Celiac disease is a severe autoimmune disorder of the intestine. It occurs when people develop sensitivity to gluten, a substance found in wheat, rye, and barley. An international research team from Italy and France has now uncovered a new molecular player in the development of gluten intolerance. Their discovery, published in The EMBO Journal, suggests potential targets for the development of therapeutic approaches for the disease.

Celiac disease can appear in people who are genetically predisposed, but it is triggered through environmental factors. When people suffering from celiac disease eat gluten, their immune system triggers a response against their body’s own cells, damaging the mucosal surface of the small intestine. About 1 in 100 people suffer from celiac disease, but the prevalence is about three times higher in patients who also suffer from cystic fibrosis.

“This co-occurrence made us wonder if there is a connection between the two diseases at the molecular level,” said Luigi Maiuri of the University of Piemonte Orientale in Novara and San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan, Italy, who led the research together with Valeria Raia (University Federico II of Naples, Italy) and Guido Kroemer (University of Paris Descartes, France).

Cystic fibrosis is characterized by the build-up of thick and sticky mucus in the patients’ lungs and intestine. It is caused by mutations of the gene coding for cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). CFTR is an ion transport protein that plays an important role in keeping mucus fluid – when it fails, the mucus clogs up. Moreover, CFTR malfunction triggers a number of additional reactions in the lungs and other organs including intestine by activation of the immune system. These effects are very similar to the responses triggered by gluten in celiac patients. Maiuri, Kroemer and their colleagues took a closer look at the molecular underpinnings of these similarities.

Gluten is difficult to digest, so that relatively long protein parts – peptides – enter the intestine. Using human intestinal cell lines that are sensitive to gluten, the researchers found that one specific peptide, P31-43, directly binds to CFTR and impairs its function. This interaction triggers cellular stress and inflammation, suggesting that CFTR plays a central role in mediating gluten sensitivity in celiac patients.

Moreover, the interaction between P31-43 and CFTR can be inhibited by a potentiator of CFTR, called VX-770. When intestinal cells or tissue samples collected from celiac disease patients were pre-incubated with VX-770 before being exposed to P31-43, the peptide did not elicit an immune reaction. Thus, VX-770 protects gluten-sensitive epithelial cells from the detrimental effect of gluten. In addition, the researchers found that VX-770 could protect gluten-sensitive mice from gluten-induced intestinal symptoms.

There is, as yet, no cure for celiac disease; the only therapeutic strategy is to keep a strict diet. However, the current study is a promising step towards the development of a treatment. It suggests that CFTR potentiators, which have been developed to treat cystic fibrosis, may also be explored as a starting point for the development of a remedy for celiac disease.

(For the poetry book “Fateful space” by Jeton Kelmendi, published by Data Pesnopoj, Bitola, 2018)

Jeton Kelmendi is a poet who has his first step forward in the poetry from the state of solid silence. Reading his poetry we have an impression that his verse universe doesn’t correspond to our enthusiasm and so a priori we cannot lean on our exaltation. The reflection on these verses with staccato rhythm states us to establish a phenomenological deal with that sparse, but very wordy verse and it would be rhetorically pronouncing those verses internally, in our lingual optimum and by rethinking before interpreting them. Always, when we attempt to learn some foreign language, we consider it learnt only when we learn to think on that language. “Fateful space” is a book with wide semiology panopticum of its verse. The pulse of the strophes, while the poem flows, seems as if they are constructing on their own. That poem infuses in our knowledge so far and states us to rethink again the issue it has themed and to return on the phenomenological constellation of all verse stipulations and then, to close the book just for in a few minutes to open it again and carry ourselves inside.

Generally, Jeton Kelmendi’s poetic adventure is moving in three esthetic directions – lyrics, reflective and epic iconoclastic. Even though, his lyric poetry occasionally enters a stormy and contradictory apotheosis of the female virginity, it makes us to consider the woman herself, not only in erotic, but in existential context as well. That means that this very interesting author’s love poetry is not only one-linear reaching to the secret and intimate corridors, but it’s a part of the suffering, compatible with one so far uninvestigated female principle of the painful passion:

”And you
Dreamed lyric poetry
About love
All directions have only one way
You, who didn’t spoil the willingness of the dream
What do you demand of the reality,
Where Yesterday becomes The Day Before,
And tomorrow becomes today,
You took all mine with you,
And scattered them so far of me,
Far of you,
I always afraid
It could be very late.”
What do you demand of the reality

The time catalyst in Kelmendi’s lyric poetry sounds like suffering, and it’s continuously present in almost all poems which are treating love, woman and the atavism of the female sense. The poems like: “I Dream Her Sleeping Inside Me”, “A Devilish Ghost”, “Hoe To Name You”, “We Love Each Other With Words”, “After the Introducing”, and as well as the longer one “Lady’s Word”, are mixing that alchemy of the love turbulences imposing one experiment both inside the verse essence as well as in the content and formal meaning. The love lyricism of Jeton Kelemndi’s excites with its uniqueness exactly because of the ambivalence of the verse itself, its magic dualism whose impression leads us into reaching our own conclusions, but only after the second, or maybe after the third reading of the book.

The reflection, the philosophy aspect of this poetry book flows through the veins of general reminiscences, who stream through the verse penetrate into an eclectic decisiveness, leading us, as readers, not to keep only on the generality, but to find all considerations and deliberations in our life experiences and to establish conclusions on our own.

It took place as the blades were being sharpened for a palace coup in August. On Radio National’s breakfast program, Deputy Leader of Labor, Tanya Plibersek was tight lipped to her interlocutor. The issue posed to her party was the eligibility of the then recently resigned Home Affairs minister, Peter Dutton, chief knife wielder and executioner against Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Plibersek, it transpired, had received advice earlier in the year that might leave Dutton without his seat. But what also surfaced was a certain, carefree irresponsibility: instead of making use of that material, Labor had a useful weapon to keep in storage.

When necessary, the strategists in opposition could refer Dutton to the Australian High Court, claiming his ineligibility under section 44 of the Australian Constitution. While other sitting members have fallen on the sword of dual-nationality and owing allegiance to a foreign power (s. 44(i)), the case with Dutton is pecuniary in nature, posing a potential conflict of interest (s. 44(v)).

That limb of the provision states that any person who “has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth” is disqualified from sitting in the chambers of parliament. As he is a beneficiary of a discretionary family trust which, through its trustee, owns two childcare centres in Queensland which have been in receipt of childcare subsidies, the issue of a “pecuniary interest” might arise.

The undergrowth of legal argument over this is suffocatingly dense. One of Australia’s foremost constitutional authorities, Anne Twomey, suggests that Dutton might have an out: that the childcare centres in question “merely receive the subsidy on behalf of the parents and do not have an agreement with the public service.” But if an agreement is, in fact, found, an indirect pecuniary interest might be identified.

To date, the Solicitor-General has given the most inadequate of band aids to the government. (As he knows, never second guess the judicial heads on the bench.) Stephan Donaghue, back in August, was scrupulous in covering all his exits, lest egg find its way to his unsuspecting face: Dutton was “not incapable” of sitting as a member of parliament, but there was “some risk” that the High Court might see the “substantial size of the payments” arising from subsidies as a problem. “However, for a variety of reasons, I have been briefed with very little factual information.” Yet again, darkness descends where light should enlighten.

The High Court has given some clue about its brutal and merciless reading of s. 44(v). Family First senator Bob Day was one such individual to fall foul of that section, another instance of the High Court’s enthusiastic policing of the constitution’s invalidating procedures. Chief Justice Kiefel and Justices Bell and Edelman noted an exemption: there would be “no relevant interest if the agreement in question is one ordinarily made between government and citizen.” The senator was not so lucky.

The conditions have shifted again, tickling Labor into action. The Coalition government has received yet another blow directed from within the party room: MP Julia Banks has joined the ranks of those “three female independent representatives” who sport “sensible, centre, liberal values”. The Liberals are now another representative short, accused of falling into the arms of woman-hating “reactionaries”. The recently elected independent member for Wentworth, Kerry Phelps, has also put the feelers out for a prospective referral.

True to parliamentary form, Christopher Pyne, the leader of the House, has retaliated with his own variant of political poison gas: should Labor and Phelps wish to push the issue of referring Dutton to the High Court, the Coalition would seek to refer Phelps, and Labor MPs Mike Freelander and Tony Zappia.

The trio offer another bag of legal delights for the constitutional vultures: Phelps because of her being both a city of Sydney councillor and medical practitioner; Freelander because he was, like Phelps, a GP in receipt of Medicare subsidies; and Zappia for an alleged interest in his wife’s fitness centre. “My original position, of course,” claimed Pyne on Radio National, “is that we don’t have a constitutional issue but if they decide that he does and they want to send him there, they’ll have to send the other three as well.” How utterly sporting of him.

Far from being a matter of public duty, integrity and issue of good governance, section 44 and its eligibility requirements are weapons of choice for opponents. Even after the disastrous strafing of Parliament by a range of High Court decisions declaring certain sitting members to be ineligible (dual nationality can be a tricky, thorny thing), doubts louse the locks of certainty. Self-confidence on the part of politicians that their position is secure should be treated with hearty contempt, even more so than economic forecasts.

There is a logistical, and bureaucratic cock-up in waiting as well. Were Dutton actually found to be invalidly vested with power, his decisions under the Migration Act, it would follow, would be void. Legal eagles are also swooping upon the prospect that 1,600 decisions made by the minister to cancel visas of those convicted of a crime are null. Lawyers for a man designated FQM18 currently argue that, due to the breaches incurred under s. 44, Dutton is was “not constitutionally permitted to act as a minister” when he made a decision of non-revocation on February 6, 2018.

As the claim goes, in full, “At the time of the non-revocation decision, Mr. Dutton was incapable of sitting as a member of the House of Representatives of the commonwealth of Australia because he had a pecuniary interest in an agreement with the public service of the commonwealth in breach of s. 44(v) of the constitution.”

