Saudi jurisdiction and whom most would see as untouchable. And if Western nations – especially the United States – are inclined to turn a blind eye, authoritarian leaders like MBS could become further emboldened.

Meanwhile, Khashoggi’s friends and family will be hoping for a breakthrough that will result in his swift return.

Fugitive Prince Calls For Civil Disobedience To Change Saudi Regime

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Saudi prince Khalid bin Farhan al-Saud, who has fled to Germany after the empowerment of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, called on people to overthrow the current rulers in Riyadh after the recent murder of prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Al-e Saud.

“If the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi is proved, I invite all walks of life in Saudi Arabia to cooperate in a legal measure and change the political system through civil disobedience,” Farhan al-Saud wrote on his twitter page on Monday.

He proposed the Saudi people pave the ground for transferring power to Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi King Salman’s younger brother who is in exile in Britain, and form a new government based on the constitution.

Turkish officials said they had concrete evidence missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered, with a friend of the prominent writer saying they think he might have been dismembered.

A contributor to The Washington Post, Khashoggi has not been seen since Tuesday last week, when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to collect papers for his upcoming wedding.

Saudi officials said he left shortly afterwards but his fiancee, who was waiting outside, said he never came out.

Khashoggi, 59, who was once close to the Saudi royal family and has served as an adviser for senior Saudi officials, left the country last year to live in the US in self-imposed exile, saying he feared retribution for his criticism of Saudi policy in the Yemen war and its crackdown on dissent.

Turan Kislakci, a friend of Khashoggi and the head of the Turkish-Arab Media Association, said that Turkish officials said the journalist has been brutally murdered.

“What was explained to us is this: ‘He was killed, make your funeral preparations’,” Kislakci said.

“We called a few other places, these are lower officials, but they said: ‘We have evidence he was killed in a barbaric way, we will announce it tomorrow or the day after’.”

Kislakci also alleged, based on conversations with officials he did not name, that Khashoggi was made to “faint”, then was dismembered.


Turkey Asks To Search Saudi Consulate For Missing Journalist Khashoggi

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Turkish authorities have asked to search Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul for a missing Saudi journalist who is believed to have been killed inside the building.

The request, reported by Turkish broadcaster NTV, comes after prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi went missing after entering the consulate in Istanbul six days ago.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is believed to be personally following the case as he described Khashoggi as a “journalist I knew for a long time” and a “friend”.

Saudi Arabia’s envoy to Ankara was summoned to the foreign ministry for a second time on Sunday.

He has been asked by Turkish diplomats to be “in full co-ordination” on the matter.

A Turkish official said, “The initial assessment of the Turkish police is that Mr Khashoggi has been killed at the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul.

“We believe that the murder was premeditated and the body was subsequently moved out of the consulate.”

A senior police source told online news website Middle East Eye the journalist had been “brutally murdered, killed and cut into pieces”.

“Everything was videotaped to prove the mission had been accomplished and the tape was taken out of the country,” the source said.

A friend of Khashoggi, Galip Dalay, told Sky News that he “personally got the news that he was killed two days ago”.

Saudi authorities rejected the allegations as “baseless” and said a team of investigators had been sent to the Turkish city to help look into the case.

“I would like to confirm that…Jamal is not at the consulate nor in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the consulate and the embassy are working to search for him,” consul-general Mohammad al-Otaibi said in an interview.

Ron Paul: NAFTA 2.0, Free Trade Or Central Planning? – OpEd

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Last week the United States, Mexico, and Canada agreed to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with a new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Sadly, instead of replacing NAFTA’s managed trade with true free trade, the new USMCA expands government’s control over trade.

For example, under the USMCA’s “rules of origin,” at least 75 percent of a car’s parts must be from the US, Canada, or Mexico in order to avoid tariffs. This is protectionism designed to raise prices of cars using materials from outside North America.

The USMCA also requires that 40 to 45 percent of an automobile’s content be made by workers earning at least 16 dollars per hour. Like all government-set wages, this requirement will increase prices and decrease employment.

The USMCA also requires Mexico to pass legislation recognizing the “right of collective bargaining.” In other words, this so-called free trade agreement forces Mexico to import US-style compulsory unionism. If the Mexican legislature does not comply, the US and Canada will impose tariffs on Mexican goods.

The USMCA also requires the three countries to abide by the International Labour Organization (ILO) standards for worker rights. So, if, for example, the bureaucrats at the ILO declared that Right to Work laws violate “international labor standards”’ because they weaken collective bargaining and give Right to Work states an unfair advantage over compulsory unionism states and countries, the federal government may have to nullify all state Right to Work laws.

