What happens when a new technology is so precise that it operates on a scale beyond our characterization capabilities? For example, the lasers used at INRS produce ultrashort pulses in the femtosecond range (10 exp -15 s) that are far too short to visualize. Although some measurements are possible, nothing beats a clear image, says INRS professor and ultrafast imaging specialist Jinyang Liang. He and his colleagues, led by Caltech’s Lihong Wang, have developed what they call T-CUP: the world’s fastest camera, capable of capturing ten trillion (10 exp 13) frames per second. This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena–and even light!–in extremely slow motion.

In recent years, the junction between innovations in non-linear optics and imaging has opened the door for new and highly efficient methods for microscopic analysis of dynamic phenomena in biology and physics. But to harness the potential of these methods, there needs to be a way to record images in real time at a very short temporal resolution–in a single exposure.

Using current imaging techniques, measurements taken with ultrashort laser pulses must be repeated many times, which is appropriate for some types of inert samples, but impossible for other more fragile ones. For example, laser-engraved glass can tolerate only a single laser pulse, leaving less than a picosecond to capture the results. In such a case, the imaging technique must be able to capture the entire process in real time.

Compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) was a good starting point them. At 100 billion frames per second, this method approached, but did not meet, the specifications required to integrate femtosecond lasers. To improve on the concept, the new T-CUP system was developed based on a femtosecond streak camera that also incorporates a data acquisition type used in applications such as tomography.

“We knew that by using only a femtosecond streak camera, the image quality would be limited,” says Professor Lihong Wang, the Bren Professor of Medial Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Caltech and the Director of Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory (COIL). “So to improve this, we added another camera that acquires a static image. Combined with the image acquired by the femtosecond streak camera, we can use what is called a Radon transformation to obtain high-quality images while recording ten trillion frames per second.”

Setting the world record for real-time imaging speed, T-CUP can power a new generation of microscopes for biomedical, materials science, and other applications. This camera represents a fundamental shift, making it possible to analyze interactions between light and matter at an unparalleled temporal resolution.

The first time it was used, the ultrafast camera broke new ground by capturing the temporal focusing of a single femtosecond laser pulse in real time (Fig. 2). This process was recorded in 25 frames taken at an interval of 400 femtoseconds and detailed the light pulse’s shape, intensity, and angle of inclination.

“It’s an achievement in itself,” says Jinyang Liang, the leading author of this work, who was an engineer in COIL when the research was conducted, “but we already see possibilities for increasing the speed to up to one quadrillion (10 exp 15) frames per second!” Speeds like that are sure to offer insight into as-yet undetectable secrets of the interactions between light and matter.

Many in the West believe that Vladimir Putin will act in the future the same way he has in the past and seek to occupy part of one of the Baltic countries as he occupied part of Ukraine, Vladislav Inozemtsev says. But in fact, the Kremlin leader is constantly changing his approach and is more likely to seek to absorb Belarus than attack Narva.

Those who predict a Baltic scenario, the Russian economist says, assume that Putin will try to take part of a country rather than a whole one and will seek to seize Narva because Estonia won’t be able to defend itself and “NATO will not risk coming to its help,” thus undermining the Western alliance (echo.msk.ru/blog/v_inozemcev/2294850-echo/).

This Narva notion, Inozemtsev says, “directly comes from the models of Crimea and the Donbass.” Those who predict it point to Ukraine whenever they begin to talk about Russia; “but about eight years ago with similar insistence all of them spoke about Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Georgia which lost them.”

These analysts forget that there was a fundamental difference between the Georgian and the Ukrainian case. In the first, Russia “completed the detachment from a neighboring country of two territories which had declared their independence, were recognized by Moscow and were transformed into client states.”

In the second, “Russia intervened in a region where before it did so there were no signs of civil war, established control over it, and after an illegitimate referendum officially included it within its borders. Moreover, both ‘losing sides’) in contrast to Latvia and Estonia were not members of NATO or the EU.”

“It seems to me,” Inozemtsev says, “that [Putin] in order to stir up patriotic passions inside Russia could do so by occupying an entire country, preferably part of ‘the Russian world’ but still not included in Western alliances. And now there is only one candidate for that – Belarus.”

There are some obvious reasons for that conclusion, he continues. Belarus is already part of a union state, and Putin could easily promote the annexation of Belarus as simply about enhancing the union. Many Russians would be enthusiastic, and NATO wouldn’t respond forcefully, Inozemtsev says.

There is another reason Putin will likely choose Belarus as his next target, the Russian economist says. It will simplify his remaining in power. He won’t need to change the constitution and create a new set of institutions. Instead, the kremlin leader can remain in office because he will be head of a new “union” state.

“The latest events in ‘the Minsk direction,’” Inozemtsev continues, “appear extremely worrisome.” Putin has sent a potential pro-consul as ambassador, and he has signaled he won’t continue to fund Lukashenka unless the latter moves in his direction, something that would make absorption easier if perhaps less necessary.

In response to Moscow’s moves, “Minsk has begun a broad purge of its security organs to remove all those with any ties to Moscow, issued declarations about the inviolability of Belarusian sovereignty and accelerated the process of ‘Belarusianization’ of all sides of local life.”

And while far from all Belarusians support Lukashenka’s regime, that doesn’t mean that “they are prepared to replace his power with an occupation regime.” They would likely rally around him against Moscow but lack the power to block what Putin most likely will try to carry out.

Because Belarusian elections come in 2020, Moscow needs to begin acting somewhat sooner; and “it seems to me,” Inozemtsev says, “that there is every basis for expectating a sharp escalation around Belarus already next year.” If that happens, it is very unlikely that the West in general and Europe in particular will be ready and have made plans.

The West at present seems “clinically incapable of calculating Moscow’s possible moves and thus will only be surprised by what happens.” That will remain the case if analysts stay trapped in the notion that Putin will move on Narva when he is far more likely to move on Minsk and seek to absorb all of Belarus.

(RFE/RL) — The Russian Orthodox Church says a decision about the Ukrainian Orthodox Church made by the synod of the Constantinople Patriarchate has forced the Moscow Patriarchate to end its unity with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians.

Metropolitan Ilarion, the head of the church’s external relations, made the remarks in a program aired by the Rossia-24 television channel on October 13.

The broadcast came two days after Ukraine won approval from the synod, led by Bartholomew, to establish an autocephalous — or independent — church.

Ilarion said Bartholomew had “recognized the leaders of the schism” within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, “thus legitimatizing the schism that has existed for more than a quarter of a century.”

That, Ilarion said, “has made it impossible for us to stay united with the Constantinople Patriarchate.”

Ilarion’s statement came just hours after President Vladimir Putin held a late-night October 12 meeting with the Russian Security Council to discuss the situation regarding the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

The Kremlin on October 12 also issued a fresh warning about Kyiv’s quest for an independent church, saying Russia would protect the interests of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine if the historic split led to illegal action or violence.

The Russian Orthodox Church vowed on October 13 to respond firmly to the decision by Bartholomew.

Aleksandr Volkov, a spokesman for Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, said the Holy Synod of the Church would “express its position,” without elaborating on what measures it might take.

“The synod, which will convene in Minsk (on Monday), will give its final assessment,” Volkov told reporters on October 13.

“At any rate, the response will be in kind and tough,” he added.

Arriving in Minsk on October 13, Kirill told reporters, “I hope the Orthodox Church will find the strength to overcome hardships…to stay united.”

The synod’s October 11 decision is a blow to Moscow and the Russian Orthodox Church, whose branch in Ukraine had long been accepted by Constantinople Patriarchate as the legitimate church there.

Russian politicians and church officials have repeatedly said they fear a Ukrainian church would seek to take over property controlled by the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Christian Church in Ukraine.

“Russia’s secular authorities surely cannot interfere” in church matters, but Putin’s government is paying close attention to the situation and will take “exclusively political and diplomatic” measures to protect people against violence or illegal actions, Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on October 12.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on October 12 that the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision was a “provocation” backed by Washington.

The historic move toward an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church has added to tensions between Moscow and Kyiv, already high since Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine between Kyiv’s government forces and Russia-backed separatists.

Russian officials have sought to justify Moscow’s interference in Ukraine by citing what they said was the need to protect ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers.