The Labor opposition has little reason to bear itself up as a proud example of parliamentary conduct. For them, as, for that matter, other political parties, Australia’s constitution has been an inconvenience and a godsend. It invalidating provisions for members of parliament lie in cold storage, only to be thawed and deployed when the winds blow favourably.

Section 44 has been used to eliminate enemies, unseat opponents and destroy the credibility of sitting members. It has added doubt to voters who no doubt wonder whether candidates and members can read basic paperwork. High Court fundamentalism, laced with opaque reasoning, has done the rest, leaving little room for error for anybody wishing to stand for the highest elected chambers in the country. Run for elected office at your peril.

The 20th century was a century of collapsing empires. Even though it is considered that the last of them, the French and British, disintegrated following World War II, the Soviet Union fitted in many ways into an empire model.

The Soviets hated the word “empire”. It was associated with everything negative that the leaders of the Soviet state of the 1920s had fought against. The Soviets intended to give more autonomy to the peoples, Georgians, Ukrainians and others, of the former Russian Empire, thus creating a state where every big nation was equal and small ethnic groups were given some sort of autonomy.

But from the 1930s onwards, the new Soviet elite started to evolve in such a way that more and more ethnic Russians were taking over major positions in state structures. The rise of the Russians within all the major cultural, political and industrial positions might be seen as proportionate to the number of Russians in the Soviet Union. True, the Russians constituted the biggest single nation in the Union, but they were still fewer than 50% of the total number of the population. This very fact makes the Soviet Union, bastion of anti-imperialism, a pure imperial state, a state where the Russians had to take on huge financial and human resources to control and develop the outlying territories around the Russian heartland: the space from the Baltic Sea and the Ural Mountains southwards to the Black and Caspian Seas.

Almost the same distribution, 44%, of ethnic Russians existed in the Russian Empire before 1917 and, again, the political elite put pressure on the core Russian resources to control the imperial periphery and wage wars with the neighboring states. In a way, the dissolution of the Russian and Soviet Empires was a result of the unwillingness of the Russian nation to bear further the brunt of administering Ukraine, Belarus, the South Caucasus and the Central Asia.

Modern Russia

Thus, when the Soviet state broke up in 1991, the Russians, for the first time in the last 500 years, had a possibility to build a nation-state within the borders of the modern Russian Federation. Ethnic Russians now constitute around 80% of the total population and, based on the numbers, it can be argued that a Russian nation-state has been achieved.

However, when one looks at the map of the country, the territories populated by the non-Russians are large and located at the borders with neighboring countries. Moreover, the Chechens, Tatars, Bashkirs and others have already been experiencing for a long period of time their own political and historical conscience (not necessarily based on democratic principles).

Where the ethnic Russians still hold a comfortable majority in the federation, various projections claim that that number will significantly decrease in the coming decades, while the number of the Muslim population will increase. This is troublesome for Moscow, as it will undermine the very base on which the modern borders of the Russian Federation exist. More Muslims will force Moscow to make concessions to North Caucasian and other minority-populated territories.

This is purely an imperial concern, which shows how, despite their numerical superiority, the balance of power within Russia is fluid (though spanning several decades) and depends on the core Russian elites and their loyalty to the government in Moscow.

These problems also reflect that an imperial pattern is still existent in Russia and, like many other empires of the 20th century, the modern Russian state too tries to homogenize the issues such as state structures, language of instruction at schools, etc.

The same happened under the Romanovs and the Soviets. Both systems started out giving concessions to large ethnic minorities to win their favor by taking into account the local and regional context when it came to methods of rule. However, later on they began implementing policies of gradual Russification (primarily through advancing the instruction of the Russian language), homogenization of government mechanism and inculcation of Russian patriotism.

Thus, what we are seeing in Russia, the non-continuation of the power-sharing agreement with Tatarstan, diminution of instruction of ethnic languages in the regions, as well as the Kremlin’s concern about Russian nationals living abroad, is highly reminiscent of the Romanov and Soviet policies.

Perhaps, we can expect in the near future an intensification of the process within Russia.

This article was published at Georgia Today

Seventeen percent of Russians are now ready to support the handing back to Japan of some of the Kurile Islands, up from only four to eight percent a decade or more above. This trend suggests, Yevgeny Rychkov of Nakanune says, “the powers that be using polls to prepare” Russians for such a transfer (nakanune.ru/articles/114648/).

Overwhelming majorities still oppose such a move, the journalist says, but the increase suggests two things. On the one hand, it is a clear indication that the Kremlin if it wants to can create support for such an “unthinkable” action among a population supposedly as committed as Vladimir Putin is never to give back anything that Russia has control of.

And on the other, while the Kuriles are a special case – they are tiny, although strategically important, and a key to a breaking apart of the international coalition against Moscow – they are far from the only case where a different approach by the Kremlin could make the return of territories far less unthinkable than many now believe.

Among the most obvious of these, of course, is returning Crimea to Ukraine from which Putin violently and illegally seized it and Abkhazia and South Ossetia which Putin used military force to detach from the Republic of Georgia. The new Russian polls should encourage those who oppose Putin’s imperialistic acts of aggression.

Of course, as commentator Boris Kagarlitsky says, there are two things to keep in mind: First, Russians are overwhelmingly opposed to giving back land to anyone lest that trigger a process over which they would lose control. And second, the Kremlin will decide what is in its interest rather than what is in the interest of the population on this issue as on all others.

If Russians are against giving back any territory but Putin decides it is in his interest to do so, the commentator says, then Russia will give it back; and if they shift and show a willingness to give back territories belonging to others but the Kremlin leader is opposed, then this won’t happen as long as he is in office.

But at the same time, it certainly appears that Putin wants to generate support for what he may be about to do one way or another and it also appears that the Russian people are not nearly as committed to the existing borders of the Russian Federation as many inside that country and abroad invariably assume.

Geographical position of any country makes its importance in world arena both in economic and strategic terms. Afghanistan located at prime location of Central Asia and shares borders with Pakistan, China, Iran, Central Asian States and adjacent to Middle Eastern Countries that are rich in oil and natural gas. Afghanistan pays its price for strategic location, different great games, played in this region not only for its natural resources but connecting different regions of the world. Afghanistan where no colonial power had a capacity to make a colony because of its history, the invasion of Soviet December 1979 changes the internal external dynamics of Afghan politics. In 1937, the French diplomat Rene Dollot described Afghanistan as “Switzerland of Asia”

Afghanistan has unique and significance geography makes its important in world arena that connects South Asia to Central Asia. Chinese dream to connect different regions of the world to boost the economic activity by developing the rail network, road infrastructure projects and ports to increase maritime trade. After the withdrawal of NATO and ISAF forces from Afghanistan in 2014, China become a major player in this conflict by playing its effective role to stable the internal situation of country. The Taliban “Spring Offensive” of 2016 after the end of winter a series of attack on Kabul and forces makes the situation critical.

China play an effective card in international politics by pursuing the agenda of economic cooperation since date backs in era of Silk Road. The relations were established in 1955 and then enhanced in 1964 as “Treaty of Economic and Technical Cooperation”. Afghanistan is lucky in terms of natural resources like iron, copper, marble, coal, precious metals, gemstones and hydrocarbon some which of them was discovered while most of them untapped due to ongoing conflict.

According to Afghan and American Geological Surveys, conducted between 2007and 2009, deposits of copper, mercury, rare-earth elements, sulfur, chromite’s, asbestos, potash, graphite, and sand and gravel were found in over 20 mineralized areas. The survey reveals that, “The most significant known metal deposits are of copper and iron. The total copper resources in Afghanistan range up to 60 million metric tons of copper of which the sediment-hosted copper deposits at Anya are estimated to contain nearly 30 million metric tons copper. Resources in undiscovered porphyry copper and skarn deposits are estimated to be about 28.5 million tons of copper, with additional molybdenum, gold, and silver resources. During the first decade of the 21st Century, trade between China and Afghanistan has steadily increased and China has emerged as one of the main exporters to Afghanistan. China is making substantive contributions in terms of developing the natural resources and infrastructure of Afghanistan”.

China first and foremost desire is to stable the Afghanistan internal situation. In this regard china play its effective role as regional player to overcome any foreign involvement in this region. That not only creates a tension but disturbing the regional political environment. According to Davood Moradiyan of Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies, Kabul, “The Chinese are ambiguous. They don’t want the Taliban to return to power and are concerned about a vacuum after 2014 that the Taliban could fill, but they also don’t like having U.S. troops in their neighborhood” another Chinese expert, Andrew Small, “If you look across Central Asia that is what has already happened. China is the only actor which can foot the level of investment needed in Afghanistan to make it succeed and stick it out”.

In addition to that, China purposing a constructive dialogue process, to engage Taliban on negotiation table, the only non- military solution of Afghan conflict. The win-win possibility is need of hour. Composite dialogue with all regional partners, Pakistan sharing porous border with Afghanistan, India dominating and close ally of Afghan government, Iran hold its strong footprints in this region and America the major stake holder of the conflict.

*Wajih Ullah student of Politics and International Relations in International Islamic University, Islamabad

The Vietnamese people, wary of Chinese expansionism, expect their leaders to control development, protecting culture and independence.

By Tom Fawthrop*

Few people had expected mass demonstrations to erupt throughout Vietnam in 2018, as the one-party state usually snuffs out dissent before many understand the issue or have a chance to mobilize.

A new law on special economic zones debated by the National Assembly in June triggered unprecedented protests. The public was especially indignant over a proposal to open three strategic locations in Vietnam to 99-year leases that would almost certainly end up in the hands of Chinese companies. Vietnam’s communist regime typically cracks down on calls for multiparty democracy. Even so, civil society and some reformist voices inside the government ranks can delay and revise unpopular policies tied to the country’s troubled history with China.

