Brazil will move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday, making the Latin American giant the largest country after the US to make the controversial switch.
“As previously stated during our campaign, we intend to transfer the Brazilian Embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.

“Israel is a sovereign state and we shall duly respect that,” Bolsonaro tweeted, a move that will defy Palestinians and most of the world.

In interviews, Bolsonaro said Israel “should have the right to decide where its capital is located,” just as Brazil moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia in 1960.
Israel considers the entire city its capital, while the Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, with international consensus being that the status of the whole city must be negotiated between the two sides.

In December, President Donald Trump reversed longstanding US policy and recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, prompting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to boycott his administration.
The embassy was officially transferred on May 14. Guatemala and Paraguay followed suit, though the latter announced last month it would return its embassy to Tel Aviv.

The US will adopt harsh, Israeli-style tactics and will treat migrants at the Mexican border as armed and dangerous invaders if they throw rocks at US law enforcement, Donald Trump has stressed amid a mass military deployment.

While the US commander in chief “hopes” the US military will not have to engage the so-called ‘migrant caravans’ with firearms once they reach the US border, Trump stated that pelting the American forces with rocks will not be tolerated.

“Anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico… we will consider that a firearm.”

“It’s the military. I hope there won’t be that. But I will tell you this: Anybody throwing stones, rocks, like they did to Mexico and the Mexican military, Mexican police – where they badly hurt police and soldiers of Mexico – we will consider that a firearm, because there is not much difference if you get hit in the face with a rock,” Trump said to reporters.

Calling the caravans –at present making their way towards the US– an “invasion” that has already managed to overrun the Mexican military and police forces, Trump stressed that the US military is fully prepared to deal with criminals and other “tough people” in that crowd.

“These illegal caravans will not be allowed into the United States. And they should turn back now, as they are wasting their time,” he suggested, noting that many criminals and drug dealers are hiding in the crowd.

“So this is not an innocent group of people. They’ve injured, they’ve attacked.”

The US leader also blamed the Democrats for creating a legal system which is being abused by those coming illegally to the United States, stressing that only those who qualify for asylum and go through the legal process will be allowed to stay. As part of the effort to secure the border, Trump said that the US is going to “catch” but “no longer release” migrants.

“Asylum is a very special protection intended for only those fleeing government persecution based on race, religion, and another protective status,” he said, pointing out that not everybody making their strenuous journey to the US will qualify. “Mass uncontrolled immigration is especially unfair to many wonderful, law-abiding immigrants already here.”

As part of the dramatically-named Operation Faithful Patriot, over 5,000 fully armed soldiers are currently being deployed to help some 2,000 National Guardsmen secure the 26 entry points along the 2,000-mile land border with Mexico. Trump and the Pentagon said they will not hesitate to deploy more troops if the need arises.

While General Terrence O’Shaughnessy of US Northern Command earlier noted that soldiers will “understand the rules” of interaction with migrants, which will “be consistent with CBP” rules of engagement, he failed to say whether troops will be allowed to use deadly force. Trump seemed to shed a little bit more light on the leeway American soldiers will have against the caravans, which currently comprise roughly 6,500 people, heading towards the US.

The American approach seems to mimic the Israeli tactics used by the IDF to repel Palestinian protesters at the border, denouncing them as armed and dangerous Hamas operatives. Ever since the Great March of Return protests erupted on March 30 along the Israeli-Gazan border fence, the IDF has not been shy to use live ammunition and sniper fire to strike Palestinians pelting rocks and trying to breach Israeli border fences.

When news broke of the terrible tragedy that a gunman had murdered 11 Jews praying at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Saturday, I immediately became concerned.

I was afraid the suspect, who also wounded six others, including four police officers, was an “Arab” or a “Muslim,” and that would result in another wave of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred that would sweep across America, as has happened several times before.

Instead, the suspect taken into custody, Robert Bowers, 46, is a white American who told police he hates Jews, and also hates President Donald Trump, Arabs, Muslims, and immigrants.

Although the focus did not turn to “Arab terrorism” or “Islamic terrorism,” as is often the case when a violent act is committed by an Arab or a Muslim, the tragedy was still exploited by many for political purposes.

Critics of Trump blamed the attack on an “environment of hate” they claim he has created with his repeated attacks against mainstream American news media bias. Of course, these critics didn’t take note of the fact that Bowers also stated that he hates Trump.

Trump has attacked certain mainstream news media outlets often, accusing them, accurately in my opinion, of twisting facts to minimize criticism against liberals while exaggerating facts to make criticism against conservatives harsher. I sympathize with the president. During the past 42 years I have spent as a journalist and writer, I have witnessed first-hand how parts of the media twist facts to demonize Arabs and especially Palestinians, while minimizing criticism of Israel.

Media bias is a fact. It is worse today as many media outlets take sides in American politics, rather than doing their jobs to report the facts accurately, fairly and with balance. Arabs and Muslims continue to be libeled by bias in much of the mainstream American news media.

Yet, regardless of this racist pattern of media judgment that confronts Arabs and Muslims in America every day, nearly every Arab and Muslim American organization issued a statement denouncing Bowers’ violence and expressing sympathy for the Jewish victims, the survivors and the families of those killed in the massacre.

The Washington-based Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP) said: “Once again, we are reminded of the terrible consequences of hate and prejudice… We at CMEP join with others in assuring our Jewish sisters and brothers of our solidarity with them, and our condemnation of those who exercise their hate by seeking to diminish others, even unto death.”

The Palestinian-run American Human Rights Council (AHRC) in Dearborn, Michigan, said: “The American Human Rights Council strongly condemns the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue… This heinous attack is another painful reminder of the threat of mass violence. AHRC reaffirms that acts of hate, violence and/or domestic terror are never justified and the responsibility is squarely that of the perpetrator or perpetrators… AHRC expresses its sincere condolences to all families of the victims for the loss of their loved ones and wishes all the injured a speedy recovery.”

The Islamic Networks Group in California said: “Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and their families, the Tree of Life synagogue congregation, and all those impacted by this heinous attack… As Americans, we stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters to say, we will not tolerate these acts of bigotry, hate, and violence. As Muslims, we know too well how it feels to be afraid in our own houses of worship.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stated through its national and Pittsburgh leadership: “We condemn this heinous and cowardly attack on a house of worship, offer heartfelt condolences to the loved ones of all those who were killed or injured and express our solidarity with the Jewish community during this time of shock and grief… This barbaric attack on our neighbors, with whom we share our city and have visited and dialogued multiple times, is deeply disturbing and horrifying. Such an act of terror affects all of us.”

Muslim organizations, which have shown a powerful ability to raise funds for their religious concerns, were able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the Synagogue victims.

All of this makes me proud. It makes me proud that — despite the tensions that exist between Israelis and Arabs because of the Israeli government’s atrocities, war crimes and human rights abuses against Palestinians — leaders of the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities all stood up for what is right.

It shows me that, despite violence from Israel and the one-sided pro-Israel worldwide debate it has sparked, the Arab, Palestinian and Muslim community has strong moral foundations.

By Cornelia Meyer*

In the 1980s/90s, the Greens entered German politics and they brought the environmental agenda to the table. In 1998, they made it into government for the first time in coalition with the SPD. Over time, the agenda of Alliance 90/The Greens, as the party is now called, became more mainstream and appealed to many of the people who traditionally voted CDU.

German reunification, meanwhile, saw the emergence of The Left, which has its roots in the communist party of the former German Democratic Republic and consistently lures voters away from the more moderate SPD.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was founded in 2013 and has since been able to crack the 5 percent threshold required to get into the federal and all the state parliaments in Germany. It owes its boost in popularity to Merkel opening the borders to all refugees in the autumn of 2015.

This huge shift in the German party landscape undermined the presumption that the two big parties — the CDU/CSU and SPD — would always be the senior partners. The woes of finding a coalition to govern last winter showed just how difficult things have become in Germany.

Critics accused Merkel of not having a clear policy agenda/ideology and instead ruling by incremental steps. They also accuse her of having moved the party too far to the left, away from its conservative (Catholic), pro-business values. One thing is certain: She was and is a brilliant tactician and she always managed to get her way in leadership struggles, as well as policy issues. She managed to keep the CDU in power at the expense of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) in 2013 and again more or less at the expense of the SPD in 2017. Last winter, her staying power proved to be an obstacle to forming a government because too many politicians and parties had suffered tactical defeats under Merkel.

When the CDU suffered its third defeat in short order in Hesse, the knives were out for Merkel, as they also are for Andrea Nahles in the SPD and Horst Seehofer in the CSU.

Merkel’s announcement came as a surprise to many. It may have been the only pragmatic thing to do in order to avoid an unproductive and bloody schism in both party and government. The question is, how will this influence her standing on the international stage, especially in Europe, where Brexit and the Italian economic woes demand leadership? She may be somewhat weakened, but she still carries weight and her tactical abilities should not be underestimated. Emmanuel Macron might be able to fill the void, but he faces his own domestic challenges. Merkel’s consensus-oriented leadership style, her policy of incremental steps and her sheer tactical abilities will be hard to beat for the time being.

On the domestic front, many ask how long she can remain as chancellor without holding the party chairmanship. That will depend on two things: Who succeeds her in the party and whether substituting the chancellor would trigger new elections. As long as the coalition is willing to play ball, there is no constitutional imperative necessitating an election when substituting a chancellor. The constitutional construct is one thing; the political realities in the Bundestag may well be another.

This is why it is worth looking at potential successors for Merkel. Three politicians have thrown their hat into the ring so far. One is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who is the CDU’s Secretary General and was Merkel’s pick for the position. She will now need to differentiate her political agenda from Merkel’s to stand a chance of becoming chairman. Merkel’s position as chancellor would be relatively safe in that constellation.

The other two candidates are markedly to the right of Merkel and she might find governing challenging if they hold the highest position in the party. One is Jens Spahn, the minister of health. He is concerned by how many votes the CDU has lost to the “populist movements” — the AfD to the right and Alliance 90/The Greens to the left. In an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he called immigration the “elephant in the room.” He leaves no doubt that he would steer the CDU back to more traditional right-wing, pro-business values and a much more restrictive immigration policy. With his 38 years, he is the only candidate of a younger generation. The other two are in their late 50s and early 60s.

The other candidate is Friedrich Merz, an old nemesis of Merkel. In 2002, his leadership bid lost out to hers and he left politics in 2009. Since then, the lawyer has been active in business. He is, for instance, the chairman of BlackRock in Germany. Merz is clearly pro-business and wants to revert to the old conservative values of the CDU. The optics of his 20-minute press conference on Wednesday were amusing: A tall 62-year-old gentleman, flanked by other tall middle-aged gentlemen, vowed that he wanted to encourage more young people and women to play an active role in the party.

*Cornelia Meyer is a business consultant, macro-economist and energy expert. Twitter: @MeyerResources

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) concluded there is clear evidence that male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation (RFR) like that used in 2G and 3G cell phones developed cancerous heart tumors, according to final reports. There was also some evidence of tumors in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats. For female rats, and male and female mice, the evidence was equivocal as to whether cancers observed were associated with exposure to RFR. The final reports represent the consensus of NTP and a panel of external scientific experts who reviewed the studies in March after draft reports were issued in February.

“The exposures used in the studies cannot be compared directly to the exposure that humans experience when using a cell phone,” said John Bucher, Ph.D., NTP senior scientist. “In our studies, rats and mice received radio frequency radiation across their whole bodies. By contrast, people are mostly exposed in specific local tissues close to where they hold the phone. In addition, the exposure levels and durations in our studies were greater than what people experience.”

The lowest exposure level used in the studies was equal to the maximum local tissue exposure currently allowed for cell phone users. This power level rarely occurs with typical cell phone use. The highest exposure level in the studies was four times higher than the maximum power level permitted.

“We believe that the link between radio frequency radiation and tumors in male rats is real, and the external experts agreed,” said Bucher.

The $30 million NTP studies took more than 10 years to complete and are the most comprehensive assessment, to date, of health effects in animals exposed to RFR with modulations used in 2G and 3G cell phones. 2G and 3G networks were standard when the studies were designed and are still used for phone calls and texting.