The USMCA also obligates the three countries to work together to improve air quality. This sounds harmless but could be used as a backdoor way to impose costly new regulations and taxes, such as a cap-and-trade scheme, on America.

This agreement also forbids the use of currency devaluation as a means of attempting to gain a competitive advantage in international trade. Enforcement of this provision will be difficult if not impossible, as no central bank will ever admit it is devaluing currency to obtain a competitive advantage in international trade. Of course, given that the very act of creating money lowers its value, the only way to stop central banks from devaluing currency is to put them out of business. Sadly, I don’t think the drafters of the USMCA seek to restore free-market money.

The currency provision will likely be used to justify coordination of monetary policy between the Federal Reserve and the Mexican and Canadian central banks. This will lead to region-wide inflation and a global currency war as the US pressures Mexico and Canada to help the Fed counter other countries’ alleged currency manipulation and challenges to the dollar’s reserve currency status.

A true free trade deal would simply reduce or eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers. It would not dictate wages and labor standards, or require inter-governmental cooperation on environmental standards and monetary policy. A true free trade deal also would not, as the USMCA does, list acceptable names for types of cheeses.

Those of us who support real free trade must not let supporters of the USMCA get away with claiming the USMCA has anything to do with free trade. We must also fight the forces of protectionism that are threatening to start a destructive trade war. Also, we must work to stop the government from trying to control our economic activities through regulations, taxes, and (most importantly) control of the currency through central banking and legal tender laws.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

Barely Breathing: May’s Gasping Premiership – OpEd

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The Boris Johnson storm, beating away at the British Prime Minister’s doors with an ancient fury, has been stayed for the moment in the wake of the Conservative Party Conference held at Birmingham last week. While the potential usurper batters away on the domestic front with red faced enthusiasm, Theresa May faces the impossible sell: convincing the European Union that the divorce Britain is initiating will still entail some form of faux conjugal relations. In this, she must also convince the forces of the remainder group that she has a solution that is not the worst of all worlds, a form of permissive molestation that will yield some benefits from the Brussels machinery.

In the background, protests abuzz in an effort to turn the ship away from its current course for March 29, 2019. The referendum of 2016 that led to a Brexit, goes this line of argument, was attained by audacious cheek, a fraud couched in populist sentiment. London remains ground zero for the resistance (wasn’t it always?), with its mayor, Sadiq Khan, holding the fort in insisting for a second vote. The UK, he argued, was trapped between cripplingly dangerous options: “a public vote on any deal or a vote on a no-deal, alongside the option of staying in the EU”.

Khan’s views function as vain hopes in search of a mind changing miracle. Expressed from London, they might as well sound like the tinny sounds of a capsule lodged in the red earth of Mars. “People didn’t vote to leave the EU to make themselves poorer, to watch their businesses suffer, to have the NHS wards understaffed, to see the police preparing for civil unrest or for our national security to be put at risk if our cooperation with the EU in the right against terrorism is weakened.”

European leaders, anxious that the EU compact is being gnawed at from within, have also been muttering approvingly for a change of heart. Keep voting, seems to be this view, till the minds change, a recipe less for democracy than managed thought. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat went as far as to tell BBC Radio 4 last month that, “We would like the almost impossible to happen… that the UK has another referendum.”

Johnson did have a good go at stirring the pot, and delegates and those gathered at the Tory Conference – some 1,500 – were not disappointed. “If I have a function here today it is to try, with all humility, to put some lead in the collective pencil, to stop what seems to me to be a ridiculous seeping away of our self-belief, and to invite you to feel realistic and justified confidence.”

As usual, Johnson was short on what exactly to do. The hearts would beat, throb even, and the mind would catch-up. After the wrecking ball, what’s there to do? “Our diplomatic strategy,” he observed, “was focused on the EU. That made sense in the 1970s. It makes much less sense today, when 95 percent of the world’s growth is going to be outside the EU.” This has become a stodgy mantra – the world as Britain’s eager oyster waiting to be prized over, pearl and all.

May had certainly been struggling to contain the Johnson bull in the china shop, whose message is to “chuck Chequers”, which was nothing more than a “cheat” that, should it be enacted, would “escalate the sense of mistrust.” It is a point that has noisy traction. Patrick Robinson, writing in The Telegraph, suggested that the “Chequers plan is not a ‘compromise’ or a negotiating position. This was the public face of a ploy to keep the UK inside the EU by tying our hands on rules governing foods, food, the environment, the workplace and much else, and maintaining the supremacy of European law in our country.”