Former economic adviser to the government and member of the Communist Party Lê Đăng Doanh anticipated a “strong reaction from the Vietnamese people,” reported the South China Morning Post. He signed a petition to the National Assembly, urging postponement. The “strong reaction” erupted in at least six cities and towns including Ho Chi Minh City, Danang, Nha Trang, Vinh and Hanoi, apparently catching the security apparatus off-guard.

Vietnam has witnessed a series of smaller protests in recent years, primarily directed against the Chinese government supporting Vietnamese historic claims to islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam calls the contested body of water the “East Sea” or “Eastern Sea.” A human rights defender and blogger known to his 42,500 Facebook followers as Anh Chi explains: “recent protests by Vietnamese people have been strongly against the invasion, expansion and aggression by the Chinese government in the East Sea.” Chinese investment scandals also triggered protests over a 2009 bauxite mine project and a 2016 toxic spill, wiping out fish along 120 kilometers of coastline.

Vietnam’s internet penetration is just over 60 percent, according to UN data, and the country ranks seventh worldwide with its Facebook user base of 58 million. Critics suspect that China exchanges surveillance capabilities with Vietnam, but admit there is no hard evidence. “We know that the Vietnamese cybersecurity police are trained in China,” wrote blogger Manh Kim in June. “We cannot rule out that China has helped Vietnam to design and equip its cybersecurity infrastructure.”

Lively social media debate galvanized opposition to the draft law on economic zones. State-owned media even reported on the public alarm. Bishop Paul Nguyen Thai Hop, a leading figure for the Vietnamese Catholic community, stated in a petition to the National Assembly that the measure could “potentially harm our national interests, especially our security and sovereignty.” Nguyen Quang, former foreign ministry official and analyst, wrote that the Chinese “through their capitalist corporations have the capital and incentives to conquer these special zones as a soft invasion.”

Anh Chi admitted that he “rarely saw such public interest in the National Assembly, a legislature that usually acts as a rubber stamp for the Communist Party’s Central Committee.”

Tens of thousands of Vietnamese risked protesting online and in the streets because of the strategic locations for the economic zones. Vietnam specialist Carl Thayer explains that the zones could bring economic benefits, but the locations are sensitive: Quang Ninh is near the border with China; Phu Quoc island is within China’s nine-dash line claim at the southern extremity of the South China Sea, near Chinese projects and port construction in Cambodia’s coastal region; and Bac Van Phong is in Khanh Hoa province.

China would likely be the major investor in the three zones due to fast-expanding economic domination in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, part of its far-reaching Belt and Road Initiative. Vũ Quang Việt, former UN staff economist and contributor to Vietnamese media, is skeptical about benefits and suggests, “proposed incentives would only encourage property developments and casino projects, and would not enhance the hi-tech industries that Vietnam needs to boost its economy.”

Nguyễn Phú Trọng, as head of state and leader of Vietnam’s communist party, delayed the law’s passage until October and then again until May 2019 – a partial victory for the critics.

Vietnam’s leadership is determined to press ahead next year, but hopes that time, assisted by a clampdown on social media, especially Facebook, will subdue passions. Embarrassed security authorities have predictably imposed harsh sentences on leading dissidents and human rights campaigners with more than 80 jailed nationwide. The country also passed a new cybersecurity law, extending surveillance and censorship, to counter the opposition bloggers.

African-American children often are reported by parents and teachers to display behaviors of ADHD at a higher rate than children from other racial and ethnic groups. For the first time, researchers have found that African-American mothers in a study rated boys as displaying more frequent ADHD symptoms than Caucasian mothers did, regardless of child race. The findings mean that racial differences found in prior studies may be more due to maternal race than child race, said researcher George DuPaul of Lehigh University.

The findings are reported in this month’s Journal of Attention Disorders, in a special print issue on Parenting Youth with ADHD.

“The primary takeaway is that common psychological assessment measures like parent behavior questionnaires are influenced by race; these assessments are not happening in a cultural vacuum,” said DuPaul, a professor of school psychology who co-authored the paper, “Impact of Maternal and Child Race on Maternal Ratings of ADHD Symptoms in Black and White Boys,” led by Ph.D. candidate Charles Barrett, now a school psychologist. “Hopefully these findings will alert professionals conducting evaluations that race (particularly parental race) makes a difference in how children’s behavior is viewed.”

Although the study focused on assessing ADHD symptoms in African-American and Caucasian boys, the findings have significant implications for the manner in which school psychologists and other professionals understand children’s behavior for a host of suspected disabilities, said Barrett, who is lead school psychologist with Loudon County Public Schools in northern Virginia. “Most notably, our research underscores the importance of evaluators critically examining how factors that are beyond child behavior can influence diagnostic outcomes,” Barrett said.

Results shed new light on ADHD diagnosis

For the study, African-American and Caucasian mothers watched a brief video of either an African-American or Caucasian boy displaying behaviors associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), such as inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Mothers then completed a brief rating of the frequency of ADHD symptoms.

Mothers were randomly assigned to view either a Caucasian or African-American boy, making up four groups: African-American mothers viewing an African-American boy; African-American mothers viewing a Caucasian boy; Caucasian mothers viewing an African-American boy; and Caucasian mothers viewing a Caucasian boy. Children followed a script so that their behaviors were virtually identical.

Researchers found significant differences in ADHD symptom ratings as a function of maternal race, but not based on child race or the interaction between maternal and child race.

Based on past studies showing that African-American children, particularly boys, consistently receive higher scores on common ADHD assessment measures than Caucasian children do, the researchers expected child race to be the driving factor in accounting for differences in ratings of ADHD symptoms. Instead, “only small, nonstatistically significant effects for child race were found and the interaction between child and maternal race was also associated with small, nonstatistically significant effects,” they said. “Differences in ADHD symptom ratings were influenced almost entirely by maternal race.”

Accurate ADHD diagnosis is vital to treatment

Affecting 3 percent to 10 percent of the child population, ADHD is a chronic, neurodevelopmental disorder associated with significant academic and/or social impairment, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Thus, it is critical to identify children with ADHD in a reliable, valid fashion so that treatment resources, such as behavioral therapy, medication and behavioral parent training, are allocated to those in greatest need.

Current best practice in ADHD diagnosis involves multiple assessment methods and respondents to document symptoms and impairment across home and school settings, including observations by parents and teachers.

While several studies have found that adults rate the severity of ADHD symptoms higher in African-American children than in Caucasian children, studies have also consistently found significantly lower diagnostic and treatment rates for ADHD in the African-American population. “Given the apparent disparities in diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, it is critical to more systematically examine racial differences in assessment outcomes,” the researchers said.

While other studies have used similar designs to look at differences in assessment of ADHD symptoms across countries, this is the first to look at racial differences in the United States, DuPaul said.

Participants in the study were 131 mothers recruited in suburban and urban locations in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern and Midwest regions of the U.S. About half of participants were Caucasian and half African-American, with both racial groups primarily from middle class socio-economic status.

Mental health professionals and others who work with children with ADHD are most likely to benefit from these findings, researchers said, but it is also important that parents, teachers and the general public are aware of the influence of race on the ADHD evaluation process.

As a school-based practitioner, Barrett and his colleagues often focus on children’s behavior, when child behavior is not the only variable to consider, Barrett said. “As the ultimate goal of assessment is not necessarily to uncover what is different about the child, willingness to explore and examine other variables leads to an equally important question of assessment: why child behavior is perceived differently by different people,” he said.

The study results are consistent with prior findings that assessment measures used to identify ADHD may produce quantitatively different results for African-American and Caucasian children who have similar treatment needs, meaning that clinicians should not rely on a single method or respondent when screening or assessing for ADHD.

“Given consistent evidence of health disparities across racial groups with respect to ADHD, it is important to understand and address variables related to racial differences and to develop assessment measures that will provide equivalent data and lead to accurate diagnostic decisions across racial and ethnice subgroups,” the researchers said.

As demand for meat and dairy products increases across the world, much attention has landed on how livestock impact the environment, from land usage to greenhouse gas emissions.

Now researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are highlighting another effect from animals raised for food and the humans who eat them: the waste they all leave behind.

In a paper published in Nature Sustainability, the research team put forth what they believe is the first global estimate of annual recoverable human and animal fecal biomass. In 2014, the most recent year with data, the number was 4.3 billion tons and growing, and waste from livestock outweighed that from humans five to one at the country level.

“Exposure to both human and animal waste represent a threat to public health, particularly in low-income areas of the world that may not have resources to implement the best management and sanitation practices,” said Joe Brown, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “But estimating the amount of recoverable feces in the world also highlights the enormous potential from a resource perspective.”

Metals, phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium are all among the resources that could be recovered from human and animal waste. The researchers pointed to an earlier analysis that estimated the value of recoverable metals alone reaches $13 million a year from the waste of one million people.

The researchers looked at data from 2003 to 2014 as well as projections through 2030. The study combined global animal population data from the United Nations, human population data from the World Bank as well as earlier research on animal-specific estimates of fecal production.

From 2003 to 2014, the amount of waste biomatter produced grew annually by more than 57 million tons as both human and livestock populations grew. The researchers estimated that by 2030, the total amount of global fecal biomass produced each year would reach at least five billion tons, with livestock waste outweighing that from humans six to one at the country level.

“This paper demonstrates that building more latrines in developing parts of the world isn’t going to solve all of our waste management problems,” Brown said. “Animal waste has the potential to negatively impact health in many of the same ways as with human waste, from spreading enteric infections to hurting growth and cognitive development of the humans exposed.”

While chickens were the most plentiful livestock globally, cattle, with their larger body mass, produced the most fecal waste on the planet. As a result, countries with high numbers of cattle, such as those in the Americas, produced the most waste by mass.

The researchers estimated that by 2030, the planet’s total annual fecal and urinary biomass could contain as much as 100 million tons of phosphorus, 30 million tons of potassium, 18 million tons of calcium, and 5.5 million tons of magnesium, to name a few recoverable materials.