“A major strength of our studies is that we were able to control exactly how much radio frequency radiation the animals received — something that’s not possible when studying human cell phone use, which has often relied on questionnaires,” said Michael Wyde, Ph.D., lead toxicologist on the studies.

He also noted the unexpected finding of longer lifespans among the exposed male rats. “This may be explained by an observed decrease in chronic kidney problems that are often the cause of death in older rats,” Wyde said.

The animals were housed in chambers specifically designed and built for these studies. Exposure to RFR began in the womb for rats and at 5 to 6 weeks old for mice, and continued for up to two years, or most of their natural lifetime. The RFR exposure was intermittent, 10 minutes on and 10 minutes off, totaling about nine hours each day. RFR levels ranged from 1.5-6 watts per kilogram in rats, and 2.5-10 watts per kilogram in mice.

These studies did not investigate the types of RFR used for Wi-Fi or 5G networks.

“5G is an emerging technology that hasn’t really been defined yet. From what we currently understand, it likely differs dramatically from what we studied,” said Wyde.

For future studies, NTP is building smaller RFR exposure chambers that will make it easier to evaluate newer telecommunications technologies in weeks or months, rather than years. These studies will focus on developing measurable physical indicators, or biomarkers, of potential effects from RFR. These may include changes in metrics like DNA damage in exposed tissues, which can be detected much sooner than cancer.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration nominated cell phone RFR for study by NTP because of widespread public use of cell phones and limited knowledge about potential health effects from long-term exposure. NTP will provide the results of these studies to FDA and the Federal Communications Commission, who will review the information as they continue to monitor new research on the potential effects of RFR.

NTP uses four categories to summarize the evidence that a substance may cause cancer:

• Clear evidence (highest)
• Some evidence
• Equivocal evidence
• No evidence (lowest)

In addition to producing oil and gas, the energy industry produces a lot of water, about 10 barrels of water per barrel of oil on average. New research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that where the produced water is stored underground influences the risk of induced earthquakes.

Beyond supporting the link between water disposal and induced seismicity, the research also describes factors that can help reduce earthquake risk.

“If we want to manage seismicity, we really need to understand the controls,” said lead author Bridget Scanlon, a senior research scientist at UT’s Bureau of Economic Geology.

The research was published in the journal Seismological Research Letters. Co-authors include Matthew Weingarten, assistant professor at San Diego State University; Kyle Murray, adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma; and Robert Reedy, research scientist associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology. The bureau is a research unit at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences.

The researchers found that the increased pressure that is caused by storing produced water inside geologic formations raises the risk of induced seismicity. The risk increases with the volume of water injected, both at the well and regional scale, as well as the rate of injection.

Researchers specifically looked at water stored near tight oil plays, including the Bakken, Eagle Ford and Permian shale plays, and Oklahoma overall, which has high levels of induced seismicity in concentrated areas. Researchers found marked differences in the degree of seismic activity associated with underground water storage.

For example, the study found that in Oklahoma 56 percent of wells used to dispose of produced water are potentially associated with earthquakes. The next highest is the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, where 20 percent are potentially associated with earthquakes.

The study reported that the different levels of induced seismic activity relate to, among other reasons, how the water is managed and where it is stored underground. In Oklahoma, the tendency to store water in deep geologic formations — which are often connected to faults that can trigger earthquakes when stressed — has increased the risk of induced seismicity. In the other areas, water is stored at shallower depths, which limits exposure to potentially risky faults.

In conventional energy production, water is usually injected back into the reservoir that produced the oil and gas, which stabilizes pressure within the reservoir. However, water produced during hydraulic fracturing–the method used to access energy in tight oil plays– cannot be returned because the rock pores are too small for the water to be injected back into the rock. That water is usually injected into nearby geologic formations, which can increase pressure on the surrounding rock.

The findings are consistent with directives issued by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) in 2015 to mitigate seismicity, which included reducing injection rates and regional injection volumes by 40 percent in deep wells. This study confirmed the changes resulted in a 70 percent reduction in the number of earthquakes over a 3.0 magnitude in 2017 compared with the peak year of 2015.

“Everything they (the OCC) did is supported by what we have in this article,” said Murray. “The decisions they made, the directives that they put out, are supported by statistical associations we found.”

The reduction in earthquakes in Oklahoma shows that subsurface management practices can influence seismic risk. However, Scanlon said the changes could come with trade-offs. For example, shallow disposal may help lower the risk of earthquakes, but the shallower storage depths could increase the risk of the produced water contaminating overlying aquifers.

“There’s no free lunch,” Scanlon said. “You keep iterating and doing things, but you must keep watching to see what’s happening.”

By John Bechtel

The U.S. Justice Department unsealed a criminal indictment on Thursday against fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low alleging he paid millions of dollars to officials from Malaysia’s previous government while embezzling billions from state development fund 1MDB.

Another Malaysian national, Ng Chong Hwa (also known as Roger Ng) was named in the three-count indictment filed on Oct. 3 in a federal court in the Eastern District of New York, and has been arrested in Malaysia, according to the U.S. government.

In addition, former banker Tim Leissner pleaded guilty to two charges related to money laundering involving the state development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which was established by former Prime Minister Najib Razak and is central to the investigation.

“More than $2.7 billion (11.28 billion ringgit) was misappropriated from 1MDB and Jho Low, Ng, Leissner and others conspired to launder this money through the U.S. financial system to pay bribes to foreign officials and for the personal benefit of themselves and their relatives,” the government said in a news release about the indictments.

Ng and Leissner both held positions with the investment bank Goldman Sachs, according to media reports, and were described in their indictments as working for U.S. Financial Institution #1.

The government alleges they hid their partnership with Jho Low – whose real name is Low Taek Jho – from the financial institution because compliance and intelligence officers refused to approve the business relationship over concerns about the source of his wealth.

Among those named in the indictment as having received kickbacks are Malaysian Official 1 (MO1) and his wife, referred to as “the Madam,” in email correspondence among the three. MO1 has not been named in previous lawsuits related to 1MDB filed by the Justice Department, but sources have identified him as Najib.

Since his government was swept out of power in a general election in May, Najib and his wife, Rosmah Mansor, have been arrested by authorities in their home country and charged with a raft of graft-related offenses linked with the 1MDB financial scandal.

The indictment alleges that in June 2014, Jho Low (also known as Low Taek Jho) and an unnamed conspirator discussed through electronic chat, the need to “suck up to” an unnamed 1MDB official “and to send ‘cakes,’ referring to bribes, to ‘madam boss.’”

In October 2014, Jho Low and co-conspirators wire transferred $4.1 million (17 million ringgit) to a New York jeweler to pay for gold jewelry for the wife of MO1, U.S. justice officials alleged.

A year earlier, Jho Low was involved in an even bigger payment.

In September 2013, a high-end New York jeweler met with Jho Low along with MO1 and his wife at a hotel to show her a pink diamond necklace the jeweler had designed for her. Three weeks earlier, the necklace was purchased for about $27.3 million (114 million ringgit) from a shell company controlled by Low and others, the U.S. government alleges.

Projects Magnolia, Maximus and Catalyze

The government alleges that the conspirators cooked up three schemes to collect funds from 1MBD and diverted portions for their own use.

The first scheme, named Project Magnolia, began in early 2012. Jho Low, Ng, Leissner and other unnamed conspirators agreed that with the assistance of the financial institution, 1MDB would issue $1.75 billion in bonds guaranteed by an entity owned by Abu Dhabi’s government.

“Low explained to Ng, Leissner and others at that time that, to complete the transaction, bribes would need to be paid to officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi,” the government alleged in a news release, adding that millions of dollars were paid to officials in those two countries.

“After Project Magnolia closed on or about May 21, 2012, more than $500 million of the bond proceeds were misappropriated and diverted from 1MDB through numerous wire transfers to bank accounts in the name of shell companies beneficially owned and controlled by Low, Leissner, Ng and other co-conspirators,” the release said.

Some of the money was used to produce the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the American Justice Department said.

Najib’s stepson Riza Aziz, is founder of Red Granite Pictures, the film’s producer.

Beginning in May 2012 and running through 2013, investigators allege that the trio and unnamed conspirators pushed through a pair of bond transactions, Project Maximus and Project Catalyze, designed to raise more than $4 billion (16.7 billion ringgit) for 1MDB projects.

Following the close of Project Maximus, $790 million (3.3 billion ringgit) was transferred to accounts controlled by Low, Leissner and others, including Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials.

More than $1 billion (4.17 billion ringgit) “were laundered, at Low’s direction to bank accounts in the name of entities beneficially owned and controlled by Low, Leissner and others, including 1MDB officials,” when Project Catalyze closed.

Also, more than $160 million (668 million ringgit) laundered through the two projects was used to purchase a New York City condominium for Jho Low and high-end art, the government alleges.

Jho Low and Ng were charged with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by committing bribery and circumventing internal accounting controls along with conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Malaysian officials did not confirm the U.S. report that Ng had been arrested.

Fugitive

Jho Low, who is in hiding, has maintained his innocence. Earlier this week, the Malaysian government began a month-long auction to sell his $250 million yacht Equanimity to recoup some of the losses tied to 1MDB.

Former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin said on Thursday that he had been in touch with Jho Low and the fugitive wanted to meet with him in Singapore.

“I decided not to meet him at all. We roughly know where he is now. The problem is he has many passports, he can run anywhere,” Daim said in an interview with Astro Awani TV. “What he likes is his boat. When he had the boat it was easy for him.”

Daim, who did not answer Jho Low’s most recent call last week, said he told the fugitive to return if he is innocent.

“Only guilty people run away,” he said.

Also on Thursday, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) announced that it was looking for a British man, Paul Geoffrey Stadlen, whose last known address was in Kuala Lumpur, to assist in the 1MDB investigation.

Stadlen had served as a public relations officer for Najib, according to Malaysian media.

“The commission was working closely with the Immigration Department to locate the 39-year-old Briton. As of today, the MACC has yet to blacklist Stadlen from leaving Malaysia and we are still in discussion with the Immigration Department on that matter,” MACC Chief Commissioner Mohd Shukri Abdull told reporters.

Muzliza Mustafa, Hadi Azmi and Noah Lee in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.

The running mate of the Indonesian president is remembered for his hand in toppling Jakarta governor Ahok on charges of blasphemy. In Singapore, he advocated ‘Middle Way Islam’. Is this President Joko Widodo’s secret formula for mobilising the electorally critical Islamic constituency? Who is Ma’ruf Amin, really?

By Yang Razali Kassim

Indonesian ulama, or religious scholar, Ma’ruf Amin’s speech in Singapore on 17 October 2018 was awaited with some anticipation. He came with the reputation of having played a key role in the massive movement that brought down the controversial Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, better known as Ahok, over accusations of blasphemy against Islam.

This in itself had given Ma’ruf Amin a certain image of being a “conservative”, whatever that may mean. However, the posture he struck in Singapore at a lecture organised by the Indonesia Programme of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) was, well, not exactly this. If anything, the prospect of being a national leader − beyond just the Muslim majority community − may be pushing him to become more centrist.

The Middle Way

Kyai Ma’ruf Amin, as he is respectfully referred to as an ulama, is now a vice-presidential running mate for incumbent President Joko Widodo in next year’s pilpres, or presidential election. While not really seen by some as an ideal pairing, the coming together of the duo is significant. It reflects the traditional symbiosis of the two main streams of Indonesian politics – nationalism as manifested in Jokowi, as the president is known colloquially, and Islam, in Ma’ruf Amin.

But who really is Ma’ruf Amin? What are his thoughts? Needless to say, his speech at the RSIS talk was followed closely for a measure of the man who is, after all, within earshot of being Indonesia’s No 2 leader.

KMA, as he is also referred to, spoke as chairman of the Majlis Ulama Indonesia (Indonesian Ulama Council), though in a non-active capacity, having stepped down due to his nomination as a VP candidate. Also a veteran politician, Ma’ruf Amin wasted no time, diving straight into the theme of his lecture on ‘The Emergence of Wasatiyyah Islam in Indonesia: Promoting Middle Way Islam and Socio-economic Equality in Indonesia’. Loosely translated, the term wasatiyyah connotes a middle way, a path of moderation that is balanced in all respects.