In this, he has found common ground from the EU technocrats, who are also none too keen on the prime minister’s distinction between the “common rulebook” for goods but not services, designed to prevent the creation of a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. As a wary Donald Tusk of the European Council explained in Salzburg last month, “The suggested framework for economic cooperation will not work, not least because it is undermining the single market.”

May claimed last Tuesday that she had a new policy about immigration in a post-Brexit Britain. Critics were quick to point out she did not. Instead of upstaging Johnson, Home Secretary Sajid Javid found himself left in the lurch. “Boris,” claimed Charles Moore, “was boosted by her hostility, and people listened to his wide-ranging speech.”

Then came the Wednesday speech, made in the aftermath of Johnson’s show which, by her own admission, made her “cross.” She was attempting, while taking a swipe at Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, to appeal to those wishing for “a party that is decent, moderate and patriotic.” There would be no more fiscal conservatism in the Cameron-Osborne mould. The political sectarians would be shunned. And she could deliver all these promises with a weak jokes and an awkward robotic dance.

While quantifiable figures on sentiment must be treated with studied caution, one poll conducted for The Observer in the aftermath of May’s concluding conference speech suggested that the prime minister had shored up her position. A small 17 percent pitted for Johnson; double that number preferred May. Washed out and barely breathing, the pulse has returned. Time, however, is running out.

Korean Rapprochement: Analysing The Third North-South Summit

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Analysis of the third North-South Korea summit reveals that Kim Jong-un has given up little while receiving much. The US and South Korea would be well advised to be firm and cautious in their dealings with Pyongyang to avoid being exploited.

By Liang Tuang Nah*

THE RECENTLY concluded summit in Pyongyang between President Moon Jae-in of South Korea (ROK) and Chairman Kim Jong-un of North Korea (DPRK) seems to have thrown up a winner, and it is not the South Korean leader.

The outcome of the talks on 18-20 September 2018 was marked by easily reversible agreements based on the sentimentality of Korean reconciliation, and insubstantial concessions that hardly promote nuclear disarmament. The Pyongyang Joint Declaration of September 2018 showed that the Kim regime has emerged as the clear beneficiary of this third inter-Korean summit.

The Pyongyang Joint Declaration: Four Steps

Essentially, the Pyongyang Joint Declaration commits both the ROK and DPRK to undertake four key steps. The first is to implement military de-escalation measures across their shared border. The second is to further economic, infrastructural and social cooperation, including transportation link building, joint economic zone development and epidemic prevention initiatives.

The third is to implement permanent measures to reunite families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. The fourth is to further cultural, social and sporting exchanges. But most importantly, the fifth is that the Korean peninsula must be denuclearised.

Regarding this last point, Kim pledged to permanently decommission the Dongchang-ri missile engine test site and launch platform with a possible option to dismantle nuclear facilities at Yeongbyeon, if the US reciprocates with appropriate concessions.

Implications of Joint Declaration

There are three positive but reversible components of the declaration. Firstly, the Kim regime expressed support for reunions between separated families from the North and South. This would be well received in the ROK and improve the popularity of the Moon administration, since Moon managed to negotiate such a concession.

Similarly, pro-reunification voters would rejoice over cultural and social exchanges with their northern brethren, along with unified Korean representation at next Olympics. Lastly, security stability along the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) and in Southern provinces closer to North Korea would be welcomed across all sectors of South Korean society.

But inasmuch as all this would provide positive optics for the summit and boost Moon’s political standing, it benefits the Kim regime more; yet it could be easily undone by executive order from Pyongyang, if Kim’s attempts at international diplomacy ever turn sour.

It should be noted that there is minimal cost to Pyongyang in agreeing to more family reunions, civil exchanges or joint sporting participation. Any northern financing shortfalls for these feel-good events would more than likely be covered by Seoul or South Korea corporations eager to do their bit to smoothen the road to reunification.

Curtailing Military Antagonism?

As for curtailing military antagonism, there might be reputational benefits to Kim.  The world is so used to seeing a bellicose North Korea that any improvements to stability in the Korean peninsula would be quietly celebrated, amid hopes that Kim is actually a secret reformist.

Holistically, all these initiatives help to rehabilitate the DPRK’s image and alleviate the isolation imposed on it as a result of its illegal nuclear and missile programmes, all without ever giving up a single warhead or missile.

Next, South Korea would benefit from economic cooperation with the North given Pyongyang’s educated workforce, cheap wages and significant natural resources. But the ROK’s developed economy can find partners anywhere around the globe, whereas an international pariah like the DPRK can only look to China as an industrial patron.

Moreover, the North’s impoverished finances would mean that the South would end up funding the lion’s share of any capital expenses for all joint projects. Hence, if international sanctions against North Korea are ever lifted, Seoul would be bankrolling Pyongyang’s economic rehabilitation.