While much of the attention on reducing disease transmission has focused through the decades on pathogens associated with human waste, much less attention has been given to animal waste, the researchers wrote, despite livestock accounting for 80 percent of the global fecal biomass generated.

“Ultimately, shining a light on the amount of waste that we produce is the first step toward shaping policies and regional planning geared toward maximizing public health and resource recovery,” Brown said. “This is an area where there’s a huge need for attention and investment – to help develop next-generation waste management innovations, for both large-scale and small-scale animal husbandry operations, that will enable us to maximize human health and meet the global demand for natural resources.”

The near future of the global economy looks extremely bleak. This pessimistic forecast comes from advanced statistical analysis of the S&P 500 stock market index, recently published by scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Cracow.

Based on their analysis, the researchers explain why, in up to a dozen or so years, we can expect a financial meltdown such as never before – and explain why you have the chance to save the world by reading this text.

Black Monday, the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers. These events shook up the global economy. Soon, however, we may have to deal with such a gigantic collapse of financial markets that all previous crashes will appear as minor stumbling blocks in comparison. This catastrophic vision emerges from the multifractal analysis of financial markets presented in the pages of the highly valued magazine Complexity by scientists from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow – and it coincides with their previous forecasts from a dozen or so years ago.

“The data is, unfortunately, quite unambiguous. It seems that since the mid-2020s, a global financial crash of a previously unprecedented scale is highly probable. This time the change will be qualitative. Indeed radical!” says Prof. Stanislaw Drozdz (IFJ PAN, Cracow University of Technology).

In their latest publication, scientists from the IFJ PAN looked at various economic data, including the daily listing of Standard & Poor’s 500 index in the period from January 1950 to December 2016 (the S&P 500 is the largest global stock market index and includes the largest 500 companies, largely of a worldwide nature). The main goal of the Cracow researchers’ article was not to make catastrophic forecasts, but to credibly present issues related to the occurrence of multifractal effects (i.e. those in which in order to see self-similarity, different fragments of the structure under investigation have to be increased at different rates) in the financial time series (i.e. prices or stock market indices). The scientists’ attention was especially drawn to a graph showing changes in the Hurst exponent, calculated for the S&P 500 based on multifractal spectra obtained during the analysis.

The Hurst exponent can assume values from 0 to 1 and reflects the degree of susceptibility of a system to a change in trend. A value equal to 0.5 means that in the next measurement the fluctuating tested value has the same probability of changing up as of changing down. Values below 0.5 indicate a greater tendency to alternation in the directions of fluctuation: a rise in value increases the probability of a decrease or vice versa, which in the context of finances can be interpreted as a symptom of nervousness. Values above 0.5 indicate the persistent nature of the changes and the tendency for the system to build a trend. After an increase, there is then a higher probability of another increase, and after a decrease – a greater subsequent fall.

Stable, mature markets are recognized as being those whose Hurst exponent is equal to 0.5 or shows only slight deviations from this value. The Hurst graph for the S&P 500 does actually start at 0.5. On October 19, 1987, however, there was a crash – the famous Black Monday. The exponent then slightly decreased, but for more than a decade it remained relatively stable again. At the turn of the century there was a clear fall, and by March 2000, the dot-com bubble had burst. Just as before, the Hurst exponent again stabilized, but for a shorter period. Already at the end of the first decade, it suddenly began to grow rapidly, only to fall after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. From that moment, the Hurst exponent not only did not return to the value of 0.5, but in the last decade it has quite clearly and systematically fallen below the particularly worrying value of 0.4.

“What is also striking in the changes in the Hurst exponent for the S&P 500 is the shortening time intervals between consecutive crashes and the fact that after each collapse the indicator never returns to its original level. We have a clear signal here that the nervousness of the world market is growing all the time, for decades, regardless of changing people, business entities or technology,” notes Prof. Drozdz.

This observed dependence corresponds with another detected by Prof. Drozdz and his colleagues already in 2003. In their publication in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, one of the graphs shows the changes of the logarithm from the S&P 500 index starting from 1800 (values from before the introduction of the S&P 500 were reconstructed on the basis of historical data). The zig-zag curve bends along a sinusoid of increasing frequency, ever more dynamically ascending to the asymptote located around 2025. Each subsequent crash is preceded by smaller swings, quasi-mini-crashes, which have been called precursors. Many of the precursors have their own still smaller precursors, thus showing some self-similarity.

“The thing is that analogous self-similar dependence can also work on larger time scales. In which case, all previous crashes would only be precursors of a much larger and more dangerous event. When we come across a process with similar dynamics in physics, we talk about phase transition of the second type, such as the appearance or disappearance of magnetic properties in magnetic material around the Curie temperature,” says Prof. Drozdz.

The question concerning the credibility of such a pessimistic forecast remains open. If financial markets do not change qualitatively in the coming years, the worst-case scenario of the development of events has the chance of becoming a reality. However, one must bear in mind the significant difference between the worlds of mathematics or physics and the world of finance. Mathematical laws and models constructed within physics are effective and relatively uncomplicated, among others due to the internal simplicity and immutability of the objects they concern. Financial markets are much more complex. Their participants are changeable: they remember, they learn, they can react both logically and emotionally. There is no shortage of examples proving that when knowledge about a law with the power to forecast is disseminated among a significant number of market participants, the market changes rapidly and the detected regularity disappears. Will the same happen in the case of the impending hyper-crash?

The problem is that we do not know what or how something would have to affect the global market to prevent the impending collapse. One remedy may be, for example, the emerging markets of cryptocurrencies, but will they really become one? Nobody knows. It is not even certain whether, knowing about the changes that are necessary, it would be possible to introduce them in just a few years – and it does not look like we have a longer period at our disposal. The future of the world economy from the mid-2020s thus appears very gloomy.

“Probably, we are the only ones who can’t lose on this forecast. If the hyper-crash does occur, we will have shown the power of our multifractal statistical tools in a spectacular way. Personally, however, I would prefer for this not to happen. If this is the case and the hyper-crash does not occur, we will still have the quite acceptable interpretation that our forecast was… correct, but today’s press release will have influenced the behaviour of market participants and, well, we have just saved the world!” notes Prof. Drozdz, slightly tongue-in-cheek.

Following the latest events in the Black Sea two old questions are reappearing. Both are inviting us for a repeated elaboration:

If a Monroe doctrine (about the hemispheric security exclusivity) is recognised at one corner of the globe, do we have a moral right or legal ground to negate it at the other corner?

Clearly, the ‘might-makes-right’ as a conduct in international relations cannot be selectively accepted. Either it is acknowledged to all who can effectively self-prescribe such a monopoly of coercion, or it is absolutely condemned as contrary to behaviour among the civilised nations.
Next to the first question is a right of pre-emption.

It is apparent that within the Black Sea theatre, Russia acts in a pre-emptive and defensive mood. For the last 25 years, all the NATO interventions were outside its membership zone; none of the few Russian interventions over the same period was outside the parameter of former USSR.
Before closing, let’s take a closer look on the problem from a larger historical perspective.

Una Hysteria Importante

Historically speaking, the process of Christianization of Europe that was used as the justification tool to (either intimidate or corrupt, so to say to) pacify the invading tribes, which demolished the Roman Empire and brought to an end the Antique age, was running parallel on two tracks. The Roman Curia/Vatican conducted one of them by its hammer: the Holy Roman Empire. The second was run by the cluster of Rusophone Slavic Kaganates, who receiving (the orthodox or true/authentic, so-called Eastern version of) Christianity from Byzantium, and past its collapse, have taken over a mission of Christianization, while forming its first state of Kiev Russia (and thereafter, its first historic empire). Thus, to the eastern edge of Europe, Russophones have lived in an intact, nearly a hermetic world of universalism for centuries: one empire, one Tsar, one religion and one language.

Everything in between Central Europe and Russia is Eastern Europe, rather a historic novelty on the political map of Europe. Very formation of the Atlantic Europe’s present shape dates back to 14th–15th century, of Central Europe to the mid-late 19th century, while a contemporary Eastern Europe only started emerging between the end of WWI and the collapse of the Soviet Union – meaning, less than 100 years at best, slightly over two decades in the most cases. No wonder that the dominant political culture of the Eastern Europeans resonates residual fears and reflects deeply insecure small nations. Captive and restive, they are short in territorial depth, in demographic projection, in natural resources and in a direct access to open (warm) seas. After all, these are short in historio-cultural verticals, and in the bigger picture-driven long-term policies. Eastern Europeans are exercising the nationhood and sovereignty from quite a recently, thus, too often uncertain over the side and page of history. Therefore, they are often dismissive, hectic and suspectful, nearly neuralgic and xenophobic, with frequent overtones.

Years Of Useful Idiot

The latest loss of Russophone Europe in its geopolitical and ideological confrontation with the West meant colossal changes in Eastern Europe. One may look into geopolitical surrounding of at the-time largest eastern European state, Poland, as an illustration of how dramatic was it. All three land neighbors of Poland; Eastern Germany (as the only country to join the EU without any accession procedure, but by pure act of Anschluss), Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union have disappeared overnight. At present, Polish border countries are a two-decade-old novelty on the European political map. Further on, if we wish to compare the number of dissolutions of states worldwide over the last 50 years, the Old continent suffered as many as all other continents combined: American continent – none, Asia – one (Indonesia/ East Timor), Africa – two (Sudan/South Sudan and Ethiopia/Eritrea), and Europe – three.