The talk was to be a tour d’horizon of his thoughts, with nuggets on how much Wasatiyyah Islam meant to Indonesia, and how Indonesia should not only practise but also project Wasatiyyah Islam to the world. To him, Wasatiyyah Islam not only engenders peace and security in Indonesia but in turn also contributes to peace and security globally, given the country’s position as the world’s fourth largest country in terms of population.

So what is Wasatiyyah Islam? “It is,” Ma’ruf Amin said, “Islam Tengah (Middle Way Islam or centrist Islam) that produces the best community (khairu ummah).” Islam Tengah, according to him, is anchored in at least six characteristics: tawassuth (the middle way); tawazun (balance); tasamuh (tolerance); musawah (egalitarian and non-discriminatory); musyawarah dan muakafat (consultation and consensus); and islah (reformism).

Centrist Islam in Indonesia

Indeed, he had a lengthy explanation about why Wasatiyyah Islam is not really new to Indonesia: it has always been part and parcel of Indonesian life and was the driving spirit behind the founding of the Indonesian republic, which led to the ideological compromise between political Islam and nationalism that became the basis of the independent nation-state.

Nahdlahtul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation that Ma’ruf Amin also until recently led as chairman, had historically been one of the groups that played a key role in this ideological compromise. The relationship between political Islam and the state in Indonesia has, however, gone through ups and downs in a process marked by a mix of latent tension and mutual accommodation.

“The commitment to Wasatiyyah Islam in Indonesia in recent years is a reaffirmation of Islamic moderation as the conviction of mainstream Muslims in Indonesia. This is an important response to the strengthening consolidation in recent years of extremism in the name of Islam, be it from the left or from the right,” he said.

In a national convention in August 2015, the Indonesian Ulama Council adopted Wasatiyyah Islam as its devotional paradigm. This was a year after Islamic State (IS) came into existence in Syria and campaigned for a caliphate through war. “IS’ influence spread to Indonesia, followed by various acts of terror by its supporters,” Ma’ruf Amin said.

Before IS, Indonesia had already seen the emergence of the caliphate ideology which Ma’ruf Amin described as ‘contra nation state’. “Some were of the non-violent kind such as Hizbut Tahrir. Some resorted to violence such as Jemaah Islamiyah, a transnational organisation with structures covering Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines and Australia.” In the earlier years of Indonesian independence, there was Darul Islam, which morphed into the Indonesian Islamic State movement.

All of them shared one thing in common: a push for the maximum accommodation of political Islam. What Indonesia needed, Ma’ruf Amin said, was a nation based on the consensus of all elements of society − what he called Darul Mitsaq. Although he did not state it, in its current form, this is known as the Pancasila state based on the national ideology of Pancasila (five principles) and the 1945 constitution of independence.

Going Global

With Indonesia’s strategic position in the Muslim world, and in Southeast Asia in particular, Ma’ruf Amin’s push for Wasatiyyah Islam bears import for the region, especially should his views prevail and become national policy if he is elected as vice-president. Already in Indonesia, there is a growing related movement known locally as Islam Garis Tengah. It is essentially the same Centrist Islam which rejects both extremist tendencies as well as overly liberal religious thought.

Indeed, Ma’ruf Amin argued for the globalisation of Middle Way Islam. “Given its importance, Wasatiyyah Islam must not be seen to be exclusive to Indonesia. Wasatiyyah Islam can also be used to foster harmony and stability of the Southeast Asian region.” In May this year, Indonesia hosted in Bogor a High Level Consultation of World Muslim Scholars on Wasatiyyah Islam.

Philosophically, Wasatiyyah Islam, in spirit or in form, has also been a part of mainstream Islam in Southeast Asia, which is preponderantly Sunni Muslim. In Malaysia, under three previous administrations, Islamic moderation was already the clarion call and practised policy. In his first tenure as prime minister from 1981 to 2003, Mahathir Mohamad consistently advocated Islamic moderation.

His successors followed through with such ideas as Islam Hadhari (Civilisational Islam) and Islam Wasatiyyah too, leading to the formation of the Wasatiyyah Institute Malaysia. As in Indonesia, the institute was a Malaysian response to the rising extremism in some sections of the Muslim community and was to be a platform to promote moderation in the practice of Islam in Malaysia.

Wasatiyyah Islam has also long been a key characteristic of Islam as practised in Singapore, a polyglot society where Muslims are a significant minority conscious of life in a multi-religious and multicultural milieu. Moderation, balance and the middle way are the three Islamic principles that guide Singapore’s Muslim community. In short, Wasatiyyah Islam, as popularised in Indonesia and Malaysia, is something very much familiar with Singapore’s Muslims.

It can be argued that the Muslims of Southeast Asia as a whole are going through a phase of adjustment and response to what Ma’ruf Amin sees as the twin phenomena of religious extremism and religious liberalism. Will this response lead to the wider reaffirmation of the Wasatiyyah doctrine − as Ma’ruf Amin put it − of Middle Way Islam, the essence of the religion which is more nuanced than just “moderation”?

*Yang Razali Kassim is Senior Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. An earlier version appeared in the South China Morning Post. Next: A translated excerpt of Ma’ruf Amin’s RSIS lecture on The Emergence of Wasatiyyah Islam: Promoting ‘Middle Way’ Islam and Socio-Economic Equality in Indonesia.

The Moscow Patriarchate may be on the defensive because of its obvious losses in Ukraine and elsewhere, but it is very much on the offensive in the predominantly Russian regions of the Russian Federation where it is moving to make the study of Orthodoxy compulsory in the schools.

Under Russian law, parents are supposed to be able to choose which course on religion or civic ethics they would like their children to be exposed to; but in Pskov Oblast – and likely elsewhere as well – students are being compelled to study “Foundations of Orthodox Culture” (zen.yandex.ru/media/mbkhmedia/mama-na-menia-bog-rasserdilsia-v-pskovskih-shkolah-pervoklashek-obiazali-izuchat-osnovy-pravoslavnoi-kultury).

In the first and second classes, it is no longer an elective as the law specifies but a required subject children and their parents have no choice but to follow, according to Boris Kiryukhin, one of the parents of a pupil in Pskov’s School No. 3. He learned his son was being forced to study Orthodoxy only by chance when he saw his boy’s notebook.

The school administration had demanded that parents sign a consent form, but Kiryukhin says that he didn’t sign it. Nonetheless, his son is in the class. In his view, the father says, his son is “too young” to be exposed to religion. But the education authorities in Pskov Oblast disagree and are compelling pupils to take the class.

Pskov administrators say that the inclusion of Orthodoxy as a required course reflects “the regional, national and ethno-cultural characteristics” of the region. Since Pskov is predominantly ethnic Russian and Orthodox, students must study that faith (znak.com/2018-10-31/v_pskovskih_shkolah_uchenikov_1_i_2_klassov_obyazyvayut_izuchat_pravoslavie).

The textbook used in these courses is anything but neutral about Orthodoxy. It blames all of Russia’s problems today on the lack of historical-cultural education and “religious enlightenment” and says that God’s law must be learned and implemented by Russians in order to save their country from disaster.

Many parents may have no problem with this or fear what might happen to them or their children if they disagree. But anyone concerned about the provisions of the Russian Constitution which guarantee the separation of church and state should be worried about this stealth introduction of religious propaganda in schools far away from the glare of the Moscow media.

There was bound to be a major pushback. Widespread use of the internet has helped make all sorts of information much cheaper to create and easier to access. That has been a boon for people seeking to communicate and receive information that would not have been readily available in the days when radio, TV, and newspapers were the overwhelming means of mass distribution of information about current events. At the same time, the internet-facilitated alternative voices boom threatens the interests of people who benefit from limiting the availability of information and commentary about current events to within a much narrower range.

In recent months, big technology companies have accelerated a crackdown on communicating “alternative” news and views via the internet. Much of the early major action was supported by the contrived scare that Russia President Vladimir Putin directed a covert operation to spend a pittance on some Facebook communications about apparently random topics in a wildly-successful scheme to trick the American people into electing Donald Trump as president. Since then, the movement to suppress alternative voices has gained momentum, with major speech suppression successes including, over a brief period of time, a slew of major technology companies denying service to Alex Jones and his popular media operation.

For me, the big tech companies’ speech suppression actions have become personal, threatening the Ron Paul Institute (RPI) for which I am a senior fellow. Earlier this year, the percentage of people who follow RPI at Facebook who Facebook actually allows to see RPI posts on their news feeds plummeted. Before that, RPI’s Ron Paul Liberty Report was hit by YouTube preventing or delaying the display of advertisements with episodes — a change that the show’s co-host and RPI Executive Director Daniel McAdams said “creates enormous financial burdens for the program.” In addition to Alex Jones, who has for a long time supported and regularly interviewed RPI Chairman Ron Paul, Twitter has suspended or purged the Twitter accounts of several other people with connections to Paul or RPI, including McAdams, whose Twitter account was suspended twice in the last few months.

Seeing what was happening to competitors of the “mainstream” media and “establishment” commentators, I knew I should look for additional social media platforms at which I could share my articles, audio show episodes, interviews, and speeches. Facebook and Twitter just were not cutting it. Still, inertia can be hard to overcome. I kept delaying my investigation of alternatives.

I wrote in August about an interview in which Paul declared his hope “that we can have alternatives to the dependency on Twitter and these other companies that have been working hand in glove with the government” in suppressing the communication of alternative news and insights. But, it still took a couple more months for me to take the step of sitting down at a computer and starting accounts at some of the competitors of social media behemoths Facebook and Twitter.

In October, I created pages at Gab, MeWe, Minds, and Steemit. Creating the pages, as well as posting at them in addition to at my Twitter and Facebook pages, has taken some extra time, and I know I am not using any of the pages optimally. Still, I think using the alternative social media websites is an important, worthwhile step.

The question remains whether government and big technology companies will kill off or pay off the competitors of the social media giants. Case in point, this week I have been unable to post at my Gab page. Gab is not closed for maintenance or shut down by a technical glitch. Instead, as Gab Chief Executive Officer Andrew Torba explains in a statement at the Gab home page — and that statement has been for several days the entirety of the Gab website, “Gab has been no-platformed by essential internet infrastructure providers at every level.” Also, PayPal dumped Gab in the last few days, depriving the company of its means of receiving payments.

Torba expresses optimism about the future of Gab, writing in his statement that Gab “isn’t going anywhere” and that “[w]e will exercise every possible avenue to keep Gab online and defend free speech and individual liberty for all people.” More power to him. But, I wonder if Gab can weather the extreme force that appears determined to make the site either shut down or become a speech-limiting clone of Twitter and Facebook.

Will other alternative social media companies face similar pressure to bend to speech restriction or perish? Time will tell. In the meantime, I will keep posting on all my social media pages, hoping that my contribution will help in countering the crackdown on alternative voices.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute

Trump voters: Two years in, here’s an updated list of Trump’s 30 biggest broken promises.

1. He told you he’d cut your taxes, and that the super-rich like him would pay more. You bought it. But his 2017 tax law has done the opposite. By 2027, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the richest 1 percent will have received 83 percent of the tax cut and the richest 0.1 percent, 60 percent of it. But more than half of all Americans — 53 percent — will pay more in taxes. As Trump told his wealthy friends at Mar-a-Lago just days after the tax bill became law, “You all just got a lot richer.”

2. He promised that the average family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of the tax law. You bought it. But real wages for most Americans are lower today than they were before the tax law went into effect.

3. He promised to close special interest loopholes that have been so good for Wall Street investors but unfair to American workers, especially the notorious “carried interest” loophole for private-equity, hedge fund, and real estate partners. You bought it. But the new tax law kept the “carried interest” loophole.

4. He promised to bring an end to Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear program. You bought it. Kim Jong-Un hasn’t denuclearized.

5. He told you he’d repeal Obamacare and replace it with something “beautiful,” including “insurance for everybody.” You bought it. But he didn’t repeal and he didn’t replace. (Just as well: His plan would have knocked at least 24 million Americans off health insurance, including many of you.) Instead, he’s doing what he can to cut it back and replace it with nothing. According to the Commonwealth Fund, about 4 million Americans have lost health insurance in the last two years.

6. He told you he wouldn’t “cut Social Security like every other Republican and I’m not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid.” You bought it. But now he’s planning such cuts in order to deal with the ballooning deficit created, in part, by the new tax law for corporations and the rich.