In the October 11 announcement that it would “proceed to the granting of autocephaly to the Church of Ukraine,” the Ecumenical Patriarchate appealed to the rival churches in Ukraine to “avoid appropriation” of monasteries, houses of worship, and other property “as well as every other act of violence and retaliation so that the peace and love of Christ may prevail.”

Patriarch Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, which is leading the independence drive, said in June that two major monasteries belonging to the Moscow-controlled church should change hands after autocephaly is secured.

On October 11, Patriarch Filaret said that “Moscow wants a conflict but we, Ukrainians, do not.”

In a statement on October 12, Metropolitan Antony, the administrator of the Moscow-affiliated church in Ukraine, accused Bartholomew of “choosing the path of schism” and rejected the synod’s decision.

Antony also told clergy and believers that it “is prohibited to co-serve or pray” with the two rival churches seeking independence, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, speaking on October 11, described the synod’s decision as “something that we have dreamed of, waited for a long time, and fought for all the time.”

Saudi Arabia will face “severe punishment” if it ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, US President Donald Trump has warned.

“There’s a lot at stake, and maybe especially so because this man was a reporter. There’s something really terrible and disgusting about that if that were the case…we’re going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment,” Trump said during an interview with the CBS program 60 Minutes on Friday.

However, Trump stressed that even if the journalist was killed at the hands of Riyadh, he still wouldn’t end the arms deal between the two countries.

“They are ordering military equipment; everybody in the world wanted that order. Russia wanted it, China wanted it, we wanted it – we got it. And we got all of it, every bit of it.”

He went on to say that he doesn’t want to “lose an order” or hurt jobs, and that there are “other ways of punishing” Riyadh if needed.

Khashoggi, a critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Saudi royal family, was last seen on October 2 when he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documents for his upcoming marriage.

Turkish officials have stated that they believe a 15-person Saudi “assassination squad” killed Khashoggi at the consulate. Ankara says it has video and audio evidence that he was murdered inside the building, though that information has not been publicly presented.

An investigation into his disappearance by Turkey has reportedly revealed that recordings made on his Apple Watch indicate that he was tortured and killed, Turkey’s Daily Sabah reported on Saturday, citing “reliable sources in a special intelligence department.” It added that his watch was synced with his iPhone, which his fiancée was carrying outside the consulate.

The paper also stated that Saudi intelligence agents had realized after Khashoggi died that the watch was recording, prompting them to use his fingerprint to unlock it. They reportedly deleted some files, but not all of them.

Riyadh has denied claims that it ordered the killing of Khashoggi, with the country’s interior minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif, condemning the “lies and baseless allegations” against the kingdom.

More media giants are boycotting a major investment conference in Saudi Arabia this month, following the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi last week.

Among the media sponsors and speakers to withdraw their involvement in the event – dubbed “Davos in the Desert” – is the Financial Times, CNN and CNBC.

They were all due to take part in the Future Investment Initiative (FII) between the 23 and 25 October in Riyadh, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a driver of economic change in the kingdom.

It is described on its site as a “platform to drive expert-led debate, discussion, and partnerships among the world’s most visionary and influential leaders in business, government, and civil society”.

Given that all evidence around the case of Jamal Khashoggi thus far points at the involvement of the Saudi leadership, a number of business and media figures have pulled their support from Riyadh.

The Economist’s editor-in-chief spurned Saudi Arabia’s business summit, as well as leading editors and owners of The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.

Uber, Virgin, AOL and others have also pulled their support.

Bloomberg is one of the only Western media groups still slated to appear at the summit, but the business giant has major investments in Saudi Arabia so is believed to be unlikely to withdraw.

Jamal Khashoggi is one of the Arab world’s best-known journalists, having fled Saudi Arabia following Mohammed bin Salman’s clampdown on perceived critics.

He moved to the U.S. and was a contributor to The Washington Post.

Khashoggi disappeared after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October to complete paperwork regarding his planned marriage.

He has not been seen since.

By Kalinga Seneviratne

U.S. will suffer more from the current trade war with China, warned Alibaba founder Jack Ma addressing over 1000 business leaders, government officials and economic experts from Malaysia and across the region attending the China Conference here on October 10-11. He added that America has been growing and unemployment has been on the decline, even with the deficit in the trade balance with China.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited the huge trade deficit with China as the reason for putting up tariff walls against Chinese goods. Ma warned that such trade wars could cause problems for anyone who trades with China or the U.S.

“This trade war is going to be long (and) solution will come from technology,” warned Ma, who spoke via a teleconferencing link from overseas. “We need to work together to solve problems,” he added.

Ma, who founded what is today the world’s largest e-commerce platform, pointed out that while governments in Asia are embracing technology, Europe is trying to regulate it. “In Europe people worry about how to control the Internet. Asia is different, governments are embracing technology,” said Ma. “Today Asia has a big advantage in Internet competence.”

This was quite apparent during the two-day conference, the first such conference organized by the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post (SCMP) outside its home base. In a number of panel discussions, young Internet entrepreneurs from the region talked about their new start-ups and their successes in creating opportunities for expanding commerce and connectivity across the region.

Fund manager Cheah Cheng Hye, of Hong Kong-based Value Partners Group, in a presentation on how China is leading the pack in changing the region pointed out that in just two generations per capita income in China increased by 27.8 percent and in Vietnam by 24.7 percent.

He argued that Asia is moving away from supply chain to demand chain with the biggest millennium populations in the world being in India with 454 million and China 418 million, with the U.S. way back at 87 million.

“The Chinese market is creating a demand chain every five years that is equivalent to creating a new Britain every five years,” he noted, adding: “China has leap frogged many levels of technology and has the world’s largest Internet population.”

He said that in China there are over 750 million connected to the Internet, while in India it is 390 million and in Indonesia 250 million. “In Asia you could now reach people through Internet with great speed,” noted Cheah. He also added that China provides the world’s largest outbound tourism market spending over $250 million overseas and Chinese tourists spend overseas more than Britain, U.S., France and German tourists put together.

While many of the speakers were optimistic that Asia could weather the storm of a prolonged trade war between the world’s top two economies, Alibaba Group executive and vice-chairman Joe Tsai, warned the dispute was veering towards becoming a “cold war or geopolitical war started by the United States”.

“I think what the United States is doing is a reaction to an unfounded fear that China’s rise is somehow going to threaten the national security and well-being of the American people,” said Tsai, who is also the chairman of SCMP (which is owned by Alibaba Group). But, he argued, that is a foolish view because the world economy is inter-connected and hence interdependent.

“It is really ill-advised for the United States to launch a war of some sort targeting China thinking that they can treat China like the way they treated Russia by isolating the economy and bringing on pain,” Tsai said speaking on a panel looking at ‘Disruptions in Southeast Asia’ due to new technological applications. “We are so integrated that the pain is going to be felt all over the world,” he added.

In the opening address at the two-day forum, former Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying questioned the real motive for Trump’s trade war. He suggested that though the focus on the trade dispute is on the need for the U.S. to reduce its trade imbalance with China, “what has not been discussed fully is that the U.S. does not have the capacity to produce all the good it needs”.

In the new technology driven business environment in Asia, Malaysian businessman, Dr Francis Yeoh Sock-ping, executive chairman of YTL Group of Companies argues that it is innovative companies rather than governments that shape the new economic architecture.

“In China, Alibaba came up by chance not by design because China (government) fear the Internet,” he told a panel discussion moderated by SCMP’s business editor Eugene Tang. “Alibaba did the economic solutions for the people and people loved it,” he added.

Sock-ping believes that it is necessary to have government regulators. “What you need is a trusted government regulator. The regulator must be there,” he argued, but the system needs to be transparent, “so others can’t criticize it”.

In a panel where four young entrepreneurs discussed how to tap into 700 million consumers in Southeast Asia, Victor Tseng, chief communication officer Ctrip, a leading Chinese travel portal said that they are building a big global supply chain because increasing numbers of people in the region are travelling within and outside the region, most of them young people.