No Concrete Denuclearisation

Be that as it may, the third Moon-Kim summit does not hold the Kim regime to any concrete nuclear disarmament. The dismantling of the Dongchang-ri missile test site is purely symbolic and will still leave Pyongyang free to build another test site. It mayeven test fire a missile from a mobile Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL), which is a vehicle which can carry a missile to new locations and prepare the aforementioned missile for launch in short order.

Even if the US subsequently makes a valuable concession to the DPRK and the latter demolishes its nuclear materials manufacturing facilities at Yeongbyeon, that would still leave North Korea in possession of an unknown number of nuclear warheads and the capability to manufacture missiles to deliver these warheads to targets in South Korea, Japan, Guam and even the continental United States.

Therefore, all “concessions” thus far allow the preservation of Kim’s nuclear arsenal and concurrently give the impression that he has made denuclearisation progress, providing pretext for China and Russia to unofficially ease sanctions on the DPRK.

Kim: Not To Be Underestimated

Kim Jong-un is a capable negotiator who plans to have his proverbial cake and eat it too. His Byungjin ideology of nuclear arms retention and economic prosperity may fly in the face of nuclear non-proliferation norms.

But he seems determined to achieve this while having Seoul subsidise his economy, while hoping to erode the US sanctions, and that President Trump will accept insubstantial denuclearisation measures. This should not be acceptable.

Although Kim can certainly be expected to exploit Moon’s dovish proclivities and promote his regime’s agenda, by accepting Moon’s invitation to visit Seoul for the 4th North-South summit this year, Washington does not have to stand idly by.

Indeed, the Trump administration should remain firm on the North’s nuclear disarmament by insisting on verifiable denuclearisation steps, such as an IAEA-verified accounting of warheads and plutonium and uranium stocks, before further requests for US-DPRK engagement is granted.

Secondly, the US should exert pressure at the United Nations Security Council and through bilateral diplomacy to reinforce or refresh sanctions enforcement. Thirdly, the US should be more resistant to Kim’s direct messaging towards Trump. Kim can say whatever he wants, but he needs to be reminded that talk is cheap and only nuclear arms relinquishment can bring about normalised Washington-Pyongyang relations.

*Liang Tuang Nah, PhD is a Research Fellow at the Military Studies Programme, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore.

Google+ Shutting Down After Data Breach

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Google is closing the Google+ social network after an error exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of users last spring, in an incident which the company never disclosed to those affected.

Google put the “final nail in the coffin” of the Google+ product by shutting down “all consumer functionality,” the Wall Street Journal reported citing an internal memo.

The project launched in 2011 as an alternative to other social networks ended up being a huge failure for the company. The breach happened after a software glitch in the site gave outside developers potential access to private profile data including names, email addresses, birth dates, genders, occupations and more.

The memo viewed by the Journal said that disclosing the incident publicly would possibly trigger “immediate regulatory interest” and do damage to the company’s reputation. Reporting the incident would result “in us coming into the spotlight alongside or even instead of Facebook despite having stayed under the radar throughout the Cambridge Analytica scandal,” it warned.

The Journal reported that the Google+ breach exposed Google’s “concerted efforts to avoid public scrutiny of how it handles user information” at a time when regulators and the public are trying to do more to hold tech companies to account.

Google goes “beyond legal requirements” and applies “several criteria focused on our users” when deciding whether to provide notice, a spokesperson said in a statement. The company said it had considered whether or not it could accurately identify which users to inform, whether there was any evidence of misuse and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take in response. “None of these thresholds were met here,” the spokesperson said.

The leaked memo says that while there is no evidence that outside developers misused any data, there is still no way to know for sure.

As part of a slew of new security measures, Google is expected to clamp down on the amount of data it provides to outside developers through application programming interfaces (APIs), sources told the Journal.

As part of an audit of APIs, Google also discovered that Google+ had also been permitting developers to obtain data from users who never wanted it to be shared publicly — but a bug in the API meant they could collect data even if it was explicitly marked non-public through Google’s privacy settings.

New European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules which went into effect in May would have required Google to disclose the information to regulators within 72 hours under threat of penalty, but the Google+ leak was discovered in March, before the GDPR regulations came in and therefore was not covered by the European rules, according to Al Saikali, a lawyer who spoke to the Journal.

Saikali said it was possible that Google could face class action lawsuits over its decision not to disclose the breach. “The story here that the plaintiffs will tell is that Google knew something here and hid it. That by itself is enough to make the lawyers salivate,” he said.

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