Interestingly, each and every dissolution in Europe was primarily related to Slavs (Slavic peo-ples) living in multiethnic and multi-linguistic (not in the Atlantic Europe’s conscripted pure single-nation) state. Additionally, all three European fragmentations – meaning, every second dissolution in the world – were situated exclusively and only in Eastern Europe. That region has witnessed a total dissolution of Czechoslovakia (western Slavs) and Yugoslavia (southern Slavs, in 3 waves), while one state disappeared from Eastern Europe (DDR) as to strengthen and enlarge the front of Central Europe (Western Germany). Finally, countless centripetal turbulences severely affected Eastern Europe following the dissolution of the Soviet Union (eastern Slavs) on its frontiers.

Irredentism in the UK, Spain, Belgium, France and Italy, or Denmark (over Faroe Islands and Greenland) is far elder, stronger and deeper. However, all dissolutions in Eastern Europe took place irreversibly and overnight, while Atlantic Europe remained intact, with Central Europe even enlarging territorially and expanding economically.

Deindustrialized, Incapacitated, Demoralized, Over-Indebted, Re-Feudalized, Rarified And De-Slavicized

Finally, East is sharply aged and depopulated –the worst of its kind ever– which in return will make any future prospect of a full and decisive generational interval simply impossible. Honduras-ization of Eastern Europe is full and complete. Hence, is it safe to say that if the post-WWII Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was overt and brutal, this one is subtle but subversive and deeply corrosive?

The key (nonintentional) consequence of the Soviet occupation was that the Eastern European states –as a sort of their tacit, firm but low-tempered rebellion – preserved their sense of nationhood. However, they had essential means at disposal to do so: the right to work was highly illuminated in and protected by the national constitutions, so were other socio-economic rights such as the right to culture, language, arts and similar segments of collective nation’s memory. Today’s East, deprived and deceived, silently witnesses the progressive metastasis of its national tissue.
Ergo, euphemisms such as countries in transition or new Europe cannot hide a disconsolate fact that Eastern Europe has been treated for 25 years as defeated belligerent, as spoils of war which the West won in its war against communist Russia.

It concludes that (self-)fragmented, deindustrialized and re-feudalized, rapidly aged rarified and depopulated, (and de-Slavicized) Eastern Europe is probably the least influential region of the world – one of the very few underachievers. Obediently submissive and therefore, rigid in dynamic environment of the promising 21st century, Eastern Europeans are among last remaining passive downloaders and slow-receivers on the otherwise blossoming stage of the world’s creativity, politics and economy. Seems, Europe still despises its own victims…

Terra Nullius

Admittedly, by the early 1990s, the ‘security hole’– Eastern Europe, has been approached in multifold fashion: Besides the (pre-Maastricht EC and post-Maastricht) EU and NATO, there was the Council of Europe, the CSCE (after the 1993 Budapest summit, OSCE), the EBRD and EIB. All of them were sending the political, economic, human dimension, commercial signals, assistance and expertise. These moves were making both sides very nervous; Russia becoming assertive (on its former peripheries) and Eastern Europe defiantly dismissive. Until this very day, each of them is portraying the NATO enterprise as the central security consideration: One as a must-go, and another as a no-go.

No wonder that the absolute pivot of Eastern Europe, and the second largest of all Slavic states – Ukraine, is a grand hostage of that very dilemma: Between the eastern pan-Slavic hegemony and western ‘imperialism of free market’. Additionally, the country suffers from the consolidated Klepto-corporate takeover as well as the rapid re-Nazification.

For Ukraine, Russia is a geographic, socio-historic, cultural and linguistic reality. Presently, this reality is far less reflected upon than the seducing, but rather distant Euro-Atlantic club. Ukraine for Russia; it represents more than a lame western-flank’ geopolitical pivot, or to say, the first collateral in the infamous policy of containment that the West had continuously pursued against Russia ever since the 18th century.

For Moscow, Kiev is an emotional place – an indispensable bond of historio-civilizational attachment – something that makes and sustains Russia both Christian and European. Putin clearly redlined it: Sudden annexation of Crimea (return to its pre-1954 status) was an unpleasant and humiliating surprise that brought a lot of foreign policy hangover for both the NATO and EU.
Nevertheless, for the Atlantist alarmists (incl. the Partition studies participants and those working for the Hate industry), military lobbyists and other cold-war mentality ‘deep-state’ structures on all sides, this situation offers a perfect raison d’etre.

Thus drifting chopped off and away, a failed state beyond rehabilitation, Ukraine itself is a prisoner of this domesticated security drama. Yet again, the false dilemma so tragically imploded within this blue state, of a 50:50 polarized and deterritorialized population, over the question where the country belongs – in space, time and side of history. Conclusively, Eastern Europe is further twisting, while gradually combusted between Ukrainization and Pakistanization. The rest of Europe is already shifting the costs of its own foreign policy journey by ‘fracking’ its households with a considerably (politically) higher energy bills.

Earlier version of the text was published by the Vision & Global Trends

Notes:
1. Annotated from one of my earlier writings, it states as following: “…Early Russian state has ever since expanded north/ northeast and eastward, reaching the physical limits of its outreach by crossing the Bering straits (and the sale of Russian Alaska to the USA in 1867). By the late 17th and early 18th century, Russia had begun to draw systematically into European politico-military theatre. (…) In the meantime, Europe’s universalistic empire dissolved. It was contested by the challengers (like the Richelieu’s France and others–geopolitical, or the Lutheran/Protestant – ideological), and fragmented into the cluster of confronted monarchies, desperately trying to achieve an equilibrium through dynamic balancing. Similar political process will affect Russian universal empire only by late 20th century, following the Soviet dissolution. (…) Not fully accepted into the European collective system before the Metternich’s Holy Alliance, even had its access into the post-Versailles system denied, Russia was still not ignored like other peripheral European power. The Ottomans, conversely, were negated from all of the security systems until the very creation of the NATO (Republic of Turkey). Through the pre-emptive partition of Poland in the eve of WWII, and successful campaigns elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Bolshevik Russia expanded both its territory and its influence westwards. (…) An early Soviet period of Russia was characterized by isolated bilateral security arangements, e.g. with Germans, Fins, Japanese, etc. The post WWII days have brought the regional collective system of Warsaw Pact into existence, as to maintain the communist gains in Europe and to effectively oppose geopolitically and ideologically the similar, earlier formed, US-led block. Besides Nixon’s reapproachment towards China, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the final stage in the progressive fragmentation of the vast Sino-Soviet Communist block (that dominated the Euroasian land mass with its massive size and centrality), letting Russia emerge as the successor. The sudden ideological and territorial Soviet break-up, however, was followed by the cultural shock and civil disorder, painful economic and demographic crisis and rapidly widening disparities. All this coupled with the humiliating wars in Caucasus and elsewhere, since the centripetal and centrifugal forces of integration or fragmentations came into the oscillatory play. Between 1989 and 1991, communist rule ended in country after country and the Warsaw Pact officially dissolved. Subsequently, the Gorbachev-Jeltsin Russia experienced the greatest geopolitical contraction of any major power in the modern era and one of the fastest ever in history. Still, Gorbachev-Jeltsin tandem managed to (re-)brand themselves domestically and internationally – each got its own label of vodka…” (Verticalization of Historical Experiences: Europe’s and Asia’s Security Structures – Structural Similarities and Differences, Crossroads – the Macedonian Foreign Policy Journal, 4 (1), page 111-112, M-MFA 2008)

2. Ethnically, linguistically and religiously one of the most homogenous countries of Europe, Poland in its post-communist concepts reinvigorates the faith (as being, past the days of Tadeusz Mazowiecki, massively de-Slavicized). No wonder as the Polish-born Karol Józef Wojtyła served the Roman Curia as Pontifex Maximus from 1978, to be replaced by the German-born Joseph Ratzinger in 2005. Prizing Roman-Catholicism over ethnic and linguistic roots, even harshly denouncing any Slavic sentiment as a dangerous roter russischer Panslawismus, ‘fortress’ Poland effectively isolates itself on a long-run as none of its neighbors is Catholic. To the contrary, the four fifths of its land-borders are shared with other Slavic states. To externally mobilize, the elites (in any Eastern European state) would need an appealing intellectual case – not a mare ethno-religious chauvinism. One of the leading Croatian thinkers, Domagoj Nikolic says: “Austrian Catholicism is not anti-Germanic, but Polish is anti-Slavic. Belgian Catholicism is neither antifascism dismissive nor anti-Francophonic, but our Croatian Catholicism is very anti-Slavic and is antifascism trivializing… That undeniably leads us to conclude that (Slavic) Eastern Europe suffers the authenticity deficit…Only the immature nations can suffer such a historical disorientation.”

3. Since the end of WWII in the Old Continent, there was no other external military interventions but to the Europe’s East. To be accurate, in the NATO history (nearly as double longer than the history of the Warsaw pact), the only two interventions of that Block ever conducted in Europe were both taking place solely on Eastern European soil. While the two Russian (covert) interventions since the end of the Cold War aimed at its strategic neighborhood (former Soviet republics, heavily inhabited by ethnic Russian; Abkhazia-South Ossetia and Crimea-East Ukraine), and were (unsuccessfully) justified as the encirclement preemption, the US-led NATO in Since tervened overtly. In both NATO cases (Bosnia and Serbia-Kosovo), it was well beyond any membership territory, and short of any UN-endorsed mandate, meaning without a real international legitimacy. “Humanitarian intervention in Kosovo was never exactly what it appeared… It was a use of imperial power to support a self-determination claim by a national minority”– wrote Michael Ignatieff about the 1990s Balkans events, as fresh and accurate as if reporting was from Sevastopol in spring 2014.

4. This is further burdened by the imperialism in a hurry – an inflammable mix of the Lithuanian-Polish past traumas and German ‘manifest destiny’ of being historically yet again ill-fated; impatient for quick results – simply, unable to capitalize on its previous successes.