Anita Ngai, chief revenue officer of Klook another Chinese internet-driven travel company said they have built Asia’s biggest travel portal. “China has about 90 million travelling each year while Southeast Asia has about 50 million independent travellers every year and these number are growing,” she noted. Recently, her firm has held a travel fair over a weekend at a large mall in Manila, which was attended by over 40,000 people.

“Philippines has one of the world’s largest online population, but many don’t want to do online transactions,” explained Ngai. “We needed to fit into local behavior and we introduced a pre-paid card putting elements to localize transactions.”

Young Singaporean technopreneur Hian Goh argued in a panel looking at Asian start-ups, that Southeast Asia has so much ability to expand. “There is no need to go to Europe or North America (for technology),” he said. “The success of technology companies in Southeast Asia will depend on using local labour (techno talent) force to go global.” In a light-hearted comment he pointed out: “Chinese were learning English 20 years ago, now we hire Chinese to teach Chinese to us.”

The optimism and confidence seen here from young Asian technoprenuers is an indication that America’s trade war with China is perhaps sending missiles in the wrong direction.

Buyer of the modern art painter Banksy’s “Girl with Balloon” self-destructed painting keeps the $1.4 mln worth deal despite of the painting being damaged. The information was passed by Sotheby’s auction house.

On October 6, when it was announced at the auction that the deal was officially made and the buyer could collect the painting, it was cut to several pieces due to the special paper cutting devices installed in the frame. Despite that the buyer of the painting has not refused to still purchase it and her art works identification service, Pest Control gave a new name of “Love in the Trash” to Banksy’s damaged painting. “A live performance was sold in the auction for the first time”, Sotheby’s commented on the purchase of the painting and its remaining, reports RBK.

“At the beginning I was shocked but then slowly I understood that I will have my own piece in the history of art”, said the buyer.

The official announcement also stated that this case of self-destructed art was not the first work as there were also similar cases by Gustav Metzger and Jean Tinguely.

After the destruction of the painting, the director of Sotheby’s, Alex Branczik supposed that it will be sold for even a higher price, which however didn’t happen. Meanwhile “Girl with Balloon” still exceeded Banksy’s personal record.

By Dr. Arshad M. Khan*

Hurricane Michael wreaked havoc as it traversed the Florida panhandle. The first Category 5 hurricane to hit the area since 1881 when records began, its 155 mph winds (only 5 mph short of Category 6) felled massive trees, blew away houses, collapsed buildings and left devastation in its wake. Relatively fast moving at 14 mph, it was soon gone continuing as a Category 3 into neighboring Georgia and then further up its northeasterly path. It seemed to signify a stamp of approval for the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on holding earth to a 1.5 degree Celsius warming issued a couple of days earlier. We are at one degree now so storms can only be expected to get worse.

In northeastern Turkey, a 300-year old stone bridge disappeared overnight. Villagers convinced it had been stolen called in the police. Further investigation concluded it had been washed away by a flash flood caused by a sudden summer thunderstorm further upstream — clearly far more intense than in the previous three centuries.

Ever more powerful hurricanes, monsoons and forest fires point to a proliferation of extreme weather events that experts relate to global warming. Yet President Donald Trump and his administration remain obdurate in climate change denial.

Thins are certainly warming up in the White House. Nikki Haley announced her resignation in an amicable meeting with the president. A staunch defender of many of Mr. Trump’s most egregious foreign policy changes, the UN Representative will be leaving at the end of the year to pursue opportunities in the private sector. So said the announcement. An astute and ambitious politician she has probably reassessed the costs versus benefits of remaining in a Trump administration. Some tout her as a future presidential candidate. Should she be successful she will be the first woman president, who also happens to be of Indian and Sikh ancestry.

The rap singer Kanye West visited the president in the Oval office. A ten-minute rant/rap praising him was followed by a hug for which Mr. West ran round the wide desk that had been seemingly cleared of all paraphernalia for the performance. He is one of the eight percent of blacks voting Republican. Sporting the Trump trademark, Make-America-Great-Again red hat, he claimed it made him Superman, his favorite superhero. And some suggested it was all further proof the place had gone insane.

A little over three weeks remain to the U.S. midterm elections on November 6th. Their proximity is evidenced not by rallies or debates rather by the barrage of negative TV ads blasting opponents with accusations of shenanigans almost unworthy of a felon. A couple of months of this and you lose any enthusiasm for voting. Perhaps it is one reason why nearly half the electorate stays home. Given such a backdrop, the furor over ‘Russian meddling’ in elections appears to be a trifle misplaced. Others call the whole business a ‘witch hunt’ and state flatly the U.S. does the same.

The old idiom, ‘put your own house in order’ is particularly apt when we realize the beginning of this affair was a Democratic National Committee email leak showing ‘the party’s leadership had worked to sabotage Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign’. It resulted in the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Always fair, aboveboard elections? Not bloody likely, as the British would say. Given the rewards, it’s against human nature.

About the author:
*Dr. Arshad M. Khan is a former Professor based in the US. Educated at King’s College London, OSU and The University of Chicago, he has a multidisciplinary background that has frequently informed his research. Thus he headed the analysis of an innovation survey of Norway, and his work on SMEs published in major journals has been widely cited. He has for several decades also written for the press: These articles and occasional comments have appeared in print media such as The Dallas Morning News, Dawn (Pakistan), The Fort Worth Star Telegram, The Monitor, The Wall Street Journal and others. On the internet, he has written for Antiwar.com, Asia Times, Common Dreams, Counterpunch, Countercurrents, Dissident Voice, Eurasia Review and Modern Diplomacy among many. His work has been quoted in the U.S. Congress and published in its Congressional Record.

Source:
This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Jeremy Black*

(FPRI) — The “what ifs?” of present-day speculation should become the “what ifs?” of history. Too often, however, we fail to understand this uncertainty because we shape history to try to make it clear and obvious, and far clearer and more obvious than it was to contemporaries, domestic or foreign. In Other Pasts, Different Presents, Alternative Futures (Indiana, 2015), I showed how counterfactualism, the “what if?” approach, is a valid way to appreciate the contingency of history. Recent Spanish political developments are chosen as an example to indicate its continued validity. This should encourage readers to think of their own countries.

A host of counterfactuals indeed can focus on the recent fall of the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, and on the Catalan dispute. Counterfactuals in Spanish history tend to focus on its recent history. In Historia virtual de España, 1870-2004: Qué hubiera pasado si? (Virtual history of Spain, 1870-2004: What if?, 2004), contributors discussed what would have happened if Spain had avoided war with the United States in 1898; if the republican parties had been united in the 1933 elections; if Spain had entered the Second World War (as Franco would have done had Hitler offered better terms); if Admiral Carrero Blanco, Franco’s designated successor, had not been murdered by Basque separatists, in 1973; and if Spain had not joined in the Iraq war in 2003. One of the chapters considered whether the Civil War would have been avoided had the Socialist Indalecio Priesto accepted the premiership in May 1936, concluding quite possibly so and thus drawing attention to contingencies and leadership.

Civil wars tend to encourage counterfactual thought. The impact of the Civil War and of Franco (as both man and symbol) on recent Spanish history, however, has been especially profound. Thus, it is not surprising that the majority of the chapters in What If? related directly or indirectly to one or the other. Counterfactualism offered a way to address these issues and this impact. Furthermore, in 1976, the year after Franco’s death, two books, El desfile de la Victoria by Fernando Díaz-Plaza and En el día de hoy by Jesús Torbado, offered counterfactuals based on Republican victory in the Civil War.

Looking further back, there are even more possible counterfactuals in Spanish history, as in the question of what would have happened had the Reconquista been completed soon after the fall of Toledo in 1085. Also, as a reminder that external factors are also important, one wonders what would have happened to Spain but for the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century. The Hispanic world would have been more powerful both had there been no Dutch Revolt and had Philip II’s dynastic alignment with England been maintained and produced an heir, either to his marriage with Mary or, once she had died in 1558, to her successor, Elizabeth I, had she accepted Philip’s proposal. The futures possibly offered by Philip II’s eldest son, Don Carlos, represent other counterfactuals. Continued dynastic unity with Portugal, rather than the rift in 1640, would also have been highly significant, certainly in the international sphere and possibly also domestically. For the 18^th century, the foremost questions are those of a continuation of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty in 1700, and of a competent successor to Charles III in 1788, rather than the baleful Charles IV.