7. He promised to protect anyone with pre-existing conditions. You bought it. But in June, his Justice Department told a federal court it would no longer defend provisions of Obamacare that protect patients with pre-existing conditions. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the decision was made with Trump’s approval.

8. He said he’d build a “wall” across the southern border.You believed him. But there’s no wall.

9. He told you he’d invest $1 trillion in our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. You bought it. But after his giant tax cut for corporations and millionaires, there’s no money left for infrastructure.

10. He said he’d drain the Washington swamp. You bought it. But he’s brought into his administration more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls than in any administration in history, to make laws that will enrich their businesses, and he’s filled departments and agencies with former lobbyists, lawyers and consultants who are crafting new policies for the same industries they recently worked for.

11. He promised to re-institute a five-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for five years after they leave government.” You bought it. But the five-year ban he signed applies only to lobbying one’s former agency, not the government as a whole, and it doesn’t stop former officials from becoming lobbyists.

12. He said he’d use his business experience to whip the White House into shape. You bought it. But he has created the most dysfunctional, back-stabbing White House in modern history, and has already fired and replaced so many assistants that people there barely know who’s in charge of what.

13. He told you he’d “bring down drug prices” by negotiating “like crazy” with drug companies. You bought it. But he hasn’t.

14. He told you he’d “stop foreign lobbyists from raising money for American elections.” You bought it. But foreign lobbyists are still raising money for American elections.

15. He promised “six weeks of paid maternity leave to any mother with a newborn child whose employer does not provide the benefit.” You bought it. But the giant tax cut for corporations and the rich doesn’t leave any money for this.

16. He said he’d create tax-free dependent care savings accounts for younger and elderly dependents, and have the government match contributions low-income families put into their savings accounts. You bought it. He’s done neither.

17. He said that on Day One he’d label China a “currency manipulator.” You bought it. But then he declared China is not a currency manipulator.

18. He said he “won’t bomb Syria.” You bought it. Then he bombed Syria.

19. After pulling out of the Paris accord, he said he’d negotiate a better deal on the environment. You bought it. There have been no negotiations.

20. He promised that the many women who accused him of sexual misconduct “will be sued after the election is over.” You bought it. He hasn’t sued them, presumably because he doesn’t want the truth to come out.

21. He said he would not be a president who took vacations, and criticized Barack Obama for taking too many vacations. You bought it. But since becoming President, he has spent a quarter of his days at one of his golf properties.

22. He vowed to “push colleges to cut the skyrocketing cost of tuition.” You believed him. But he hasn’t. Instead, he’s made it easier for for-profit college to defraud students.

23. He said he’d force companies to keep jobs in America, and that there would be consequences for companies that shipped jobs abroad, especially government contractors. You believed him. Never before in U.S. history have federal contractors sent so many jobs overseas. There have been no consequences.

24. He promised to end DACA. Then in January 2018 promised that “DACA recipients should not to be concerned… We’re going to solve the problem,” then he reversed himself again and vowed to end the program by March, 2018. Currently, the federal courts have stayed any action on it.

25. He promised to revive the struggling coal industry and bring back lost coal mining jobs. You bought it. But coal is still losing customers as utilities turn to natural gas and renewable power.

26. He promised to protect American steel jobs. You bought it. His tariffs on steel have protected some steel jobs. But industries that use steel – like automakers and construction – now have to pay more for the steel they use, with the result that their jobs are threatened. The Trade Partnership projects that 400,000 jobs will be lost among steel and aluminum users.

27. He said he’d make America safer. You believed him. But mass shootings keep rising, and Trump has failed to pass effective gun control legislation. After 17 died in Parkland, Florida, Trump promised “immediate action” on gun safety in schools, but has done nothing.

28. He promised to make two- and four-year colleges more affordable. You bought it. But Trump’s most recent budget contains deep cuts in aid for low-income and first-generation college students, reduces Federal Work Study, and eliminates the 50-year-old Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, which goes to more than a million poor college kids each year.

29. He promised to eliminate the federal deficit and bring down the debt. You bought it. Yet due to his massive tax cut mostly for corporations and the rich, and his military spending, the deficit is set to rise to $1 trillion, and the debt has ballooned to more than $21 trillion.

30. He said he’d release his taxes. “I’m under a routine audit and it’ll be released, and as soon as the audit is finished it will be released,” he promised during the campaign. You bought it. He still hasn’t released his taxes.

The top Republican politicos must be thinking — with adversaries like the Democratic Party, who needs friends? Since 2010 the GOP minority has taken over the majority of state legislatures, Governorships and now the three branches of the federal government.

Polls consistently show most Americans oppose the catastrophic Republican agenda. The American people support raising the frozen federal minimum wage from $7.25 per hour; want to protect Obamacare; want law enforcement to punish Wall Street crooks and prevent consumer rip offs; support forming labor unions and protecting labor rights; favor prosecuting the student loan and the for-profit school rackets; want the Republican Party to stop voter suppression and judicial disenfranchisement, and want injured people to have access to the courts. Despite all of these unpopular Republican Party positions, the Republican Party keeps winning.

Even in next month’s elections, which are supposed to produce a blue wave of Democratic victories, the polls are tightening. Trumps polls are edging up, in spite of the belligerent loud mouth’s daily foul and lying invectives.

To see the anemic Democrats, watch the debates between the various candidates. A recent debate between Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill and Republican Josh Hawley, whose office of attorney general is a widely reported mess, is illustrative. Hawley had McCaskill on the defensive regarding the southern border wall. She kept Trumpeting how she has voted for $70 billion for the wall and border security. She did not advance her own immigration policy.

She agreed with Hawley on a GOP ruse, namely a federal reinsurance program for pre-existing conditions, instead of specifically strengthening Obamacare or, better, coming out for a more efficient full Medicare for everyone with free choice of doctor and hospital. She did not challenge Hawley with an explicit minimum wage target or where he stood on lifting poverty and crumbling infrastructure throughout the state. A few Democratic candidates have solidly put forth a “fight for $15 an hour” position. They also need a public works plan and an alternative tax agenda for fairness and job expanding, crucial public investments.

Too often the GOP candidates have the Democratic candidates on the defensive. The Democrats need to respond to the GOP’s cruel and misleading triad of lower taxes (for the super-rich that is), de-regulation (endangering your health and safety) and a strong defense (meaning further bloating the wasteful, redundant military budget and its boomeranging Empire abroad).

The Democrats are always backtracking because they largely have no military or foreign policy differing from the GOP; they have no stand against crony capitalism for corporate welfare, despised by both conservatives and progressives. They will not argue strongly for needed “law and order” regulation to prevent toxics from poisoning your air, water and soil.  They advance no law enforcement plan to protect your consumer dollars and prevent another Wall Street criminal collapse on jobs, savings, and pension funds that would result in another giant taxpayer bailout. Some Congressional Democrats even joined with Republicans this year to weaken the Dodd-Frank law.

In recent months, I have been asking numerous Congressional Democratic groups, such as the House Democratic Caucus and the Democratic National Committee, why the specific, abysmal and cruel Republican votes in Congress are not made into campaign headliners. No response. Why are they not making the stagnant, low wages an emblazoned cause for tens of millions of Americans? Why are they not telling people to go “Vote for a Raise,” –long overdue following years of workers being shortchanged by inflation, being denied raises for productivity advances, and being subjected to wage theft amounting to as much as $50 billion a year?

“America Needs a Raise,” can become a clarion call for getting out the vote and highlighting the vast inequalities of, say Walmart’s CEO making $12,000 an hour, plus perks and benefits, while many of his workers sweat away at little more than $11 an hour.

So compromised by campaign cash are most Democratic candidates, excepting the few progressive insurgents, that they are not even rebutting the exaggerated and defective  Republican boasts about the economy’s low unemployment rates for Hispanic and Black workers. Millions of workers have dropped out of the labor market, record millions are temps or work short weeks, wages are stagnant, rents higher, and at least a third of Americans are poor.

The Republicans are getting away with their phony sing-song of a robust economy in their political TV ads and debates. Again and again, too few Democrats will not stand for explicit policies that reflect majoritarian opinion and contrast with the plutocratic, big business interests of the Republicans.

With all the winning issues waiting for the Democratic Party to show the voters what it stands for, why is there is hesitation, cowardliness, and obsession with raising money from commercial interests? Moreover, four time losers at the Congressional level and their failed political consultants have refused to step aside and be replaced by fresh, young politicians insistent on defending the country from the worst, cruelest, most corrupt iteration of the Republican Party in history.

Imagine what FDR, Harry Truman, and LBJ would have done with this current crop of grim and greedy Republican corporatists such as super-rich Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who just told the country that cuts in Medicare and social security are necessary due to the deficits he and his GOP created with the giant tax escapes for the rich and big corporations. For starters, old style Democrats would be “raising hell” promoting the omnipresent message that America Needs a Raise!

A scientist accused of attempted murder in Antarctica stabbed his colleague because “he was fed up with the man telling him the endings of books,” it has been claimed.

Scientific engineer Sergey Savitsky, 55, became enraged and stabbed welder Oleg Beloguzov, 52, with a kitchen knife.

It is believed to be the first time a man has been charged with attempted murder in Antarctica.

The men had previously spent four harsh years at Russia’s isolated Bellingshausen station King George Island, part of the South Shetland island group.

Russian investigators are probing a version of events in which both men became avid readers to pass the lonely hours in the remote facility.

But Savitsky had become enraged that Beloguzov “kept telling his colleague the endings of books before he read them”.

The wounded man was evacuated to Chile with a knife injury to the chest.

His heart was injured in the attack and he was admitted to the intensive care unit of a hospital but his life is understood not to be in danger.

The alleged attacker was deported to Russia’s second city St Petersburg where he was immediately arrested and a criminal probe launched. It is believed jail inmates have already told him the ending of a book he was currently reading.

The casual, endemic and racist violence that characterizes American behavior at home and abroad cannot be laid at the doorstep of the current buffoon in the White House.

Within the past week very disturbing and violent events took place in quick succession across the country. Two black people were shot to death in a Louisville, Kentucky supermarket. The white shooter made it clear that his goal was to kill black people when he said, “Whites don’t shoot whites,” as he was apprehended. No sooner had this crime occurred than a Florida man was arrested and charged with sending explosive devices to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Maxine Waters, and Eric Holder among others. One day later a shooting at a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania synagogue left 11 people dead.

The unnamed suspect in all of these cases is Donald Trump. The bombing suspect made clear his love for the 45thpresident. He was described by his attorney as a previously apolitical man who nonetheless “found a father in Donald Trump.” The Louisville killing is the latest in a long line carried out by white racists. Anti-black violence is as old as white settlement on this continent.

Analysis of these recent incidents must be made very carefully. Trump differs from his predecessors mostly by tearing away the veneer of humanity and civility from a system which is relentlessly brutal. But the façade keeps many would be terrorists from carrying out their sick fantasies. There are people who keep their hatred to themselves until they know that they may be given some cover and acceptance. Hatred expressed by a president emboldens people who might not ordinarily act upon their racist impulses.

It is very dangerous for these hidden haters to think they can come out of their closets. At the same time we cannot forget that a racist shooter succeeded in entering a black church in Charleston, South Carolina and killing 9 people in 2015 when Barack Obama was president. The most prevalent racially motivated murders are carried out by police across the country when they kill an average of 300 black people every year.

It is a mistake to see Trump as a singular evil in American history. He is also not an anomaly among world leaders. An avowed fascist just won a presidential race in Brazil. White supremacists march openly in European countries like Ukraine where the Obama administration helped to overthrow an elected president and install Nazis among the new leadership. Fascism is carried out daily not only by the police but by the neoliberal state and by the military as it carries out a war of terror all over the world.

The current moment is perilous and requires serious analysis. Trump is the low hanging fruit in any discussion of racism and other forms of bigotry. But the country cannot be given a pass and allowed to behave as if all was well until he was elected.White people cannot play innocent and black people can’t relax when the day comes that he is out office.

If Trump can be connected to all of these incidents it should be with the knowledge that the entire country is suffering from a terrible sickness that few want to confront. Americans prefer to think well of themselves and their nation and treat any information contradicting that belief as an inconvenience to be avoided at all costs. There were hate crimes before Donald Trump ran for president and most of them weren’t carried out by individuals. Most of them are still sanctioned by the state.