5. Does the declining big power of a lost ideological grip, demoralized, with a disfranchised, ageing and rarified population, of the primary-commodities export driven, but shrinking economy need to be contained? Hence, what is the origin of anxity: facts or confrontational nostaligia? The chief American Sovietologist, George Kennan warned about the NATO expansion already in 1998: “I think it is a tragic mistake. Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies”. In that very interview, Kennan predicted that the NATO Eastern enlargement will provoke a major crisis in Europe with a hawks than ‘arguing’ a self-fulfilling prophecy “you see, we always told you that is how the Russian are”. Apparently, the Russian red-red line is Georgia and Ukraine. Kremlin kept stressing that calmly, but repeatedly for nearly 20 past years. Eventually, Georgia was territorially and politico-economically wrecked as a functioning, viable state before it was allowed to become a Western stronghold in Russia’s backyard. Georgia of that 2008. is an indication enough of how Ukraine – which is even a front-yard for Russia – might end up beyond 2014.

6. Putin’s “project is national, not imperial…to modernize Russia which, like any other state, has security concerns…” – fairly admits former French Minister of Defense Jean-Pierre Chevènement and confesses: “The pursuit of this conflict may turn Ukraine into a lasting source of conflict between the EU and Russia. Through a widely echoed ideological crusade, the US is attempting both to isolate Russia and to tighten its control over the rest of Europe”. /Chevènement, J-P. (2015), No Need for this Cold War, Le Monde diplomatique July 2015 (page 18)/

7. By the most scholarly accounts, Ukraine is the world champion in the re-feudalisation of its society. It goes well beyond pure income levels and its rampant systematic distribution inequality (inequality extraction ratio). Unfortunatelly, Ukraine is the world champion in other endemic disproportionality, too – in an asymmetry of wealth disposal and in a speed of acquiring it. The combined wealth of Ukraine’s 50 riches oligarchs equalled 85% of Ukraine’s (pre-war) GDP. Oligarhs needed only 16 years to accumulate it (1991-2007). Even the Economist (a well-informed magazine of a wealthy class-tolerant, neoliberal orientation) questioned these practices, as stretching far beneath a classical criminal activity and representing – in fact – a warfare of elites against its own population (undeclared gerila war). The Magazine concluded: ‘Ukraine today is as our western societies would be without checks-and-balances mechanism’.

8. Ukrainization could be attributed to eastern and western Slavs– who are fighting distinctions without significant difference. Pakistanization itself should describe the southern Slavs’ scenery: In lieu of truth and reconciliation, guilt is offered as a control mechanism, following the period of an unchecked escalation, ranging from a hysteria-of-a-small-difference to a crime -of-otherness purge. Both models share about the same ending result: a self-trivialization, barbarization and re-feudalization.

Since the end of the Cold War, where the nuclear weapons and related technologies have decreased histrionically, the new states are acquiring the technology with momentum. The proliferation is now a fact and nuclear rollback is a remote prospect at best. The famous theoretical debate between Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz over whether proliferation is a good, bad could be debated relevantly for analyzing about the strategies in this growing era of nuclear states.

Since the numbers of such new states with atomic bomb are increasing year by year, there is little chance that these countries will disarm in the foreseeable future. The recent entrants’ states include India, North Korea, Pakistan. The rare alignment between domestic and international conditions that prompted disarmament in South Africa is unlikely to happen again. There are reports published by renowned platforms mentioning the likelihood of more states into the realm, whether in civil or military terms.

A book titled Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age by Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes is a thorough articulation of the strategies, causes and repercussions of the nuclear ages and their eras.
The need to accept the reality of a post-proliferation world represents our key conceptual rise. All three states have moved on to the next phase of proliferation and thus they are devising nuclear doctrines. One has to acknowledge here the fact that the ground situation of all these states may vary in one or the other way, obviously accordingly to their national interests.

“India on 5th November announced said its first ever indigenously developed/ built nuclear-powered submarine that had recently completed its first patroI. India plans to build three more nuclear subs. It aimed at completing a “triad” and give India the ability to deliver nuclear payloads from land, air and sea”. Pakistan on the other hand has assumed a stance predicated on nuclear ambiguity with working to response on an equal basis. North Korea has—evidently—expanded its modest arsenal while exploring creative basing options for its missile force. In the case of Iran, a key component of its strategy is to make a breakout impervious to domestic and international pressures to roll back. In short, one might expect these nuclear players to optimize their strategies and doctrines to suit their local circumstances.

The quantitative dimension of nuclear strategy stands out as another stark contrast to the Cold War. Admittedly, force size is a relative concept that must be compared with other factors, including adversaries’ force structures and a country’s own financial and economic wherewithal to develop nuclear weapons. The twin pillars of deterrence: the capability and credibility of nuclear states’ arsenals may be modestly compared with Cold War standards. Nuclear newcomers’ notions of sufficiency may differ radically from those of the Cold War. Considerations of reputation and moral stature could apply a brake on arms buildups, particularly in democracies like India. Even a nuclear state like China allowed its nuclear forces to remain small, more or less static in size and technologically stagnant for decades until recently.

Many new players possess nuclear infrastructures and doctrines for employing nuclear forces that are unusual to their local circumstances. For their part, the established players covered in this oped are developing hardware and doctrines that are so at variance with past approaches that they may as well be starting anew.

However last but not the least, the second nuclear age is propelled by competition between regional states possessing roughly similar nuclear capabilities. Most newcomers are likely to assume recessed nuclear postures, which keep their forces at low readiness during peacetime. In the case of China, Beijing sought to deter both the United States and the Soviet Union. The rivalry between India and Pakistan by engaging in low-intensity conflicts attracts the most attention at present. An unfamiliar but no less dangerous competition involves China and India.

The pressure to rely on nuclear weapons as a stopgap is perhaps most acute in South Asia. The situation got worse by the adoption of ‘Cold Start Doctrine’ for limited war by India. New Delhi and Islamabad are thus engaged in a two-level game of nuclear and conventional interactions that could fan instability during a crisis. Size matters in nuclear deterrence, but it is clearly no guarantee of success.

A new report by the United Nations’ regional arm, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), is calling on countries across Asia and the Pacific to beef up their spending on people, pointing out how greater investment in social protection can be a game changer for ending poverty.

The report, Social Outlook for Asia and the Pacific – Poorly Protected, offers new evidence for increasing investment in people in the Asia-Pacific region: around 328 million people would be lifted out of moderate poverty and 52 million people out of extreme poverty, with more countries fully eradicating poverty by 2030, if countries raised their investment in education, health care and social protection to reach the global average. Countries would also see an increase in their GDP growth together with reduced income inequalities.

The report notes that, in developing countries in the region, spending on social protection amounts to less than one-third of the global average of 11.2 per cent of GDP. This shortfall leaves 60 per cent of the region’s people unprotected against risks such as sickness, disability and unemployment, but also during pregnancy or old age.

This underinvestment is also the main reason why more than one quarter of all people in the region still live in poverty, six in ten people lack access to affordable health care, one in two rely on unclean fuels and close to one in three lack access to basic sanitation.

Launching the study at the Fifth Session of the Committee on Social Development, held by ESCAP from 28 to 30 November, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and ESCAP Executive Secretary Ms. Armida Alisjahbana underscored that despite significant progress on many levels, large swathes of the region’s population, especially rural communities, women, migrants, older person and persons with disabilities, remain trapped in poverty, vulnerability and marginalization.

“Our region has affirmed its commitment to social protection at both global and regional levels, yet while investments in social protections have increased over the past two decades, it remains the preserve of a few, rather than a right for all,” she added.

The report finds that the region needs an additional investment of $281 billion per year to match global spending levels on social protection as a share of GDP, of which the bulk is needed in the region’s two most populous countries, China and India. It further points out that a country’s level of economic development is not a reason for low social investments.

“Governments with higher political commitment to social investments not only spend a higher share of their budget on their people’s development, but tend to spend more effectively with better outcomes as a result.” The study cites examples of low- and lower-middle income countries that have been successful first movers in this regard including Bhutan, Mongolia, Thailand and Viet Nam.

The thematic focus of the study underscored much of the discussions at the biennial Committee meeting, where ESCAP member States discussed ways to strengthen regional cooperation on social protection. ESCAP will take the lead in supporting member States to develop a modality for regional cooperation in coordination with relevant UN agencies.

The long due SAARC summit is still in limbo and there is no confirmed date as to whether it will take place in 2018 or 2019. A regional arrangement initially planned to establish peace in South Asiaby building a structure of interdependence among the regional states, SAARC was founded in 1985 in Dhaka, with its Secretariat in Kathmandu, Nepal. The idea was to promote development and progress, which it still stands for, mainly by resolving as well as preventing the conflicts.

The goal of achieving sustainable peace and long-lasting cooperation was to be based on the understanding of each others’ insecurities and instead developing on the potentials in order to build a mutually peaceful future. Lucrative ideas for trade agreements, poverty alleviation, and reduction of armsmaneuvered the motivation behind this setting. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan constitute its members states with varying degree of development and progress. It is important to note that the geographical landmass covered by this organization is almost 3 percent of the global land mass, the collective population of eight countries makes up to about 21 percent of the world’s population and contributes roughly 9.12 percent of the global economy.

Instead of becoming an engine of growth, the organization mainly remainedineffective in face of jarring realities confronted by the South Asian region at the political, economic, social, diplomatic, and military front. The widespread poverty rampant throughout the region, low intra-regional trade, lack of infrastructure for regional connectivity etc. continued to act as a source of divergence among the member countries.

Most of all SAARC has mainly suffered due to Indo-Pakistan rivalry, political and military competition, and never ending blame game. A huge lack of trust between these two states and among the other states of the region is yet another reason which couldn’t let the SAARC countries come together on the same page. While the EU model is often looked upon as a success story having France and Germany putting off their difference and coming together for the larger benefit of the region, unfortunately same couldn’t be replicated in the South Asian region. Here the two nuclear rivals could never put their differences behind and continue to stay embroiled in the ever prevalent security dilemma.