Thereafter, the avoidance of the Napoleonic takeover in 1808, or the success of Joseph I (Joseph Bonaparte), invites reflection. Each focuses attention on the impact of international power politics on Spanish developments. The counterfactuals relate not only to France, but also to the wider international context. For example, was Spanish history in the 19^th century ultimately dependent on Napoleon’s defeat outside Moscow in 1812? Did this at least in part explain why one French dynasty, the Bourbon, was successfully imposed from 1700, but another, the Napoleonic, was not from 1808? The total mishandling, by Ferdinand VII in the 1810s and 1820s, of Spanish American demands for autonomy also invites consideration, notably with different policies and events in Spain and Spanish America, and with Britain adopting a less hostile stance. This mishandling is an instance of the baleful impact of the monarchy on many occasions in Spanish history. To some, this baleful impact can even be widened out to include the question of the role of the Church and of religious commitment.

The subsequent political history of the 19^th century is shot through with counterfactuals, notably with reference to the First Carlist War, the political crises of 1868-74, and the outbreak of war with the United States in 1898. In Cuba, as, very differently in Catalonia, there was an inability to find an effective compromise between opposition to rule from Madrid, and a determination to preserve central control. Looked at in another counterfactual light, Catalonia remained with Spain, unlike Ireland and Hungary with Britain and Austria, respectively.

Thus, the counterfactuals of the last ninety years, which focus on the Civil War, but also include, for example, no Madrid train bombings in 2004 and the possible consequences for the general election of that year, sit in a longer tradition that richly deserves attention. Certainly, there is no reason to argue for inevitability in past, present, or future. To critics of counterfactualism, this process can be taken further by considering its role in what is termed “post-truth” accounts.

The Catalan crisis of 2017 saw counterfactualism about Catalonia’s past, alongside what, to critics, were such accounts as what was termed ethnic parochialism, historical mysticism, and rhetoric. To supporters of Catalan independence, their nationalism relied on the need to understand possible alternative historical developments that had simply been prevented by force. The latter is certainly correct with regard to Philip V’s victory in the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-14)—although what that entails for the present and the future is far from clear. This controversy, however, is very much part of the living history of Spain.

Counterfactualism can contribute to the debates about Spanish “difference” and its failure, until much later, to achieve modernity. Nevertheless, these debates are in part misplaced because they neglect the extent to which there is no common European path from which Spain supposedly diverged. Instead, the emphasis, in European history, should be on multiple pathways and inherent differences, to which Spain contributes invigorating examples. There is a misleading tendency to treat Spain as part of a simple, uniform narrative of European and world history, and notably so with the Spanish Civil War. Parallels are frequently drawn with other European countries, for example of the Reconquista and the Crusades, and of the American and Latin American wars of independence.

This is a helpful approach, but, in every case, there are also not only specific elements in the Spanish case, but also the need to locate this case in terms of longer-term developments in Spanish history. Thus, the Reconquista looked back to the eighth century in a way that the Crusades did not for other European countries. The Civil War can be located not solely in the ideological rivalries and moves against democracy of the 1930s, but also in a longer-term pattern of military intervention in Spanish politics. And so also with future events. They will have to be understood in the pattern of Spain’s past.

About the author:
*Jeremy Black, a 2018 Templeton Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, is Professor of History at Exeter University. Jeremy Black has recently published A Brief History of Italy (Little Brown).

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

The European Council has come up with a vague agreement, but it has avoided a political crisis and at the same time made more visible the seriousness of the migration challenge to the EU.

By Carmen González Enríquez*

The results of the European Council of June 28, 2016 on migration were weak for their vagueness, but at least they avoided a break with Italy and defined much more clearly the battle lines. Many expected that the Council would reform the European asylum system, but the issue of irregular economic migration via the Mediterranean and the decision of the Italian government to not accept on its soil migrants rescued at sea by international NGOs upset the anticipated agenda.

Analysis

The European Council of 28 June 2018 faced a difficult political puzzle to resolve with little prospects for concrete results: to reach an agreement between the three different parts of Europe that are opposed on the migration issue and the two large currents of opinion that support opposing policies. On the one hand, Eastern Europe is in large part nationalist and Islamophobic; it is against any imposition requiring countries to accept refugees, especially from Arab countries; on the other hand, Southern Europe has become the front line of what is basically economic immigration, much influenced by the economic crisis –which Italy has not yet left behind– and the port of entry for immigrants who are difficult to fit into existing Southern European labour markets. Finally, the countries of Central and Northern Europe –once generous with refugees in the past but now in a restrictive phase, driven by a change in public opinion– now also receive ‘secondary migration’ flows. To this geographic divide must be added another more diffuse and cross-cutting divide (but no less influential for that) that pits those who see migration from the perspective of human rights and solidarity with the developing world and countries trapped in war, against those who prefer a perspective centred on the defence of a way of life, the Welfare State and the European labour markets. In the end, there was no way to reach an agreement which satisfied everyone.

Let us take these issues one at a time. In the European Council, two political aspirations –not just different, but also antithetical– confront each other. Germany was planning to reach an agreement at the meeting on the reform of the European asylum system that, among other things, would reduce the continuing arrival to its territory of asylum petitioners who entered the EU through another country and who move on to yet another country, whether or not they receive asylum in the first country of entry. Germany is the main destination of these so-called ‘secondary movements’ for a number of reasons (but especially because migrants prefer to live where a community of the same origin is already located). In this way, Germany’s significant generosity in the past has made it a pole of attraction for such ‘secondary movements’. Around 70,000 people arrived in Germany in 2017 in this way, crossing the Austrian border from the south and east. European asylum norms (ie, the Dublin rule) already anticipate that they will be returned to the first country where they were registered, and there is a fingerprint database (EURODAC) which allows the country to be identified. Nevertheless, the procedures are long and complex. The result is that Germany has only been able to return around 15% of the immigrants/refugees who should not be on German soil. What Germany achieved at the European Council meeting was some bilateral accords with various countries to make the process of returning ‘secondary’ migrants easier. It has already formalised agreements with Spain and Greece but has not yet done so with Italy, which is the main country of origin of close to 35% of the secondary entries reaching Germany. In any case, this is not an achievement of the European Council but rather of Germany’s foreign policy: the only reference in the conclusions of the European Council in this regard is that the Member States should do everything possible to halt these movements (something which they supposedly already by applying the Dublin Rule).

Germany’s need to halt secondary migratory movements is the result of the rise in the polls of the xenophobic Alliance for Germany party (AfG), which is now threatening the comfortable majority of the Christian Social Union (CSU) in the upcoming elections in Bavaria in October. Bavaria is the principal Land through which migrants enter Germany from the south and the leader of the CSU, Horst Seehofer, has threatened to return to the Austrian border all asylum seekers who enter Germany through this route. In response, the Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, has said that his country will reintroduce border controls along the Brenner, the principal transport route for the heavy lorry-borne trade across the Alps between Italy and Austria and thence to Germany. The economic impact of such a slow-down in the transport flow of goods in the heart Europe would be worse than in any of the other cases where border controls have been reintroduced in the Schengen Area.

Avoiding such secondary movements is also important for France. In 2011 the first disputes between France and Italy were prompted by the entry into France from Italy of irregular migrants from Africa. There is a continual tension between the two countries over the issue and the conflict exploded politically with the Aquarius case. While French the French President, Emmanuel Macron, accused Italy of cynicism for rejecting the landing on its coasts of those rescued from the ship, the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, reminded Macron that the French government was doing everything possible to prevent the migrants rescued from the Mediterranean and taken in by Italy from reaching French soil. In fact, due to French vigilance of the usual public transport entering France from Italy (mainly trains), many migrants choose a more dangerous crossing through the Alps on foot.