The crazed Trump lover may have tried to send bombs to Obama and Clinton but they sent bombs to Libya and destroyed a nation that still suffers from their terrorist acts. They are quite literally guilty of committing hate crimes, along with other NATO leaders and their predecessors in high places. The fact that they know how to express diplomatic niceties is no reason to see them as being on our side as we fight to defeat fascism at home and around the world.

Their enablers cannot be given a pass either. When we fight to make war and peace a political issue we are derided as purists and spoilers who ought to be quiet and allow imperialism to take place without hindrance. The people who join in the chorus of denunciation should not be allowed to wring their hands when dead bodies appear within our borders too.

If they want to denounce Trump they had an excellent opportunity recently. Trump announced that the United States was withdrawing unilaterally from the INF missile treaty with Russia. This decision quite literally puts the world closer to nuclear war. But the liberal Trump haters have had very little to say about a policy change which quite literally endangers all life on the planet. The numbers of people who realize the danger and speak against this action is miniscule, unlike the near unanimous condemnation of racist gun men and the would be mail bomber.

We always lived in a very dangerous nation. Trump makes it more difficult to be in denial. But we must fight against the crowd which averts its eyes until a racist buffoon enters the White House. There is nothing new about American terrorism. It can be found in high and low places regardless of presidential civility or lack thereof.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan lands in Beijing on November 3, the latest head of government to seek a renegotiation of commercial terms and/or focus of projects related to China’s infrastructure and energy-driven Belt and Road initiative. He follows in the footsteps of his Malaysian counterpart, Mahathir Mohamad has suspended US$26 billion in Chinese-funded projects; while Myanmar is negotiating a significant scaling back of a Chinese-funded port project on the Bay of Bengal from one that would cost US$ 7.3 billion to a more modest development that would cost US$1.3 billion in a bid to avoid shouldering an unsustainable debt. China has also witnessed pushback and rising anti-Chinese sentiment in countries as far flung as Kazakhstan, Nepal, and Denmark.

Khan’s insistence on expanding the focus of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a US$45 billion plus Belt and Road crown jewel, to include agriculture, manufacturing, and job creation takes on added significance as Pakistan seeks an approximately US$8 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout to help it avert a financial crisis and discusses with Saudi Arabia investments of up to US$10 billion in investments that would be separate but associated with CPEC.

In doing so, Khan is manoeuvring multiple minefields that stretch from likely demands by the International Monetary Fund IMF and the United States for transparency on the financial nuts and bolts of CPEC projects to compliance with requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international anti-money laundering and terrorism finance watchdog that has threatened to blacklist Pakistan, to managing relations with Saudi Arabia at time that the kingdom’s international standing hangs in the balance as a result of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Refocusing the Belt and Road

Preparing for his first visit to China as Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan insisted that the focus of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a US$45 billion plus crown jewel of the Belt and Road, shift from infrastructure to agriculture, job creation and foreign investment. “Earlier, the CPEC was only aimed at construction of motorways and highways, but now the prime minister decided that it will be used to support the agriculture sector, create more jobs and attract other foreign countries like Saudi Arabia to invest in the country,” said informationministerFawad Chaudhry, ignoring the fact that the CPEC plan already made reference to those issues. (1)

Khan’s determination to be seen as ensuring that more benefits accrue to Pakistan from Chinese investment comes at a time that various Asian and African countries worry that Belt and Road-related investments in infrastructure risk trapping them in debt and forcing them to surrender control of critical national infrastructure, and in some cases media assets. (2)

Malaysia has suspended or cancelled US$26 billion in Chinese-funded projects (3) while Myanmar is negotiating a significant scaling back of a Chinese-funded port project on the Bay of Bengal from one that would cost US$ 7.3 billion to a more modest development that would cost US$1.3 billion in a bid to avoid shouldering an unsustainable debt. (4)

CWE Investment Corporation, a subsidiary of China Three Gorges is considering pulling out of a 750MW hydropower project citing high resettlement and rehabilitation costs in the wake of protests against the planned evacuation of eight Nepali villages. (5) Fears of a debt trap started late last year when unsustainable debt forced Sri Lanka to hand China an 80% stake in Hambantota port. (6) China has written off an undisclosed amount of Tajik debt in exchange for ceding control of some 1,158 square kilometres of disputed territory (7) close to the Central Asian nation’s border with China’s troubled north-western province of Xinjiang. Zambia saw itself left with no choice but to hand over control of its international airport as well as a state power company. (8)

Pakistan, even before Khan called for a refocusing of CPEC, was becoming more cautious about Chinese investment. Pakistani Water and Power Development Authority chairman Muzammil Hussain charged that “Chinese conditions for financing the Diamer-Bhasha Dam were not doable and against our interests.” China and Pakistan were also at odds over ownership of the $14 billion, 4,500 megawatts (MW)-hydropower project on the Indus River in the country’s problematic region of Gilgit-Baltistan near disputed Kashmir. (9) Earlier, a State Bank of Pakistan study concluded that exports of marble to China, Pakistan’s foremost rough-hewn, freshly-excavated marble export market, and the re-export to Pakistan of Pakistani semi-processed marble was “hurting Pakistan’s marble industry to a significant extent.” (10)

Khan’s chances of refocusing CPEC may be boosted by domestic and foreign blowback China is experiencing. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s pledge in September of US$60 billion in new loans to Africa triggered a wave of grumbling in China. Censors quickly moved to delete critical posts that proliferated online after Xi announced the fresh commitments to counter assertion that the Belt and Road amounted to debt trap diplomacy. (11)

China too is apparently becoming more cautious. Reduced Chinese investment in Pakistan accounted for a 42 percent drop in foreign direct investment in the first quarter of this fiscal year. The central bank reported that investment from China, Pakistan’s largest foreign investor had dropped in the period from July to September to US$439.5 million compared to US$765 million in the previous year. The decline fuelled concern and contributed to Pakistan’s decision to ask the IMF for support.

Tackling Key Issues

The Khan government’s desire to refocus CPEC tackles key issues raised by critics of the project that potentially could impact China’s plan to pacify its troubled north-western province of Xinjiang through a combination of economic development and brutal repression and re-education of its Turkic Muslim population. The initial plan for CPEC appeared to position Pakistan as a raw materials supplier for China, an export market for Chinese products and labour, and an experimental ground for the export of the surveillance state China is rolling out in Xinjiang. (12)

The plan envisioned Chinese state-owned companies leasing thousands of hectares of agricultural land to set up “demonstration projects” in areas ranging from seed varieties to irrigation technology. Chinese agricultural companies would be offered “free capital and loans” from various Chinese ministries as well as the China Development Bank. It further projected the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps introducing mechanization as well as new technologies in Pakistani livestock breeding, development of hybrid varieties, and precision irrigation. Pakistan effectively would become a raw materials supplier rather than an added-value producer, a prerequisite for a sustainable textiles industry.

The plan saw the Pakistani textile sector as a supplier of materials such as yarn and coarse cloth to textile manufacturers in Xinjiang. “China can make the most of the Pakistani market in cheap raw materials to develop the textiles & garments industry and help soak up surplus labour forces in (Xinjiang’s) Kashgar,” the plan said. Chinese companies would be offered preferential treatment with regard to “land, tax, logistics and services” as well as “enterprise income tax, tariff reduction and exemption and sales tax rate” incentives. (13) For Khan to ensure that Pakistani agriculture benefits, the very concept of Chinese investment in Pakistani agriculture would have to renegotiated.

Similarly, Khan has yet to express an opinion on the plan’s incorporation of a full system of monitoring and surveillance that would be built in Pakistani cities to ensure law and order. The system would involve deployment of explosive detectors and scanners to “cover major roads, case-prone areas and crowded places…in urban areas to conduct real-time monitoring and 24-hour video recording.” The surveillance aspect of the plan that identifies Pakistani politics, such as competing parties, religion, tribes, terrorists, and Western intervention” as well as security as the greatest risk to CPEC could, if unaddressed, transform Pakistani society in ways that go far beyond economic and infrastructure development. (14)

The Saudi Factor

Khan’s insistence on a refocus of CPEC takes on added significance given that Pakistan is turning to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help it avert a financial crisis with a loan of up to US$12 billion (15) and its agreements with Saudi Arabia involving US$ 6 billion in financial support and could produce some US$10 billion in investments that would be separate but associated with CPEC. (16)

China worries that Saudi investments would reduce Pakistani dependence on the People’s Republic and is believed to have persuaded Pakistan to backtrack on its initial announcement that Saudi Arabia would become a partner in CPEC rather than invest separately from the People’s Republic. (17)

Lijian Zhao, China’s deputy chief of mission in Islamabad sought to smoothen potentially ruffled feather by insisting that his country welcomed Saudi investments as part of any effort to develop Pakistani infrastructure, raise living standards and create jobs. (18) In an interview (19) as well as a series of tweets (20) Zhao insisted that China welcomed Saudi investment and “always supported & stood behind @ Pakistan, helping #develop it’s #infrastructure & raise #living standards while creating #job.” Zhao’s comments followed a statement in September by Chinese foreign minister Wang Ji after talks with Khan in Islamabad that appeared to indicate that China, while acknowledging Pakistani demands, would not address them immediately. Wang suggested that CPEC would only “gradually shift to industrial cooperation.” (21)

In a further implicit recognition that at least some of its Belt and Road-related projects risk trapping target countries in debt or fail to meet their needs, has conceded that adjustments may be necessary. “It’s normal and understandable that development focus can change at different stages in different countries, especially with changes in government. So China can also make some strategic adjustments when cooperating with these countries, but it’s definitely not a reconsideration of the B&R (Belt and Road) initiative,” Wang Jun, deputy director of the  Department of Information at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges told the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times newspaper. (22)

Said Financial Times columnist Jamil Anderlini:” China is at risk of inadvertently embarking on its own colonial adventure in Pakistan— the biggest recipient of BRI investment and once the East India Company’s old stamping ground… Pakistan is now virtually a client state of China. Many within the country worry openly that its reliance on Beijing is already turning it into a colony of its huge neighbour. The risks that the relationship could turn problematic are greatly increased by Beijing’s ignorance of how China is perceived abroad and its reluctance to study history through a non-ideological lens… It is easy to envisage a scenario in which militant attacks on Chinese projects overwhelm the Pakistani military and China decides to openly deploy the People’s Liberation Army to protect its people and assets. That is how ‘win-win’ investment projects can quickly become the foundations of empire.” (23)

A Linchpin of Chinese Policy

China, moreover, frets that in a worst-case scenario, Saudi investment rather than boosting economic activity and helping Gwadar get out of starting blocks, could ensnare it in one of the Middle East’s most debilitating conflicts. China is further concerned that there would be a set of third-party eyes monitoring activity if and when it decides to use Gwadar not only for military purposes but also as a naval facility. Saudi investment would also thwart potential Chinese plans to link the ports of Gwadar and Chabahar, a prospect that Pakistani and Iranian officials have not excluded.

Indeed, Khan’s involvement of Saudi Arabia could complicate tensions in Balochistan where China is already a target for nationalist and/or religious militants by potentially drawing Pakistan into the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran and putting Saudi investments in the firing line. A Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) suicide bomber driving an Iranian manufactured Zamyad oil transporter killed three Chinese engineers and two Pakistani frontier guards in August when he attacked a bus carrying them to the Saindak copper and gold mine that is operated by the Metallurgical Corporation of China. (24)

A Rand Corp study asserted in 2014 that Pakistan is “the linchpin of China’s South Asia policy.” (25) “Islamabad is considered a key capital to help Beijing deal with the challenge both in terms of cracking down on radical Islamic groups supporting and training Uighurs in Pakistan as well as helping to cast China as friend of the Muslim world… Pakistan is also important to China because it is considered critical to stabilizing neighbouring Afghanistan—a country that has become of growing concern to China as a source of terrorism and heroin… From China’s perspective Pakistan has a key role to play…in actively advancing China’s economic relations with the region and the world. Beijing seeks a government in Islamabad that can maintain order inside Pakistan and also help stabilize Afghanistan,” the study said.