Although the SAARC charter requires for the head of the states to convene a meeting every year, this hasn’t been happening regularly. In fact this particular activity has come to a standstill since 2014 after the 18thSAARC summit. Owing to the unfortunate Uri attacks in 2016, the 19th SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan was called off by India alleging Pakistan for orchestrating the attacks.

Other member states including Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Maldives also boycotted the summit and have rendered the meet to be postponed for indefinite period of time. It is being hoped that the SAARC summit should be convened in the running year in Pakistan but the year has almost come to an end now without any positive response from India. The latter sticks firm to its stance of having no possibility of opening dialogues with Pakistan unless it stops ‘terrorist activities’ in India. Indian External Affairs Minister while addressing a conference in Hyderabad stated that “the Centre chose not to respond positively to Pakistan’s invitation. That invitation has already been given but we are not responding to that positively. Until and unless Pakistan stops terrorist activities in India, there will be no dialogue and we will not participate in SAARC”.

This raises a pertinent question as to whether SAARC has been a lost cause and completely dysfunctional? Would it be better to dissolve it instead of disrespecting the charter owing to whatever justified reasons? If a progress can be made in case of Kartarpur corridor between India and Pakistan, why can’t same be adopted in other matters of differences. India essentially appears to bestubbornplaying mostly on its whim and avoiding to open channel for dialogue. This is intentionally putting not just the bilateral relations but the whole region into turmoil. How can one expect the issue to be resolved unless there is a talk or discussion about it.

Not letting the SAARC summit happen or boycotting it would definitely not achieve anything, instead will only nullify any prospects of positive development and progress for the region. This is ironic that the Kartarpur corridor could still happen despite India’s grievances with Pakistan, and while the ceremony for laying the foundation stone was underway on both sides of the border, India still doesn’t shy away from harping the same stubbornness of giving no chance to dialogues with Pakistan.

On the other hand, Pakistan has been extending various invitations to Indian leadership, offering a hand of peace only to be refused everytime. External Minister Sushma Suwaraj’s emphatic No to attending the SAARC summit raises serious concerns especially when other countries do want to give peace a chance. While this whole scenario represents quite a despondent state of affairs, on the other hand it is good to see that other states are willing to improve things at the regional level and want to give peace and development a chance.

One good recent example in this regard is Sri Lanka, the leadership of which early this year in March held talks with the Pakistani counterpart on issues of interests and specifically expressed commitment to making SAARC fully functional. Nepal also showed willingness for its support to SAARC and expressed hopes that the SAARC summit takes place in Pakistan on time. This shows that India is the only one disrespecting the very charter and objectives of SAARC owing to its own ulterior motives. It is only adding to the already difficult situation in the region instead of discussing and addressing the problems and challenges.

It is extremely important that all the member states put in their dedicated efforts to pull SAARC out of its current dire state. It is equally important for India to realize that it also stands to suffer if the regional peace is made hostage to its own self interests. India is very much part of this region much like other seven states and this reality cannot be changed. Hence, any positive step collectively taken at the regional level will benefit all and causing hindrances would only take away any such opportunity.

Indeed, Pakistan is under a lot of international pressure to do more with regards to the alleged terrorist havens on its soil, but SAARC should be taken as a platform where such problems and challenges should be deliberated upon to find a way out. There is also a need to understand that Pakistan is not alone in this, it is the one country which has borne the maximum causalities in the war against terrorism.

Nonetheless, SAARC should not be rendered dysfunctional owing to the political differences. It should play an effective role in creating interdependency among the member state, which could be one way to establish trust and making everyone a stakeholder. There are several potential areas of cooperation including the field of science and technology, infrastructure building, working towards regional connectivity, terrorism, poverty alleviation, tourism, university exchange programs etc. if SAARC remains hostage to the bilateral politics, it will never be able to deliver on the ideals it was established for decades ago. Proposal can also be extended to other states in a closer geographical proximity to be part of it and making it a more active as well as effective organization, free from the hegemony of just one country. Therefore, the possibility of expansion of SAARC should not be ruled out.

Last but not the least, SAARC is a good platform which still holds a hope for the regional states and should not be allowed to be wasted off. The states should work together with the differences, focusing on relatively less grave socio-economic issues first.

*Sadia Kazmi is a Senior Research Associate at the Strategic Vision Institute, Islamabad. She can be reached at sadia.kazmi.svi[at]gmail.com

The general consensus on what caused the Great Recession can be summed up as “bad banks full of bad bankers did bad things”. This column argues, however, that this narrative doesn’t fit the facts. And worse, it diverts attention from the real problem, which was regular use of a bad banking system – a banking system built to fail.

By Laurence Kotlikoff*

A supernova discovered by an international group of astronomers including Carnegie’s Tom Holoien and Maria Drout, and led by University of Hawaii’s Ben Shappee, provides an unprecedented look at the first moments of a violent stellar explosion. The light from the explosion’s first hours showed an unexpected pattern, which Carnegie’s Anthony Piro analyzed to reveal that the genesis of these phenomena is even more mysterious than previously thought.

Their findings are published in a trio of papers in The Astrophysical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Type Ia supernovae are fundamental to our understanding of the cosmos. Their nuclear furnaces are crucial for generating many of the elements around us, and they are used as cosmic rulers to measure distances across the universe. Despite their importance, the actual mechanism that triggers a Type Ia supernova explosion has remained elusive for decades.

That’s why catching them in the act is crucial.

Astronomers have long tried to get detailed data at the initial moments of these explosions, with the hope of figuring out how these phenomena are triggered. This finally happened in February of this year with the discovery of a Type Ia supernova called ASASSN-18bt (also known as SN 2018oh).

ASASSN-18bt was discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), an international network of telescopes headquartered at the Ohio State University that routinely scans the sky for supernovae and other cosmic explosions. NASA’s Kepler space telescope was simultaneously able to take complementary data of this event. Kepler was designed to be incredibly sensitive to small changes in light for its mission of detecting extrasolar planets, so it was able to obtain especially detailed information about the explosion’s genesis.

“ASASSN-18bt is the nearest and brightest supernova yet observed by Kepler, so it offered an excellent opportunity to test the predominant theories of supernova formation,” said Shappee, who is lead author on the on the discovery and early time light curve paperand one of our Carnegie alumni.

Combining data from ASAS-SN, Kepler, and telescopes around the world, the astronomers realized that ASASSN-18bt looked unusual during its first couple of days.

“Many supernovae show a gradual increase in the light they put out,” said Drout, who is jointly appointed at the University of Toronto. “But for this event, you could clearly see there’s something unusual and exciting happening in the early times–an unexpected additional emission.”

Type Ia supernovae originate from the thermonuclear explosion of a white dwarf star–the dead core left over by a Sun-like star after it exhausts its nuclear fuel. Material must be added to the white dwarf from a companion star to trigger the explosion, but the nature of the companion star and how the fuel is transferred has long been debated.

One possibility is that this additional light seen during the supernova’s early times could be from the exploding white dwarf colliding with the companion star. Although this was the initial hypothesis, detailed comparisons with Piro’s theoretical modeling work demonstrated that this additional light may have a different, unexplained origin.

“While the steep increase in ASASSN-18bt’s early brightness could indicate that the explosion collides with another star, our follow-up data don’t fit predictions for how this should look,” Holoien said. “Other possibilities, such as an unusual distribution of radioactive material in the exploded star, are a better explanation for what we saw. More observations of ASASSN-18bt and more early discoveries like this one will hopefully help us differentiate between different models and better understand the origins of these explosions.”

“Nature is always finding new ways to surprise us, and unique observations like this are great for motivating creative new approaches to how we think about these explosions, “added Piro. “As a theorist at the Carnegie Observatories, it’s so helpful and inspiring to be right near the observers who are making these key measurements.”

This supports a hypothesis put forward in recent work from the Carnegie Supernova Project, led by Maximilian Stritzinger ofAarhus University and co-led by Shappee and Piro, that there may be two distinct populations of Type Ia supernovae–those that show early emission and those that do not.

Thanks to ASAS-SN and the next generation of surveys that are now monitoring the sky every night, astronomers will find even more new supernovae and catch them at the moment of explosion. As more of these events are found and studied, they will hopefully home in on the solution to the longstanding mystery of how these stellar explosions originate.

New accelerator-based technology being developed by the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University aims to reduce the side effects of cancer radiation therapy by shrinking its duration from minutes to under a second. Built into future compact medical devices, technology developed for high-energy physics could also help make radiation therapy more accessible around the world.

Now, the SLAC/Stanford team has received crucial funding to proceed with two projects to develop possible treatments for tumors – one using X-rays, the other using protons. The idea behind both is to blast cancer cells so quickly that organs and other tissues don’t have time to move during the exposure – much like taking a single freeze frame from a video. This reduces the chance that radiation will hit and damage healthy tissue around tumors, making radiation therapy more precise.

“Delivering the radiation dose of an entire therapy session with a single flash lasting less than a second would be the ultimate way of managing the constant motion of organs and tissues, and a major advance compared with methods we’re using today,” said Billy Loo, an associate professor of radiation oncology at the Stanford School of Medicine.

Sami Tantawi, a professor of particle physics and astrophysics and the chief scientist for the RF Accelerator Research Division in SLAC’s Technology Innovation Directorate, who works with Loo on both projects, said, “In order to deliver high-intensity radiation efficiently enough, we need accelerator structures that are hundreds of times more powerful than today’s technology. The funding we received will help us build these structures.”

Blasting cancer with X-rays

The project called PHASER will develop a flash delivery system for X-rays.

In today’s medical devices, electrons fly through a tube-like accelerator structure that’s about a meter long, gaining energy from a radiofrequency field that travels through the tube at the same time and in the same direction. The energy of the electrons then gets converted into X-rays. Over the past few years, the PHASER team has developed and tested accelerator prototypes with special shapes and new ways of feeding radiofrequency fields into the tube. These components are already performing as predicted by simulations and pave the way for accelerator designs that support more power in a compact size.