There are no European norms for regulating the internal management of irregular economic migration. There has been no attempt to ‘communitarise’ the issue of dealing with irregular economic immigrants that Member States cannot send back to their country of origin because of the lack of readmission agreements with them. The EU only manages to deport 38% of those who are under expulsion orders, so that more than 60% of those arriving irregularly and not being granted asylum end up staying in Europe. There is nothing similar to the asylum system, so each Member State is expected to deal with this type of migrants as best it can once they are on its soil. Nevertheless, the norms regulating free circulation within the Schengen area do allow each Member State to reinstate border controls with any other country if there is evidence that irregular immigration has increased from any particular country. The EU, for its part, is increasingly active in foreign migration policy: its final objective is to secure the support of States of origin or of transit (basically African countries) to combat human trafficking and to facilitate the return of irregular immigrants who reach European soil and their readmission to their countries of origin. So far, bilateral agreements have been more successful in this regard: the much criticised accord between Italy and Libya reduced arrivals in Italy from that country by more than half, while Spain has agreements with Morocco, Senegal, Mauritania and other coastal countries of West Africa.

Despite knowing that the issue of deportation/return is the biggest obstacle preventing an effective control of economic migrant flows, the conclusions of the European Council ignore the fact and propose instead the creation of closed classification centres on European soil where those potentially to receive protection (asylum or refugee status) would be separated from the economic immigrants who should be returned to their countries of origin. But who will offer to host one of these centres knowing that more than half of the economic immigrants will remain free on their soil even with an unenforceable expulsion order in their hands. It is no surprise that no country has yet offered to do so. On the other hand, what is the difference between the proposed type of centre and the foreign internment centres that operate in Spain and in the rest of the countries of Europe and where immigrants remain for a maximum of only a few months in line with European regulations? Is someone in the EU thinking of changing the rules to lengthen the maximum length of stay at these centres?

Nor did the European Council give rise to any novelty regarding the possibility of making progress in the internal distribution of those who are given asylum. The Commission decision to impose quotas –widely disregarded and nearly impossible to manage because of the weakness of the so-called ‘hot spots’ and due to the shortcomings of European asylum rules– are not even mentioned in the Council’s conclusions. The word ‘quota’ has simply disappeared. Now they speak of voluntary distribution, which satisfies the demands of the Eastern Europeans but clarifies nothing with respect to how it is to be managed. The conclusions refer to progress in asylum reform, with no precise details, to be submitted to the next European Council in October.

On the other hand, the European Council proposed something that the Commission had already suggested in the past: the creation of receiving centres beyond European soil where the separation between individuals with the right to asylum and those without would be made. Before the European Council, two Member-states, Austria and Denmark, had announced their cooperation with a third country in Eastern Europe to set up a similar centre there, but the proposal now seems to have been ruled out. This model has an advantage from the EU’s perspective: those who do not receive the right to asylum but cannot be returned will not be on European soil, but rather in Egypt, Tunisia or Morocco… which it is assumed will significantly reduce the incentive to migrate irregularly. In the past, the possibility was even suggested of opening up such a centre on a large passenger ship that would always be in international waters, beyond European jurisdiction. Australia has done something similar for many years, and although it has been heavily criticised from the human rights perspective, it appears not to be in contravention of international standards. Asylum seekers arriving irregularly by sea are diverted to the island of Nauru or towards Papua New Guinea where they can be held for years while their petitions are being processed.

The conclusions of the European Council mention the possibility, but with no further details being provided. In which country or countries will these ‘regional landing platforms’ be installed? All North African countries, along with Albania, have already announced that they are unwilling to take part. Should one of them prove willing in the future, depending on what the EU might offer, under what rules and with what staff would the centres operate? More importantly, from the perspective of the North African countries, what guarantee is there that the economic migrants –those whose asylum requests in Europe are denied– will be returned to their countries of origin or of transit? Will they not have the same legal problems as European states when trying to deport their irregular immigrants?

The political fuse that made the European Council meeting so explosive, requiring 16 hours of negotiation to reach an outcome, was the political decision of the new Italian government to not accept the landing on its coasts of NGO ships devoted to rescuing immigrants close to Libya’s territorial waters. None of the ships were sailing under Italian colours. The decision, implemented for the first time in the case of the ship Aquarius, posed the stark European dilemma: the Schengen free-movement area cannot be maintained if one State, applying European asylum rules, is obliged to retain on its soil many more immigrants than its population is willing to accept. Some elements in the equation will need to be modified, be it entry or distribution mechanisms or the general rules regulating the destination of those rescued at sea.

To start with, the European Council has given its explicit support to the Italian government, declaring that ‘All ships operating in the Mediterranean must respect the applicable laws and must not interfere with the operations of the Libyan coast guard’. In other words, NGO ships must allow the Libyans to undertake the rescue, regardless of the fate of those rescued and returned to Libya. The result will be a clear decline in the number of arrivals in Italy, while the latter is supplying more patrol boats, reinforcing the Libyan government’s capacity to better control its territorial waters. In turn, in reaction to news of the ill treatment and systematic violence to which migrants are subjected, the EU is trying to organise the voluntary repatriation of immigrants in Libya back to their countries of origin through two UN organisations: the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Conclusion

What the European Council has produced is a vague agreement, more declarative or rhetorical than executive in nature, but it does have two virtues: it has prevented a very troubling political crisis –the Italian government’s threat to veto all agreements– and it has brought to the fore more clearly than ever the seriousness of the migration challenge and its impact on the EU. The European Council has achieved this without making any substantial progress on anything, but rather by making statements that have allowed Italy’s Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, to claim that ‘Italy is no longer alone’ in the face of irregular immigration from the sea. Whether progress can be made from now on will depend on the Member States because although the pending asylum system reform is the responsibility of the Commission and European Parliament, everything related to irregular economic immigration –once migrants arrive in Europe– continues in practice to be in the hands of the Member States. Nevertheless, neither the European Council nor the agreements achieved with Germany’s Chancellor have been able to convince the CSU that secondary migration will be substantially reduced.

The ongoing confusion in the public debate and the media between economic migrants and asylum seekers makes it difficult to move ahead in finding a European solution. But the distinction is necessary to maintain some sort of coherence in the Member States’ and the EU’s migration management policies and to have some sort of long-term perspective on the issue. What makes the distinction difficult is that economic migrants might request asylum, which if accepted can guarantee them a certain period of legal residence while their cases are processed; on the other hand, all those who seek asylum fall under the Dublin rule, which is why they will not make the request in Italy if, for instance, their intended destination is Sweden or Germany.

While the number of refugees worldwide remains more or less constant –and there is no reason to expect a substantial increase–, the number of young Africans in need of opportunities keeps growing and will continue to do so until the end of the century for demographic reasons. It is clear that Europe does not have the capacity to resolve the problems that cause waves of refugees or poverty in Africa, but the people of Europe and their intellectual and political elites are increasingly conscious that Europe will be affected by the consequences of what occurs in Africa, a continent that for decades, since the end of decolonisation, seemed distant and far removed from their concerns. Point eight of the conclusions of the European Council reflects the need to have a greater presence in Africa, more effectively influence its economic growth and intensify contact in all fields. It remains to be seen if the conclusions translate into a financial and political commitment.

About the author:
*Carmen González Enríquez, Senior Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @rielcano

Source:
This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

By Ken Bredemeier

Saudi Arabia has rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to punish it over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying Sunday it would retaliate with “greater” economic actions of its own if Trump were to sanction Riyadh.

The Saudi stock market plunged seven percent before recovering to a five percent loss for the day after Trump told CBS there would be “severe punishment” if it is determined, as Turkey believes, that Saudi agents killed Khashoggi inside Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul two weeks ago.

The Saudis have said the allegation is “baseless,” but have provided no proof that Khashoggi left the diplomatic outpost alive after arriving to pick up documents for his impending marriage.

The official Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed government source as saying, “The Kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures, or repeating false accusations.”

The statement said the Saudi government “also affirms that if it receives any action, it will respond with greater action,” noting that its economy, as the world’s biggest oil exporter, “has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

Trump, in excerpts released Saturday from an interview to be aired Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes show, warned there would be “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if it is determined that Khashoggi was murdered inside the Saudi consulate. Khashoggi was living in self-imposed exile in the United States and had criticized Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in columns written for The Washington Post.

Trump said “nobody knows yet” what happened inside the consulate, “but we’ll probably be able to find out” if Salman ordered Khashoggi’s murder. Trump added the United States “would be very upset and angry if that were the case.”

But Trump, who has frequently boasted about his business ties with the kingdom, suggested during the interview that ending U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia would not be an option, saying, “I don’t want to hurt jobs.”