Another Rand Corp research paper noted that Pakistan is China’s largest military hardware export market. Pakistan accounted for 42 per cent of China’s total arms sales in the years between 2000 and 2014. (26) In a move designed as much to strengthen Pakistani counter-terrorism capabilities as a gesture towards the armed forces, made Pakistan the second country after Saudi Arabia to receive killer drones and the associated technology. (27) The US has refused to sell its more advanced killer drones to either Saudi Arabia or Pakistan

Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is determined to play an important role in Khan’s manoeuvring of the Chinese and Saudi minefields. Handpicked by Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, ISI’s new head, Lieutenant General Asim Munir, garnered experience in dealing with both China and the kingdom while he served in the province of Gilgit-Baltistan that borders on the People’s Republic and when he was seconded to Saudi Arabia. (28)

Saudi Arabia is considering investing in a refinery in the Baloch Arabian Sea, Chinese-operated port of Gwadar that is a key node in China’s strategy to fuel economic development in its troubled north-western province of Xinjiang. Saudi Arabia is also looking at putting money into the Reko Diq copper and gold mine, that like Gwadar is close to Iranian border and a mere 70 kilometres from Iran’s Indian-backed port of Chabahar.

Ironically, the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has turn out to be a blessing in disguise for Khan. After two visits to Riyadh in the first two months of his prime ministership that did not persuade the Saudis to give him the cash relief he needs, Khan earned brownie points by attending a high-profile in October in Riyadh that was boycotted by Western CEO’s and government officials. Khan was received in private audience by King Salman and his embattled son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  

Speaking in an interview before leaving for Riyadh, Mr. Khan said he was attending the conference despite the “shocking” killing of Mr. Khashoggi because “unless we get loans from friendly countries or the IMF, we actually won’t have in another two or three months enough foreign exchange to service our debts or to pay for our imports. So we’re desperate at the moment.” (29) Pakistan’s foreign reserves dropped this month to US$8.1 billion, a four-year low and barely enough to cover sovereign debt payments due through the end of the year. The current account deficit has swelled to about $18 billion. (30)

The potential Saudi investments were only part of Khan’s shopping list presented to the Saudis on two visits to the kingdom since he came to office in August. Ironically, the killing in Istanbul of Jamal Khashoggi got the Pakistani prime minister what the chastened Saudis had denied him earlier as a reward for his participation in a major investors’ conference in Riyadh that Western leaders, politicians and company boycotted in the wake of the Saudi journalist’s gruesome murder: US$6 billion in deferred oil payments and a deposit in the central bank to alleviate Pakistan’s cash crunch. (31)

Conclusion

Armed with the Saudi aid, Khan arrives in Beijing more confident that he can secure similar Chinese support. His talks are likely to be clouded by the question whether and, if so, what geopolitical price he may have paid for the Saudi aid. Ensuring that Pakistan, home to the world’s largest Shiite minority, does not snuggle up too much to Iran has become even more crucial for Saudi Arabia as it seeks in the wake of Khashoggi’s death to enhance its indispensability to US President Donald J. Trump’s effort to isolate and cripple Iran economically, if not to engineer a change of regime in Tehran. Trump sees Saudi Arabia as central to his strategy aimed at forcing the Islamic republic to halt its support for proxies in Yemen and Lebanon, withdraw its forces from Syria, and permanently dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.

Saudi financial support means that Khan may find it more difficult to shield Pakistan from being sucked into the US-Saudi effort with potentially far-reaching consequences for Chinese investment, particularly in Balochistan. “There will be at a minimum Saudi expectations and perhaps even demands, when it comes to Pakistan’s support for issues that are of interest to the Saudi monarchy.

When he was an opposition figure, Mr Khan seemed to understand that and hence decried the secret deal that the previous PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz) rulers had struck with the Saudis in return for a loan,” Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language daily, said in an editorial. (32)

Pakistani finance minister Asad Umar denied that the Saudi support came with political strings. “The Saudis did not make any demands that we refused to meet. They made no demands. And this is the Pak-Saudi relation; it’s a people-to-people connection. They will stand by Pakistan’s side during our time of need,” Umar said. (33) Khan is moreover likely to argue in Beijing that Saudi and Chinese aid would reduce his need to turn for help to the IMF that would demand insight into the financial terms of CPEC-related projects.

Insurgents kidnapped a week before Khan’s visit to Saudi Arabia 14 Iranian security personnel, reportedly including Revolutionary Guards on the Iranian side of the border with Pakistan. Pakistan pledged to help liberate the abductees who are believed to have been taken across the border into Balochistan, long a militant and Baloch nationalist hotbed. (34) “Members of terrorist groups that are guided and supported by foreign forces carried this out through deceiving and bribing infiltrators,” the Guards said in a statement that appeared to blame Saudi Arabia and the United States without mentioning them by name.

Some ten billion years ago, the Milky Way merged with a large galaxy. The stars from this partner, named Gaia-Enceladus, make up most of the Milky Way’s halo and also shaped its thick disk, giving it its inflated form. A description of this mega-merger, discovered by an international team led by University of Groningen astronomer Amina Helmi, is now published in the scientific journal Nature.

Large galaxies like our Milky Way are the result of mergers of smaller galaxies. An outstanding question is whether a galaxy like the Milky Way is the product of many small mergers or of a few large ones. The University of Groningen’s Professor of Astronomy, Amina Helmi, has spent most of her career looking for ‘fossils’ in our Milky Way which might offer some hints as to its evolution. She uses the chemical composition, the position and the trajectory of stars in the halo to deduce their history and thereby to identify the mergers which created the early Milky Way.

Gaia’s second data release

The recent second data release from the Gaia satellite mission last April provided Professor Helmi with data on around 1.7 billion stars. Helmi has been involved in the development of the Gaia mission for some twenty years and was part of the data validation team on the second data release.

She has now used the data to look for traces of mergers in the halo: “We expected stars from fused satellites in the halo. What we didn’t expect to find was that most halo stars actually have a shared origin in one very large merger”.

Thick disk

This is indeed what she found. The chemical signature of many halo stars was clearly different from the ‘native’ Milky Way stars. “And they are a fairly homogenous group, which indicates they share a common origin”. By plotting both trajectory and chemical signature, the ‘invaders’ stood out clearly. Helmi: “The youngest stars from Gaia-Enceladus are actually younger than the native Milky Way stars in what is now the thick disk region. This means that the progenitor of this thick disk was already present when the fusion happened, and Gaia-Enceladus, because of its large size, shook it and puffed it up.”

In a previous paper, Helmi had already described a huge ‘blob’ of stars sharing a common origin[1]. Now, she shows that stars from this blob in the halo are the debris from the merging of the Milky Way with a galaxy which was slightly more massive than the Small Magellanic Cloud, some ten billion years ago. The galaxy is called Gaia-Enceladus, after the Giant Enceladus who in Greek mythology was born of Gaia (the Earth goddess) and Uranus (the Sky god).

The data on kinematics, chemistry, age and spatial distribution from the native Milky Way stars and the remnants of Gaia-Enceladus reminded Helmi of simulations performed by a former PhD student, some ten years ago. His simulations of the merging of a large disc-shaped galaxy with the young Milky Way produced a distribution of stars from both objects, which is totally in line with the Gaia data. “It was amazing to look at the new Gaia data and realize that I had seen it before!” said the astronomer.

By N Sathiya Moorthy

Independent of the domestic outcomes of the current constitutional crisis in Sri Lanka, it may have already opened up the floodgates for a neo-Cold War centred on South Asia, and knocking at India’s multiple gates already. For a ‘thinking’ Sri Lankan politician, ‘sacked’ UNP Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, may have done the unthinkable by inviting select western diplomats, and also the Indian envoy, to explain his case, keeping out countries like China and Russia, among others. This may have medium and long-term consequences, not only for Sri Lanka but also for the region as a whole, whether or not it spreads out to other regions and continents, as with the forgotten ‘Cold War.’

According to media reports, the deputy high commissioner at Colombo represented India at Wickremesinghe’s briefing. Unlike American and European friends/allies, India also maintained cautious silence on the first day. By the time India’s official statement appeared on Sunday, the ground situation had become clearer with some indication that the Wickremesinghe ‘government’ could well clear a floor-test, whenever held. This does not necessarily mean that the ‘whenever’ part cannot remain eternal, or there cannot be many a slip between the cup and the lip.

This reality may have also prompted Chinese Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan to call on Wickremesinghe a day after he had met with ‘rival prime minister’ Mahinda Rajapaksa, sworn in by controversial President Maithripala Sirisena, after office and court hours on 26 October 2018. As official statements said, Amb. Xueyuan conveyed to Rajapaksa Chinese President Xi Jinping’s congratulatory message on his assuming the ‘prime ministership.’

Nothing much has been said about Amb. Xueyuan’s meeting with Wickremesinghe. It is also unclear if China, after waking up to an unanticipated situation, began running with the hare after hunting with the hound. However, the uninformed observer cannot be blamed, if he likened the situation, thus.

Surprise element

The only thing that has remained ‘non-controversial’ about Sirisena thus far is that of his constitutional position as President. It used to be so in the case of Wickremesinghe, too, until Friday evening — not any more, at least until he is able to prove his parliamentary majority for real, and/or seeks and obtains a favourable verdict from the nation’s Supreme Court.

Before this real show-down, Sirisena and Wickremesinghe had indulged in many, many rounds of shadow-boxing and dog-fights, so much so the Sri Lankan nation had stopped taking them seriously. What mattered to the people was the effect of the same, as it involved governmental policy (as with Hambantota debt-equity swap-deal involving China) and massive financial losses (Central Bank bonds scam). The more recent ones involved India, taking them from a breakdown to a showdown.

In the past, on most such issues, Wickremesinghe and his UNP ministerial colleagues got caught on the wrong foot. Sirisena played ‘catcher’, who would then give the impression that but for him at the helm, worse would have happened to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans. It is this ‘watch-dog’ personality that Sirisena sought to convey in his national address on Sunday, the first one after what Team Ranil dubs a ‘constitutional coup.’

If Sirisena’s SLFP-UPFA ministers did not get similarly caught like their UNP alliance partners, one reason was that the latter would never allow them to dip their hands in the till. It was also the personal grouse of most of them, leading to and ‘justifying’ the UPFA withdrawal of support to the Ranil leadership.

Otherwise, Sirisena also retained the ‘surprise element’ this time as he had done while quitting the Rajapaksa Government and challenging him in the presidential polls of 2015. Sirisena won the election, but Wickremesinghe and his (international) backers did not seem to have learnt enough about the man by then, or even later.

Neighbourhood concerns

For India, as with common neighbour Maldives, democracy and constitutional propriety seems to have become an overnight concern in Sri Lanka, too. As Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said on Sunday, India was closely following the political developments in Sri Lanka and expressed the “hope that democratic values and constitutional process will be respected.”

This could well imply that India may wait for any direction/verdict from the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, if and when moved. Though Wickremesinghe’s UNP Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has contested President Sirisena ‘unilaterally’ proroguing Parliament when the Budget was to be presented on 5 November, the interregnum may have unwittingly given the Supreme Court to give its firm views in the matter.

If team Ranil were to move the Supreme Court, very many questions could be agitated. The first and foremost concerns the legitimacy and constitutionality of Sirisena’s decision to ‘sack’ Wickremesinghe, which according to the latter, was ‘invalid’ under the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution that they had got passed. On the question of proving a majority, who between Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa, should be allowed to face a floor-test?

While Sri Lankan legal experts may count on British author May’s Parliamentary Practice, from among the South Asian nations, India has vast and varied constitutional literature and court verdicts in the matter. This includes the Supreme Court’s landmark verdict in the S.R. Bommai case (1994) and various off-shoots, and also such compendiums as the one by Kaul & Shakder and going by the same title.

Multi-faceted, but…

The fallout of the Sri Lankan problem now on India is multi-faceted and none of them is going to be easy to address and/or decide upon. They are not stand-alone, either. The MEA statement on Sunday, specifically, referred to continued development assistance to Sri Lanka, implying a tentative tilt towards Wickremesinghe, if at all. Given that India development projects were at the centre of the most recent tiff between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, New Delhi can forget its offer, at least for a while, whichever Sri Lankan stake-holder wins (for) now.