A key U.S. lawmaker, Republican Senator Marco Rubio, told CNN on Sunday that if Saudi agents “went medieval” on Khashoggi, “that would be an outrage.”

He said any response to Khashoggi’s killing “needs to be strong, not symbolic,” including the possibility of cutting off U.S. weapons sales to Riyadh, or it would undermine the U.S.’s moral standing in the world.

In protest of Khashoggi’s disappearance, several U.S. businesses leaders have pulled out of next week’s Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, dubbed “Davos in the Desert,” after the annual meeting of world economic interests in Switzerland. Rubio said U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin should also withdraw, but White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the Treasury chief is still planning to go.

Media reports say Khashoggi may have recorded his own death on his Apple Watch.

Accounts say Khashoggi turned on the sound recording capability on his device as he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

The watch is reported to have been connected to the iCloud and the cell phone that he left with his fiancee, Hatice Cengiz, before he entered the consulate. Cengiz said she waited for Khashoggi to come out of the consulate, but he never left.

The reports say the watch recorded not only Khashoggi’s interrogation and torture, but also his murder.

The Washington Post reported in recent days that the Turkish government informed U.S. officials it was in possession of video recordings that prove Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate, but have not made them public.

Saudi officials have denied any involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance and said he departed the consulate shortly after entering. Saudi Interior Minister Prince Abdel Aziz bin Saud bin Nayef has called the reports the government ordered Khashoggi killed “lies and baseless allegations.”

A group of 15 Saudi men is reported to have flown into Istanbul the day that Khashoggi went to the consulate. Media reports say the men were in the consulate when Khashoggi was there. The men stayed at the consulate for a few hours and then took flights back to Saudi Arabia.

One of the members of the group, according to CNN, has been identified by Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency and the Sabah newspaper as Salah Muhammed al-Tubaiqi, whom the media outlets say is listed on an official Saudi health website as the head of the forensic medicine department at the Interior Ministry.

Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that it rejects any threats and attempts to undermine it, and would respond with “greater action” to any sanctions or action taken against the Kingdom, state news agency SPA has reported.

The statement went on to say: “Whether by waving economic sanctions, using political pressure, or repeating false accusations that will undermine the Kingdom.”

“The government and the people are steadfast, dear as ever, no matter what the circumstances and whatever the pressure is.”

It said that if action was taken against the Kingdom “it will respond with greater action.”

The statement added: “The Kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy.”

This is the statement in full:

An official source stated that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and from its leading position in the Arab and Islamic worlds has played a prominent role throughout history in achieving security, stability and prosperity of the region and the world, leading efforts in combating extremism and terrorism, enhancing economic cooperation and consolidating peace and stability in the region and the world and it is still working with brotherly and friendly countries to promote these goals, basing all of this on its own status as a platform of revelation, and the birthplace of Islam.

The kingdom affirms its total rejection of any threats and attempts to undermine it, whether by threatening to impose economic sanctions, using political pressures, or repeating false accusations that will not undermine the Kingdom and its staunch positions and Arab, Islamic and international status, the outcome of these weak endeavors, like their predecessors, is a demise.

The Kingdom as the government and people are steadfast, glorious as ever, no matter whatever the pressures and circumstances might be.

The Kingdom also affirms that if it receives any action, it will respond with greater action, and that the Kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy and that the Kingdom’s economy is affected only by the impact of the global economy.

The Kingdom appreciates the brothers’ stand in the face of the campaign of false allegations and falsehoods, as well as it appreciates the voices of the wise people around the world, who have overcome wisdom, deliberation and the search for truth instead of rushing and seeking to exploit rumors and accusations to achieve goals and agendas unrelated to the search for truth.

A team of Iranian engineers in Tabriz unveiled the finished product of five-year-work, a reverse-engineered Lamborghini Murcielago SV.

The luxury car is a perfect copy to its Italian counterpart.

Leader and designer of the creative team Masoud Moradi said that his crew has gone through the research, design, modeling, and manufacturing phases throughout the last five years.

The real Lamborghini Murcielago was produced between 2001 and 2010 by the iconic Italian car manufacturer.

A collection of newly published essays written by Stephen Hawking before his death reveal the iconic physicist believed wealthy people could create a new race of “superhumans” by editing their children’s DNA.

The collection of articles and essays, which has appeared in part in the Sunday Times, will be published in their entirety as a book called: ‘Brief Answers to the Big Questions’, due to be released on October 16.

Hawking, who died in March, writes that he is sure breakthroughs in genetic engineering will allow people to create a superhuman race within this century. He also predicted that while laws will try to prevent it, the rich and greedy will be unable to resist the temptation.

“I am sure that during this century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence and instincts such as aggression,” he wrote.

“Laws will probably be passed against genetic engineering with humans. But some people won’t be able to resist the temptation to improve human characteristics, such as memory, resistance to disease and length of life.”

Hawking added that the emergence of a superior race will soon lead to implications for “unimproved humans” who he presumed will eventually “die out or become unimportant.”

He also warned that “once such superhumans appear, there will be significant political problems with unimproved humans, who won’t be able to compete.” His dire prediction continued that those being outpaced in the human development race will either die out or become unimportant, leaving “a race of self-designing beings who are improving at an ever-increasing rate.”

Hawking’s predictions stem from gene-editing technology that already exists. The Crispr-Cas9, invented six years ago, is a DNA-editing system that allows scientists to modify bad genes or add new ones, and it has been used to treat children that were predisposed to serious illnesses such as an otherwise incurable cancer.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Donald Trump says he does not know whether Defense Secretary James Mattis is planning to step down, but he told a TV interview that he sees the four-star general as “sort of a Democrat” who just might leave.

“It could be that he is [leaving],” Trump told CBS television’s prerecorded 60 Minutes program that was to air later on October 14.

“I think he’s sort of a Democrat, if you want to know the truth. But General Mattis is a good guy. We get along very well. He may leave. I mean, at some point, everybody leaves,” he added, according to transcripts released by the TV network.

Trump, a Republican, also alluded to potential changes more generally in his cabinet.

“I’m changing things around. And I’m entitled to. I have people now on standby that will be phenomenal,” he said.

“They’ll come into the administration, they’ll be phenomenal.”

“I think we have a great cabinet. There’re some people that I’m not happy with. I have some people that I’m not thrilled with. And I have other people that I’m beyond thrilled with,” he added.

Mattis is considered one of the most independent members of Trump’s cabinet, but also one of the steadiest hands amid an administration marked by a high turnover rate among top officials.

On October 9, Trump announced that Nikki Haley would be leaving her post as UN Ambassador at the end of the year. No reason for the resignation was immediately given.

Many saw the timing of her departure as suprisiing, coming just a few weeks before midterm elections.

Among the other high-level departures were Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was fired in March, and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who resigned the same month.

Mattis has been regarded by many as a counterweight to the president. He has pressed to improve relations with traditional U.S. allies, including fellow NATO members, amid often-harsh language by Trump.

In early October, Mattis reassured NATO allies of the “iron-clad” U.S. commitment to the 69-year-old Western military alliance.

Some Western leaders have also praised Mattis for pushing for a tougher policy toward Russian President Vladimir Putin in the face of Trump’s stated desire to improve relations with Moscow.

Speculation has risen about Mattis’s future as defense chief since a book by journalist Bob Woodward about Trump’s White House said the general had questioned Trump’s judgment, likening his understanding to that of a 10- or 11-year-old child.

Mattis denied making the remarks and has consistently denied he was considering quitting.

“Of course, I don’t think about leaving,” he told reporters in September. “I love it here.”

The Russian government is currently conducting a trial census in advance of the full one planned for 2020. It suggests that when the results come in from the latter in two to three years, they will show “a Russia without people” in the rural areas, with the population concentrated in the major cities but declining in number.

In Novyye izvestiya today, journalist Irina Mishina says that the trial census by the new questions it is asking and the old ones it is dropping suggests what the authorities care about and what results they expect after 2020 (newizv.ru/news/society/14-10-2018/rossiya-svobodnaya-ot-lyudey-chto-mozhet-pokazat-perepis-naseleniya).

Among the new questions being asked in the trial census are how far respondents live from their workplace, how long they have lived abroad, and how ready they are to take new jobs even if they aren’t currently looking for them. Among those dropped are queries about second jobs and academic degrees.

Nikita Mkrtchyan, a demographer at the Higher School of Economics, points out that “a census is important for defining the ethnic composition of the population of Russia and of the people constantly living in our country so as to understand migration processes. But its chief goal” is elsewhere.

That goal, he argues, is “to collect data about the state of the workforce today. The question about a second job has disappeared apparently because earlier no one answered it because they wanted to conceal additional income. As for the question on academic degrees, this indicator by all appearance is not important for the leadership of the country now.”

The most dramatic changes the 2020 census will show, he and other experts, is the collapse in the size of the population in rural areas – since 2000, it has been falling by 500,000 every year – and the growth of cities to which many rural residents are moving. It will also show the slowing impact of migration which no longer can keep the overall population from falling.

Demographers say that the census results will show “a Russia without people” beyond the cities. In Oryol Oblast, 132 rural population points have lost all their people over the last decade; and its officials currently predict that “more than 800” additional ones will disappear from the map in the next several years.

Much of this decline has been driven by Putin’s “optimization” program in education and health care which has led to the closure of schools and medical points in villages. As a result, there are no schools to hold young people in the villages, and they and their parents leave even if the latter do have jobs.

“Another consequence of the optimization of rural schools,” Mkrtchayn says, “is the outflow of rural teachers and the actual liquidation of cultural life in the villages. Clubs disappear, move theaters close, and people do not have anything to occupy their time. As a result, many take to drink.”

“If people do leave for the cities, large or small, they most often remain there,” the demographer says; and that means the rural population has no way of maintaining itself.

Natalya Zubarevich, a leading Russian specialist on regional geography, says that people are leaving the villages because there are no jobs as agriculture of the traditional kind has died. The new agro-industrial concerns don’t need workers, and so the villages can’t hold people. And this leads to a decline in population reproduction as urban residents have fewer children.

Some of this is going to come out because of the preliminary census being conducted now. All of it almost certainly will come out in 2020 or 2021, sparking a new debate in which Russians are likely to ask questions extremely inconvenient to the powers that be, including but not limited to “who killed the Russian village?” and “what should we do about him?”

Russian Kommersant reports that Armenian President Armen Sarkissian was in Moscow in the beginning of this week and conducted meetings with the Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov and Deputy Minister, Grigory Karasin. According to the source, the sides discussed Russian-Armenian relations, current situation in Armenia before possible parliamentary elections as well as the situation with Secretary-General of CSTO, Yuri Khachaturov.

Armen Sarkissian made the visit on his way back to Armenia from the trip to New York and Paris. Announcements about this trip were not released, as it was a non-official visit.

Director of the Center for European Studies, Artur Ghazinyan talked to Kommersant stating that while according to the new constitution the authorities of the president in foreign affairs are limited, Armen Sarkissian in fact, is the diplomatic emissary of RA, helping the new authorities of the country to establish contacts with key partners. “His great experience in the field of foreign affairs gives him the opportunity to do so and the lack of experience in the new government supports that”, stated Ghazinyan.

He is sure that the discussions in Moscow were coordinated with the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and supposes that the main aim of the meetings was to clarify the recent political developments in Armenia to the Russian side as the confrontation between the new authorities and its opposition still continues in the country.

Armenian President Armen Sarkissian commented on the announcement by the Russian press stating that he is very happy about the entire visit to Moscow and the conducted meetings. “It was a very pleasant dinner”, said Sarkissian about the meeting with Lavrov, announces Sputnik Armenia.

President provided no further details.

Earlier it was announced that Armenian President Armen Sarkissian will soon make a statement about “Making Amendments and Addenda to the Constitutional Law of the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly” Armenian law.

By Ranvir S. Nayar*

The report released last week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was not the first time that alarm bells had been rung by scientists about how little was being done by governments, companies and societies to address this urgent issue. The report reinforced what many environmental activists have believed for a long time, especially since the “historic” Paris Agreement of December 2015, which was hailed as a ground-breaking moment in mankind’s resolve to minimize its footprint on the environment.

The Paris Agreement saw various nations setting their own targets for reducing carbon emissions, or Nationally Determined Contributions, which may be a start, but they are hardly good enough, as the meeting could not agree on any mechanism for policing the implementation of these targets. Nor were any principles laid down to tackle countries that don’t respect their commitments. This key element was left for subsequent annual conferences, with hopes that the meeting in Bonn — Cop23 in 2017 — would see the writing of a rule book to govern the implementation of national commitments.

However, three years later, as we move toward yet another UN Climate Change Conference, this time Cop24 in Katowice, Poland, in December, there is little agreement on the rule book and many, perhaps more serious, disagreements have emerged. The climate change battle received its first major setback in mid-2017, when US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the world’s largest economy from the Paris Agreement. In one stroke, Trump undermined decades of work, as the US had always been the least keen on any global pact to curb emissions and accountability for its actions. Thus, when Barack Obama had signed on at Paris in 2015, it was hailed as a major achievement.

Aside from that, Trump also reversed another of his predecessor’s policies — on promoting renewable energy and reducing dependence on coal, which is the biggest contributor to global pollution and carbon emissions. Trump aggressively supports the coal industry in the US, promising subsidies and other government support to revive the economy in the country’s coal mining regions.

In protecting coal, the US is the principal but not the only culprit. Australia, another big coal producer and exporter, has defied the IPCC report of last week and said it will continue to use and exploit its coal reserves. India, one of the biggest consumers, is also less than keen on coal reduction, as are some European nations, notably Germany and Poland — the former for its energy needs as it has decided to phase out nuclear power plants, and the latter as a major coal producer and consumer.

The situation is hardly better with the other big fossil fuel: Crude oil. Both producers and consumers have gone slow on replacing petroleum with other, greener options for energy production. After some promising gains in energy efficiency, as well as a reduction in the consumption of fossil fuels for three years in a row, 2017 saw a significant reversal and energy-related carbon emissions reached a new high of 32.5 gigatons. This ensured a total growth of 2 percent in global carbon emissions, which also stood at a record high, thus putting a huge question mark on the reality of the Paris Agreement and indeed on the capacity and willingness of mankind to reduce carbon emissions.

The world has been trying to address climate change since the 1992 UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, 26 years later, there is very little to show in terms of real achievements in curbing man-made climate change. There have been numerous conferences and meetings, each followed by a very “historic” declaration, but very little progress on the ground, as carbon emissions globally continue to rise.

Yes, the EU has managed to cut its emissions by about 22 percent from 1990 levels, but it is more an island than anything else, as emissions in most other large economies continue to rise or be at levels that could prove catastrophic for the planet. With the return of coal, even Europe may struggle to meet its future, more ambitious target of cutting emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030.

A major challenge at Katowice will be the division between developed and developing economies, known as as Annex I and Annex II countries, respectively. Under UNFCCC rules, Annex I countries are obliged to meet their targets for emission reductions but, for Annex II nations, these rules are more flexible, as well as less demanding. There was a good reason for putting this distinction in place. Annex I countries have been happily emitting billions of tons of carbon for more than 150 years, while for several large developing nations, including China and India, the real emissions began hardly two or three decades ago.

The developing economies reject mandatory curbs on their emissions, pointing, very justifiably, at their extremely feeble per capita emission, even today. For instance, India’s per capita emission in 2016 stood at 1.92 tons a year, while for the US the figure was 15.56 tons. The Indian government has repeatedly said that, while it would like to curb its total emissions, the large difference in population sizes, as well as the gap in development between the countries, cannot be ignored. Hence India has so far rejected the notion of a national cap on emissions without taking into account these two key parameters.

As the world’s leaders prepare to assemble again in Katowice, they should be prepared for yet another meeting that sees more differences than uniting factors on display, making any real progress toward climate change reversal a mere dream.

* Ranvir S. Nayar is managing editor of Media India Group, a global platform based in Europe and India, which encompasses publishing, communication, and consultation services.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman should immediately release all evidence and information Saudi Arabia holds regarding the status of the prominent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Human Rights Watch said. Khashoggi, 59, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018, and has not been seen or heard from since. Saudi Arabia has denied involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance, claiming he left the consulate alone shortly after his arrival, but has produced no evidence to support the claim.