Despite the tall-talk after his recent discussions with Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi, Wickremesinghe was taking a pot-shot at Sirisena more than anything else. In a near-similar context, as Prime Minister under President Chandrika Bandaranaike in 2004, Wickremesinghe had said that the “US is not going to like it,” when the latter had sacked some of his ministers unilaterally when he was still in an Oval Office meeting with President George Bush.

Wickremesinghe’s comments did not go down well with some of his intellectual supporters and some members of the strategic community back home, though they were even more vehement in their opposition to Bandaranaike’s decision as also her timing of the ministerial sackings. In particular, they did not approve of Wickremesinghe saying such things from the White House lawns, as if the US would back him if there was a show down, and thus threatening the Sri Lankan President of the day.

In taking India projects forward, Wickremesinghe may also be stymied by apprehensions of stirring up the majority ‘Sinhala nationalist constituency’, especially when India was purportedly at the centre of the current controversy — including the avoidable and unsubstantiated name-drawing of R&AW, India’s external intelligence agency, in a perceived plot to assassinate Sirisena. If the Sirisena-Rajapaksa duo won the gamble now, again India can forget the ‘development’ offer for some more time, but exactly for opposing reasons.

Ethnic issue and solution

In the immediate context, India may also get bogged down in the Sri Lankan ethnic issue, for which again, New Delhi’s then favourite, namely, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo did precious little in the past nearly four years. Not that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has done better on this score, other than playing hide-and-seek with the duo leadership, depending on the politico-electoral pressures that they faced from within the community than from friends like India.

The Sirisena-Rajapksa coup, if it could be called so, may have well tilted the limelight away from Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran, who has since floated a breakaway Tamil People’s Alliance (TPA), a day after remitting office at the end of the five-year term. In a way, Rajapaksa’s ‘post-Inauguration’ call for early polls refers only to Provincial Council polls of the kind (equal to Indian States but with powers akin to those of the Union Territories) — and not for the presidency or Parliament.

For now, the TNA too seems to be sending out confusing signals to the Sinhala stake-holders, though it may still be ‘Advantage Wickremesinghe’, if it came to a parliamentary show-down. But the TNA’s problem, as also of the Sinhala and international stake-holders, may occur, if the newly-formed TPA (and its prospective allies) decide(s) to field Wigneswaran as a ‘Tamil candidate’ in the presidential polls of 2019-20, the first one after the late Kumar Ponnambalam, as far back as 1977.

Democracy discourse

These are some of the short and medium-term pin-pricks for India, as much as it may end up being so for Sri Lanka, too, if only over the longer term. But over the long term, the Sri Lankan crisis may have drawn and drawn out the context and contents of a neo-Cold War in the immediate Indian Ocean neighbourhood, after whatever has happened and continues to happen in Maldives. For India, overnight, ‘democracy discourse’ has become the watch-word, not only in the domestic context, but also in terms of ’Neighbourhood Policy.’

At one-level, it is akin to the post-9/11 American and European concerns for democracy in such nations as other Asian Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, which Washington branded as an ‘Axis of Evil.’ Unlike in the case of the US and the EU, for India, such democracy concerns are in the immediate neighbourhood, not in distant lands.

Barring Pakistan, India’s real politico-diplomatic and geo-strategic concerns do not pertain to the other neighbourhood nations. Instead, it is now centred more on China than possibly Pakistan. India shares a 4000 km land border, up north and away from the seas in the south, where alone the current pro-democracy actions are situated.

As coincide would have it, increasing Chinese presence in individual countries in the immediate Indian neighbourhood have coincided with more and more democracy issues. There is nothing to suggest that China was/is the architect of any of these, but then, at least in the interim, and maybe over the longer period, China may become the geo-strategic beneficiary.

Apart from Sri Lanka and Maldives, which are only the two of the latest in the list, India already has democracy problems, among others, in Afghanistan, Nepal, and also Bangladesh. That is, leaving out Pakistan, but not excluding Bhutan, where yet another successful democratic transition has occurred for a third time in a row, after voluntary democratisation just a decade ago.

The new Bhutanese government, for instance, is pronouncedly centre-left, though not necessarily pro-China, by extension. Post-Doklam and before it, too, Bhutan had commenced border talks with China, and may continue it under the new government. The question thus before India is this: Should New Delhi see ‘democracy’ and ‘China factor’ as two sides of the same coin, or draw a line and look at their independent presence/absence in individual nations, on their own and on merit?

India can now take pride in former Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom thanking New Delhi for the ‘restoration of democracy’ in his country. Until outgoing Maldivian President and his half-brother Abdulla Yameen came to be dubbed ‘anti-democratic’, domestic and western critics used to call Maumoon Gayoom, ‘autocratic’ for 30 long years. India then had no problem in doing business with him, given New Delhi’s ‘geo-strategic priorities’ of the time, and since.

By Colin Dueck*

(FPRI) — How might international issues play into the coming U.S. midterm elections? The conventional wisdom is that foreign policy rarely matters in congressional midterms, and will have no impact this November. In reality, however, even a cursory glance at American political history reveals that foreign policy and related issues can have an important impact on midterm elections. Despite the voluminous good work on closely associated topics by journalists, political scientists, and historians, I’m not aware of a single scholarly book or article that focuses on the relationship between foreign policy and U.S. midterm elections over multiple cycles.[1] (Dear reader: If you know of one, please let me know.) Here’s a first crack at it.[2]

With regard to the political impact of international issues, there seem to be four types of U.S. midterm elections:

1. Quagmire. These are congressional midterm elections where the president’s party is punished by voter dissatisfaction with some protracted and inconclusive military intervention overseas. Clear examples include 1950 (Korea), 1966 (Vietnam), and 2006 (Iraq). In each case, the president’s party lost a great many seats in Congress, and popular frustration with an ongoing war was one major reason why. The midterms of 1942 might also be included in this category, insofar as voter frustration with wartime inconveniences played into Democratic losses that fall.
2. Presidential affirmation. These are midterm elections where the president’s own party picks up seats in Congress in significant ways because of the president’s perceived strengths on foreign policy or national security issues. Such elections are surprisingly rare. The one obvious example is 2002, where Republicans broke the usual midterm pattern and gained seats in both houses, partly due to George W. Bush’s high support ratings on counterterrorism at that time. Even the midterms of 1962, immediately following the Cuban missile crisis, do not fit this pattern. At best, Democrats were able to use John F. Kennedy’s effective handling of the October missile crisis to negate potential Republican criticism.[3] In the end, that November, Democrats picked up seats in the Senate, but lost them in the House.
3. Foreign policy as non-issue. These are congressional midterms where international issues are simply not politically important at all. Numerous midterm elections from the 19th and early 20th century would fall into this category, especially if trade and tariff policy is excluded.
4. Foreign policy as secondary but significant. Finally, these are midterm elections where foreign policy issues—though not of uppermost concern—can have an important impact at the margins. For example, during the 1994 midterm elections, the leading issues were indisputably domestic. But President Bill Clinton’s handling of a series of international security challenges—including Somalia, Haiti, and Bosnia—created political problems for numerous congressional Democrats at the ballot box that November.

Where does 2018 fit into the above categories?

This does not appear to be a quagmire election. Over the years, many American voters have grown tired of the war in Afghanistan. But the reduced U.S. presence, compared to its peak in 2011, has drawn the sting from that complaint. There is no evidence that frustration over Afghanistan is a significant political issue this fall. And with regard to the U.S.-backed campaign against ISIS, the Trump administration can point to significant success in rolling back the Islamic State at little cost in American lives. At the same time, President Donald Trump’s approval ratings on foreign policy, averaging in the low 40s, are not high enough to make a rare and ringing midterm presidential affirmation very likely. Nor are foreign policy issues, per se, of primary concern this November. For example, the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi—while of dramatic importance to U.S.-Saudi relations and beyond—is not a major point of contention in current U.S. midterm elections. The question this electoral season is whether the place of international issues overall lies in category 3 (non-issue) or category 4 (secondary but significant). I would suggest category 4, secondary but significant, and here’s why.

First, ever since the U.S. assumed a global strategic role in the 1940s, any president’s handling of this role has been a significant issue politically, including in midterm elections, even if only in the background. The question of whether specific presidents are viewed as competent or incompetent in managing America’s continuing international commitments is an inescapable political issue for both parties, and is bound up with broader perceptions of presidential leadership.

Second, beginning with his run for the White House, President Trump—specifically—has bundled together what might be called transnational issues, with conventional foreign policy ones, to create a distinctly nationalist political platform emphasizing the relationships between trade, immigration, counterterrorism, allied burden-sharing, and foreign policy. His political opponents have no choice but to address this issue bundling, whether they agree with it or not.[4]

Third, although the very top issues this November—health care, the economy, and Supreme Court appointments, to name three—are undoubtedly domestic, there is considerable polling evidence that foreign policy is of some real interest to voters right now. According to a September 2018 poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, 66% of voters say that “foreign policy and terrorism” is a very important issue in determining how they will vote. Republicans are even likelier than Democrats to consider terrorism a “very important issue.”[5] And when factoring in other transnational issues such as trade and immigration, along with broader perceptions of presidential leadership, the political significance of U.S. international policy becomes more fully apparent.

According to the Pew Research Center, trade policy is a “very important issue” for 55% of voters approaching the November elections.[6] Moreover, a number of Democratic congressional candidates in both agricultural and Rust Belt states have treated it as such, focusing in on concerns about trade disputes with U.S. allies.[7] Immigration policy for its part is undoubtedly a major issue this fall, with the two parties highly polarized. A survey recently conducted by the Washington Post with the Schar School at George Mason University indicated that 52% of voters describe immigration as “extremely important” in determining their vote. Indeed, 17% of Republicans say that immigration is the single most important issue for them electorally. President Trump’s leadership style is also under judgement this fall, and that necessarily includes his foreign policy leadership as part of his overall approach. A solid majority of American voters regularly indicates that Trump himself is a leading issue for them.[8]

Are there indications that international issues broadly defined favor one party over the other this November?

Numerous observers have argued that President Trump’s foreign policy approach will act as a liability for Republicans on November 6.[9] Perhaps, they think it should. But in reality, the evidence on this score is mixed. Polls taken by Quinnipiac University and the Pew Research Center in August and September, respectively, showed Democrats with a 3-to-8 point lead over Republicans on foreign policy issues. These polls, along with others by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, further showed Democrats with a 4-to-10 point lead on the issue of immigration.

Yet, when the question is posed as one of illegal immigration or border security, in these same polls, Republicans take the lead over Democrats by a margin of anywhere from 3-to-11 points. The White House is certainly aware of this, and looks to be emphasizing it in the final days of the midterm election season.[10] National security, according to the Quinnipiac poll, also continues to be a strong issue for Republicans, by a margin of 8 points. And when asked which party is now preferred on “protecting America’s interest on trade issues,” according to NBC News, voters prefer Republicans over Democrats by a margin of anywhere from 8-to-17 points.[11]

One notable foreign policy achievement in recent weeks was the successful renegotiation of NAFTA with Canada and Mexico. To reach this point, all three countries made significant concessions.[12] For those congressional Republicans nervous about their own re-election as well as the president’s trade policies, this agreement could hardly come too soon.[13] Critics will note that the new agreement only removes uncertainties originally introduced by Trump himself.[14] Still, the president ran and won the 2016 election on a platform clearly critical of NAFTA, and in pressing for its revision did what he said he would do. For Midwest farmers, U.S. exporters, congressional Republicans, America’s allies, and U.S. consumers as a whole, the conclusion of this revised agreement with two of America’s largest trading partners should be considered a success. The administration can now reasonably point to this agreement as evidence that the president does not look to dismantle international trade with allies per se, but is open to compromise involving revision of existing arrangements, with a growing common focus on the greater challenge from China.[15]

Viewed altogether, while international policy and related issues such as trade, immigration, and presidential foreign policy leadership may not be the primary driver of voting this season, they are still quite significant. November 6 will see a number of tight races to determine party control of both the Senate and the House. And as one seasoned observer notes, “In these tight races, everything matters.”[16] Of course, Republicans may very well lose control of the House of Representatives, for reasons having little to do with foreign policy. But what polling evidence does exist on these subjects suggests that international issues taken together will not hurt congressional Republicans as badly as once believed. In effect, particularly with the conclusion of the new NAFTA agreement, the administration may have removed foreign policy as a potentially damaging issue heading into the coming midterms. For Republicans interested in winning elections under current circumstances, this in itself counts as a kind of relief.