On October 7, Yasin Aktay, an adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, told Reuters he believed that Khashoggi had been murdered inside the consulate, and that a group of 15 Saudi men were “most certainly involved.” On October 9, The Washington Post reported that US intelligence officials had intercepted Saudi communications revealing a plot to capture Khashoggi.

“There is a mountain of evidence implicating Saudi Arabia in the enforced disappearance and potential murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and as the days go by, Saudi Arabia’s fact-free denials are becoming indictments in and of themselves,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If Saudi Arabia is responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible murder, the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, and other Saudi allies need to fundamentally reconsider their relationship with a leadership whose behavior resembles that of a rogue regime.”

Saudi authorities have escalated repression against dissidents and critics since Mohammad bin Salman became crown prince in June 2017.

Khashoggi’s fiancé, a Turkish national, told media outlets that Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on the afternoon of October 2 to obtain documents necessary for their marriage, and that he left her his phones and instructions to alert the authorities if he did not return after two hours. That was the last time his fiancé saw him.

Mohammad bin Salman denied that Saudi Arabia had captured Khashoggi in an interview with Bloomberg on October 5, claiming “[i]f he’s in Saudi Arabia I would know that,” and the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Khalid bin Salman, the crown prince’s brother, described all the allegations as “baseless” and “absolutely false.” Saudi officials, however, have produced no evidence that Khashoggi ever left the embassy, and Khalid bin Salman told The Washington Post that the consulate’s security cameras “were not recording” on October 2.

Turkish officials, however, have outlined to The Washington Post what appears to be a coordinated Saudi plan to target Khashoggi. Citing flight records and Turkish officials familiar with the investigation, the Post described how two private planes carrying 15 people arrived in Istanbul from Riyadh on October 2, and that men from one of the planes traveled to the consulate. They later allegedly left in a black van for the consular general’s residence, about two hours after Khashoggi entered the consulate. Both planes departed later that evening, one bound for Cairo and the other for Dubai, then both returned to Riyadh the following day. Turkish officials told media outlets that the Turkish staff at the consulate were ordered to take a holiday on October 2.

The Daily Sabah, a Turkish pro-government newspaper, on October 10 published the names and photos of the 15 Saudi men whom Turkish investigators claim are involved in the plot. One of the men is identified as a forensics expert.

Khashoggi’s disappearance has provoked messages of concern from US Vice President Mike Pence, US President Donald Trump, prominent US senators, and UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, as well as calls for Saudi investigations by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, Federica Mogherini. Few of these statements indicate a potential for serious consequences if the alleged murder is proven true.

On October 9, three prominent United Nations experts – Bernard Duhaime, chair-rapporteur of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances; David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression; and Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on summary executions, called for an “independent and international investigation” into the Khashoggi matter.

The targeting of Khashoggi by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963. Article 55.2 of the convention holds that “[t]he consular premises shall not be used in any manner incompatible with the exercise of consular functions.” The convention also states that diplomatic immunity can be annulled in cases of a “grave crime” upon the decision of a competent court (art. 41).

In September 2017, Saudi Arabia arrested dozens of dissidents, writers, and clerics. Activists have circulated lists of more than 60 people being held, and Saudi authorities began bringing them to trial in September 2018, largely on charges related to their peaceful opinions and expression as well as political affiliations.

Authorities are seeking the death penalty against several, including a prominent cleric, Salman al-Awda, who is facing 37 charges based on his alleged ties to the Qatari government and to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Saudi Arabia classifies as a terrorist organization.

In May, Saudi Arabia began a sweeping crackdown on women’s rights activists, arresting at least 13 women under the pretext of maintaining national security. Nine of the women remain in detention.

Saudi authorities have also targeted Saudi citizens abroad in recent months, including directing the kidnapping of a prominent women’s rights advocate, Loujain al-Hathloul, from the United Arab Emirates and her husband Fahad al-Butairi from Jordan in March 2018, forcibly returning both to Saudi Arabia.

As the Saudi defense minister, Mohammad bin Salman oversees all Saudi military forces. Saudi Arabia leads the coalition that began military operations in Yemen in March 2015. The coalition has committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, including likely war crimes, and has failed to carry out credible investigations into alleged violations or to provide civilian victims redress.

Countries should end arms sales to Saudi Arabia, Human Rights Watch said. UN Security Council members should impose targeted sanctions on Mohammad bin Salman and other senior coalition commanders substantially responsible for widespread violations of the laws of war who have not taken serious steps to end abuses, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 2140 and 2216 on Yemen. And Saudi Arabia should be removed from the UN Human Rights Council for engaging in “gross and systematic violations of human rights.”

“Given that Saudi Arabia will not provide any evidence about Khashoggi’s movements in and out of the consulate, they cannot be trusted to conduct a genuine – far less effective – investigation,” Whitson said. “Saudi Arabia’s goal is fact obscuring, not fact finding, and they should be made to face serious consequences.”

By Ramona Wadi*

It is disconcerting that the decision to demolish the village of Khan Al-Ahmar is being tied to the two-state compromise by Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. At a meeting in Ramallah with a delegation from the European Parliament last Monday, Hamdallah declared that Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territories, “particularly at Khan Al-Ahmar village east of Jerusalem, aim to end the two-state solution.”

Timewasting diplomacy such as this recent charade is aiding Israel’s plans to displace all of the Palestinians. There is no longer a two-state “solution”; indeed, there never has been any genuine intention by Israel and its supporters to work towards such an imposition, which would in any case still have placed Palestinians at a disadvantage.

Despite this, the two-state discourse continues to be touted as the “only solution” by the majority of countries, international institutions, and the Palestinian Authority. It’s a purported solution which would ultimately concede the entire territory to Israel, while the international community and the PA belatedly hold meetings to discuss an impossible reversal.

If the PA and the EU were to seek narratives from Khan Al-Ahmar, the two-state compromise would most likely not feature in the community’s concerns. The issue at stake is their displacement from their land, just as all the displaced Palestinians keep that narrative uppermost in their minds. The two-state paradigm does not even accommodate a “solution” for all the Palestinian refugees; their legitimate right of return to their land is off the table forever. Those displaced from Khan Al-Ahmar will be no exception.

Not only is Hamdallah facilitating EU complacency as regards Israel’s ongoing violations against the Palestinian people, but he is also disseminating his agreement in persisting with a flawed hypothesis to the detriment of the Palestinian people, knowing full well that these scheduled meetings do little more than tick diplomatic boxes. Meanwhile, the Palestinians face a constant deterioration of their predicament which is eroded further by the false assumption that diplomacy actually makes a difference. It is important to distinguish between repetitive “two-state solution” statements and the impunity that they hand to Israel on a plate.

Khan Al-Ahmar faces a solitary battle and its residents’ displacement would not change the PA’s tactics. If another community is threatened with displacement, the destruction will also be tied to the alleged elimination of the two-state compromise by Israel. The PA will continue to fail to discuss displacement as a historical and current predicament, just as it fails to illustrate the reality of Palestinians as a perpetually displaced population.

If the Palestinian leadership is willing to reframe displacement as an impediment to the two-state compromise rather than referring to it as a war crime, what incentive is there for the EU, which prioritizes its image and relations with Israel? A cruel spectacle is unfolding that no amount of pleas will change, for the simple reason that the level of complicity of each of the political actors will be safeguarded above anything else.

In the PA’s limited vision, the displaced Palestinian people are secondary. Its prime concern is to maintain the two-state illusion, in conformity with the international community, thus isolating Palestinians from a political process. This amounts to the intentional, international dissociation between Israel’s political violence and Palestinian lives.

History has bequeathed us with enough examples of how Palestinians have been expendable in the colonial process and their current plight is of no significance. There is no desire within the international community to understand the Palestinian trauma, and the PA will not view the correction of such an absence as part of its role, lest it finds itself cornered and having to admit that Palestinian collective memory, in reality, holds more power than the PA’s illusion of leadership and, ironically, authority.

* Ramona Wadi is a staff writer for Middle East Monitor, where this article was originally published. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.