Finally, how might the midterm election results impact U.S. foreign policy?

Foreign observers—whether U.S. allies or adversaries—are paying close attention to these midterm elections, in the knowledge that voting results may have some impact on American foreign policy.[17] If Democrats take control of the House, for example, this will of course increase their ability through committee majorities to hold hearings, exercise oversight, and generally hold the president’s feet to the fire. This could complicate ongoing U.S. diplomatic negotiations in some cases. It could even lead to impeachment proceedings, depending upon the final outcome of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

One germane foreign policy question in 2019 will be whether congressional Democrats, possibly in control of the House, will support the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. Ironically, in these negotiations, President Trump delivered a number of policy revisions called for by organized labor and progressives over the years.[18] But of course congressional Democrats are also under intense pressure to oppose the Trump administration as a whole. It remains to be seen whether sufficient numbers of congressional Democrats can bring themselves to support a revised NAFTA concluded by this particular president.

On the GOP side, given the retirement of Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) and the death of John McCain (R-AZ), congressional Republicans face new leadership challenges on foreign policy and national security issues. In the Senate, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) now assumes the mantle for the perspective once represented by McCain. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) has carved out a strong role on key issues such as U.S. policy toward Cuba and Venezuela. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) has become an articulate proponent for the nationalist point of view. And Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) continues to be a prominent champion for libertarians. Interestingly, President Trump appears to have developed surprisingly good working relationships with all four of these senators—Graham, Rubio, Cotton, and Paul—regardless of their ideological differences.[19] In the House, look for current freshman Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI) to continue his rise as a leading Republican voice on national security matters.

Observers should note that in the American foreign policy system, as it has evolved since the 1940s, all presidents tend to assume remarkable leeway in exercising executive authority, regardless of congressional majorities. Significant midterm losses can and do often act as a calibration or check on overall presidential agendas. But in foreign policy, at least, recent presidents have tended to react to midterm losses with a forceful determination to continue on their settled course. This was certainly true of George W. Bush in 2006-07 with regard to Iraq. It was also true of Barack Obama in 2010-11 and 2014-15, for example in nuclear arms control negotiations with Iran.

Analysts should therefore consider the possibility that President Trump will react to any midterm losses, not by abandoning his overall foreign policy direction, but by maintaining its basic continuity alongside tactical adaptations.[20] Indeed, the conclusion of midterm election season might very well free up the president to pursue foreign policy directions he prefers in any case. This would be consistent with historical precedent. In an excellent study of past presidential elections and U.S. foreign policy, political scientist Kurt Taylor Gaubatz points out that presidents tend to hew closer to the median voter on key international issues before re-election.[21] If this logic holds true for midterm elections as well, then with or without GOP losses, Trump may take the midterms’ conclusion as reason to forge ahead on foreign policy and defy his critics—just as recent presidents have done.

About the author
*Colin Dueck is a Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and a Senior Fellow in the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI

Notes:
[1] On presidential elections and the prospect of U.S. military intervention, Kurt Taylor Gaubatz, Elections and War: The Electoral Incentive in the Democratic Politics of War and Peace (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999) is indispensable. A good overall study of U.S. midterm elections is Andrew Busch, Horses in Midstream: U.S. Midterm Elections and Their Consequences (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999).

[2] This essay also draws upon a related panel discussion held at the American Enterprise Institute on October 23 with Tom Davis, Rick Dearborn, Myra Miller, and Karlyn Bowman. For the full video of that discussion, see: http://www.aei.org/events/who-cares-foreign-policy-and-the-2018-midterm-elections/.

[3] Timothy McKeown, “The Cuban Missile Crisis and Politics as Usual,” Journal of Politics 62:1 (February 2000), 70-87; and Thomas Paterson and William Brophy, “October Missiles and November Elections: The Cuban Missile Crisis and American Politics, 1962,” Journal of American History 73:1 (June 1986), 87-119.

[4] Trevor Thrall, “Will Trump’s foreign policy matter for the midterms?” The Hill, August 9, 2018.

[5] AEI Political Report: A Monthly Poll Compilation 14:9 (October 2018), p. 3.

[6] AEI Political Report, p. 4

[7] Michael Collins, “In the farm belt and manufacturing hubs, tariffs and trade turn into election issues,” USA Today, October 9, 2018.

[8] Scott Clement and Dan Balz, “Survey of battleground House districts shows Democrats with narrow edge,” Washington Post, October 8, 2018.

[9] Natasha Korecki, “Poll: Trump’s overseas ‘chaos’ gives Democrats and edge in midterms,” Politico, August 8, 2018.

[10] Julie Hirschfield Davis, “GOP Finds an Unexpectedly Potent Line of Attack: Immigration,” New York Times, October 14, 2018. This development was accurately predicted months ago by Freddy Gray, “Trump is ‘vice-signaling’ over immigration – and it’s going to work,” The Spectator, June 19, 2018.

[11] AEI Political Report, pp. 5-6. A 17-point advantage for the GOP on issues of trade was noted by Janet Hook, “Interest in Midterm Surges, Along With Trump Approval Rating,” Wall Street Journal, October 21, 2018.

[12] Robert Fife and Adrian Morrow, “Canada, U.S. reach tentative NAFTA deal; Trump approves pact,” The Globe and Mail, October 1, 2018; Edward Helmore, “Global stocks soar on U.S.-Mexico trade breakthrough as Canada is sidelined,” The Guardian, August 28, 2018; and Jacob Schlesinger, Kim Mackrael and Vivian Salama, “U.S. and Canada Reach NAFTA Deal,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2018.

[13] Justin Sink, “Trump’s New NAFTA Deal Comes Just in Time for the Midterms,” Bloomberg, October 1, 2018; and Ben White, “Trump’s trade wars start biting GOP ahead of midterms,” Politico, September 24, 2018.

[14] James Pethokoukis, “Trump’s new trade deal with Canada and Mexico fixes what he broke,” NBC Think, October 2, 2018.

[15] Aaron Back, “New Trade Deal Sets Stage for Contest with China,” Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2018.

[16] Collins, “Tariffs and trade turn into election issues.”

[17] Robbie Gramer, “Will Republicans Lose Their Majority in Congress? Ask Pyongyang,” Foreign Policy, October 8, 2018; and David Ignatius, “Trump’s friends overseas are very, very nervous about the midterms,” Washington Post, August 21, 2018.

[18] Schlesinger, Mackrael and Salama, “U.S. and Canada Reach NAFTA Deal.”

[19] Marc Caputo, “Trump’s team gets payback for Rubio on Venezuelan assassination plot,” Politico, May 22, 2018; Eliana Johnson, “Trump connects with Rand ‘at gut level’,” Politico, August 8, 2018; John McCormack, “The Neo-Trumper,” Weekly Standard, June 22, 2018; and Jason Willick, “A Foreign Policy for ‘Jacksonian America’,” Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2017.

[20] Jamie Fly, “Do Not Look for Foreign Policy Change,” German Marshall Fund, October 23, 2018.

[21] Gaubatz, Elections and War, 49-50, 78-79, 126-27, 142-45.

By James Bovard*

The #MeToo movement is spurring millions of Americans to reconsider the meaning of consent in sexual relations. But there is another realm where far too much has been presumed because of often token gestures. Political consent is defined radically differently than the consent that people freely give in their daily lives.

The Declaration of Independence enshrined the notion that government must possess “the consent of the governed.” Unfortunately, winning politicians often claim blank checks to define the hidden meaning behind citizens’ ballots. “Consenting” on Election Day is portrayed as pre-approving anything politicians dictate in the following years.

Regardless if your candidate campaigned on a peace platform, you “consented” to any wars he might subsequently start or support . Regardless if your candidate promised to end federal crackdowns on marijuana , you “consented” to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s raids on medical cannibis cooperatives. Regardless if your candidate promised to end deficit spending, you “consented” to trillions of dollars of additional federal debt. Regardless if your candidate promised transparency and honesty, you consented to the government keeping millions of secrets and shrouding its worst abuses.

Government agencies structure their policies to make even more absurd presumptions of “consent” in daily life.

Because you traveled abroad, you supposedly consented to Department of Homeland Security agents examining and copying all the records on your cell phone or computer when you return to the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are fighting this policy in federal court but this Obama-era policy remains the law of the land.

Because you bought an airline ticket, you supposedly consented to being pawed by a Transportation Security Administration agent, including an “enhanced patdown” that often includes vigorously groping Americans’ groins (regardless of TSA’s incompetence at discovering actual threats).

Because you chose to use the Washington or New York subway, you have consented to a warrantless search of your backpack or purse by local police who receive a federal grant to conduct security theater performances.

Because you drive on government roads, you supposedly consented to federally-funded license plate scanners compiling a dossier of when and where you travel. And for anyone who objects to federal, state, and local agencies tracking them at almost all times (including when they visit gun shows ), remember that “those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.”

Presumed consent entitles government to do as politicians please. Because Americans “consented” to George W. Bush and Barack Obama’s presidential candidacies, their appointees authorized the National Security Administration to create massive databases compiling details on all the phone calls they made or received. In millions of cases, NSA also vacuumed up Americans’ emails and web browsing history . Even though presidents denied they were illegally spying on Americans, voters still presumably “consented.” Americans may be shocked in the coming months and years to learn of illegalities they purportedly “consented” to when Trump was elected.

Political consent is defined these days as rape was defined a generation or two ago: people consent to anything which they do not forcibly resist. Anyone who does not stone city hall presumably consented to everything the mayor does. Anyone who does not jump the White House fence and try to storm into the Oval Office consents to all executive orders. Anyone who doesn’t assail the nearest federal office building consents to the latest edicts in the Federal Register. And if people do attack government facilities, then they are terrorists who can be justifiably killed or imprisoned forever.

Ironically, the Founding Fathers proffered a notion of political consent much closer to what #MeToo activists are championing nowadays. The Bill of Rights provided bright lines which politicians were prohibited from crossing regardless of vote counts. The Bill of Rights was a sacred pledge that politicians admitted they had no right to censor the press, confiscate private firearms, suppress religion, or inflict cruel and unusual punishment on citizens. The fact that politicians routinely often violate Americans’ constitutional rights does not make the Bill of Rights any less binding.

Regardless of the outcome of the midterm congressional elections, we should remember that members of Congress and the president took oaths promising to honor and defend the Constitution. In the same way that consenting to a dinner date does not entitle someone to bind and beat another person, consenting in a voting booth does not entitle politicians to ravage Americans’ rights. A strict adherence to the Bill of Rights is the surest way to reduce perils after Election Day.

About the author:
*James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012’s Public Policy Hooligan, and 2006’s Attention Deficit Democracy. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.

Source:
This article was published by the MISES Institute

The Iranian people from all walks of life are slated to participate in rallies across the country to mark the anniversary of US Tehran embassy takeover and express their opposition to the arrogant policies and attitudes of the enemies, particularly the US.

In a statement released on Thursday, Iran’s Islamic Propagation Coordination Council said the rallies will be held in Tehran and other cities on Sunday morning, November 4, under the motto of “Hayhat Minna al-Dhilla (never to humiliation!)”.

The council also called on the country’s people from every walk of life to take part in the nationwide rallies.

In the capital city of Tehran, the rally to mark the anniversary of the landmark move is held at the venue of the former US embassy, which is known by Iranians as “Den of Espionage”.

On November 4, 1979, and in less than a year after the victory of the Islamic Revolution that toppled a US-backed monarchy, Iranian university students who called themselves “students following the line of (the late) Imam (Khomeini)” seized the US embassy in Tehran, which had become a center of espionage and planning to overthrow the newly established Islamic system in Iran.

The students who seized the embassy later published documents proving that the compound was indeed engaged in plans and measures to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

Every year on the 13th day of the Iranian month of Aban (which this year falls on November 4), the Iranian nation, particularly students, hold rallies across the country to mark the day.

Meanwhile, the US government has decided to re-impose what it calls crippling sanctions on Iran on November 4 this year.

On May 8, US President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

The White House has also announced plans to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero and launch a campaign of “maximum economic and diplomatic pressure” on Iran.