“Next, we’ll build the accelerator structure and test the risks of the technology, which, in three to five years, could lead to a first actual device that can eventually be used in clinical trials,” Tantawi said.

The Stanford Department of Radiation Oncology will provide about $1 million over the next year for these efforts and support a campaign to raise more research funding. The Department of Radiation Oncology, in collaboration with the School of Medicine, has also established the Radiation Science Center focusing on precision radiation treatment. Its PHASER division, co-led by Loo and Tantawi, aims to turn the PHASER concept into a functional device.

Making proton therapy more agile

In principle, protons are less harmful to healthy tissue than X-rays because they deposit their tumor-killing energy in a more confined volume inside the body. However, proton therapy requires large facilities to accelerate protons and adjust their energy. It also uses magnets weighing hundreds of tons that slowly move around a patient’s body to guide the beam into the target.

“We want to come up with innovative ways to manipulate the proton beam that will make future devices simpler, more compact and much faster,” said Emilio Nanni, a staff scientist at SLAC, who leads the project with Tantawi and Loo.

That goal could soon be within reach, thanks to a recent $1.7 million grant from the DOE Office of Science Accelerator Stewardship program to develop the technology over the next three years.

“We can now move forward with designing, fabricating and testing an accelerator structure similar to the one in the PHASER project that will be capable of steering the proton beam, tuning its energy and delivering high radiation doses practically instantaneously,” Nanni said.

Quick, effective and accessible

In addition to making cancer therapy more precise, flash delivery of radiation also appears to have other benefits.

“We’ve seen in mice that healthy cells suffer less damage when we apply the radiation dose very quickly, and yet the tumor-killing effect is equal to or even a little bit better than that of a conventional longer exposure,” Loo said. “If the result holds for humans, it would be a whole new paradigm for the field of radiation therapy.”

Another key objective of the projects is to make radiation therapy more accessible for patients worldwide.

Today, millions of patients around the world receive only palliative care because they don’t have access to cancer therapy, Loo said. “We hope that our work will contribute to making the best possible treatment available to more patients in more places.”

That’s why the team is focusing on designing systems that are compact, power-efficient, economical, efficient to use in the clinical setting, and compatible with existing infrastructure around the world, Tantawi said: “The first broadly used medical linear accelerator design was invented and built at Stanford in the years leading up to the building of SLAC. The next generation could be a real game changer – in medicine and in other areas, such as accelerators for X-ray lasers, particle colliders and national security.”

Peter Maxim at Stanford (now director of radiation oncology physics at Indiana University) is a co-inventor of PHASER and made key contributions to both projects. Additional members on the proton therapy team are Reinhard Schulte at Loma Linda University and Matthew Murphy at Varian Medical Systems.

Details on funeral arrangements for former president George H.W. Bush, who died Friday at the age of 94, are still being planned by the Bush family, the Department of Defense said Saturday.

Bush, who served as president from 1989-1993, will receive a state funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington. No date has yet been released.

The White House announced on Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump would attend the funeral.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Wednesday has been designated as a national day of mourning, and that the White House flags had already been lowered to half staff to honor Bush.

“The president and first lady were notified late last night of President George H.W. Bush’s passing,” the statement said. “President Trump is scheduled to speak with President George W. Bush this morning and offer his condolences on behalf of himself, the first lady, and the entire country. A state funeral is being arranged with all of the accompanying support and honors. The president will designate Wednesday, December 5th as a National Day Of Mourning. He and the first lady will attend the funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.”

According to the U.S. State Funeral website, details of Bush’s state funeral ceremonies are being reviewed by the Bush family, but no further details were released.

State funerals are traditionally held for current or former presidents and other officials designated by the president.

According to the website, a state funeral is a seven- to 10-day event and consists of three stages: ceremonies within the state in which the official was in residence, ceremonies within Washington, D.C., and then ceremonies in the state in which the individual has chosen to be interred.

Police have deployed tear gas and water cannons against firecracker-hurling Yellow Vest protesters in Paris. Some 260 arrests have been made and 92 people injured amid the mayhem, triggered by fuel price hikes and high taxes.

December 1 rallies are being held with the slogan “on the way to Macron’s resignation.” As the unrest gained momentum, the area close to the iconic Champs-Elysees avenue has been covered by thick smoke.

While pelting law enforcement with various projectiles, protesters have also resorted to symbolic yellow paint during the standoff. To their delight, quite a few shots have landed on the shields of riot police.

Adding more symbolism to the rally, a man was seen on his knees with arms stretched to both sides in front of the city’s key landmark – Arc de Triomphe. Another demonstrator stands right behind him, holding two French flags, while both are facing a line of officers in full riot gear.

As some of the Yellow Vest supporters lined up next to the site, police unleashed a water cannon, knocking down at least two of them, who were carried away.

Surrounded by smoke both from firecrackers and tear gas, a group of Yellow Vest protesters grabbed dozens of large pieces of plywood to use as a massive ‘shield wall’ against police.

Some Yellow Vests say police were eager to disperse them even before the clashes broke out. “We arrived in the morning and we’ve been tear gassed right away. We didn’t even do anything,” a protester told RT.

Another demonstrator who came to Paris from Reims said there’s no standoff there.

“In [the regions], police officers come to us for a talk and a cup of coffee, the atmosphere is very amicable in general,” he said. “And what happens here – it’s outright mayhem, and it’s very sad…We’re supported by many people, and not only in Paris.”

Videos from the unrest also showed people grasping their legs, presumably injured by the very projectiles.

Hours into the clashes, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner tweeted that at least 1,500 “disruptors” were on the outskirts of the Champs-Elysees. According to police figures, 92 people, including 14 security officers, were injured and 263 arrested in the Paris chaos. About 75,000 people showed up for the Yellow Vest protests held all across France on Saturday.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to the Voice of America after canceling talks with Vladimir Putin following a clash in which the Russian coast guard fired on Ukrainian vessels and jailed their crews, said he has a “very good relationship” with the Russian president and will meet with him when the time is right.

In a wide-ranging November 30 interview with VOA on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Trump also talked up a new trade deal with U.S. neighbors Mexico and Canada and suggested he is not very concerned about China’s growing global reach. He indicated that he wants more beneficial trade ties with the European Union and others, saying that the United States has been “ripped off” by many countries for many years.

Trump had been scheduled to meet with Putin on December 1 for talks that the Kremlin had said could last two hours — the first major meeting between the two since a summit in Helsinki in July, after which he faced criticism for seeming to accept Putin’s assertion that Moscow did not meddle in the election that he won in 2016.

But Trump abruptly called off the meeting, tweeting on November 29 that “it would be best for all parties concerned” to cancel because the naval craft and sailors seized by the Russian coast guard off Crimea four days earlier had not been returned to Ukraine.

In the VOA interview, Trump said that “in light of what happened with Ukraine with the ships and the sailors, it just wouldn’t be the right time, but I will meet with him. I think we have a very good relationship, and I think we’re going to have a very good relationship with Russia, and China, and everyone else. I mean, I think it’s important. So I’ll meet with him at the appropriate time.”

Asked about Putin’s possible motives and intentions regarding Ukraine, Trump said: “I can’t read his mind, and nobody can, and he knows what he wants to do, but we can’t allow certain things to happen, and you know, it happened, and I just can’t be a part of it.”

In the confrontation on November 25, Russian vessels first rammed a Ukrainian navy tugboat and later opened fire before boarding three naval boats and taking all 24 crewmembers into custody, including six who were wounded — three apparently seriously.

The crewmembers were taken to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, and Russian courts there ordered them held in custody for two months pending possible trial on border violation charges punishable by up to six years in prison. Lawyers, officials, and media reports later said that the Ukrainians were taken to Moscow, where 21 were confined to the Lefortovo jail and the other three were in a hospital at another jail.

The incident near the Kerch Strait, the only passage from the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov — where Ukraine has major ports — ratcheted up tensions between Kyiv and Moscow. It prompted fears of a new front opening up after more than four years of war between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where more than 10,300 people have been killed since April 2014.

Ukraine has imposed martial law for a monthlong period in 10 regions, including all those that border Russia. On November 30 the government barred male Russian nationals aged 16 to 60 from entering the country, with President Petro Poroshenko saying the measure was designed to prevent the formation of “private armies.”

Ukraine has also imposed restrictions on entry for foreigners into Crimea, and the European Court of Human Rights said that Kyiv has filed a complaint against Russia over the maritime confrontation. Ukraine has called for a stronger NATO presence in the Black Sea region and for further Western sanctions against Russia.

Edem Semdelyayev, a lawyer for jailed tugboat captain Oleh Melnychuk, told RFE/RL on November 29 that Russia’s prosecution of the Ukrainians was a “political case.” He said his client told him the sailors were detained “very roughly, like in Hollywood films.”

Western leaders have vocally criticized Russia and called for the release of the Ukrainian sailors. On November 30, the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized countries and the European Union called the seizure of the vessels unjustified and demanded Russia free the Ukrainians, saying that the standoff had “dangerously raised tensions.”

The foreign ministers of G7 members Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States, as well as the EU’s high representative, called on Russia “to release the detained crew and vessels and refrain from impeding lawful passage through the Kerch Strait.”

Poroshenko praised Trump for cancelling the meeting with Putin, but several U.S. lawmakers from the Democratic Party criticized the Republican, saying he should have used the talks to take the Russian leader to task over Moscow actions in Ukraine and elsewhere.

“What I think he should have done was confront” Putin over “the escalating conflict in Ukraine” as well as other issues including Russia’s alleged election meddling and cyberattacks, Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from the state of New Jersey, said on CNN.

Critics of Trump also said they suspect he canceled in part because of concerns that it would look bad to meet with Putin after a longtime personal lawyer for Trump, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to lying to the U.S. Congress about a proposed Trump-branded development in Moscow.

Cohen had previously said that talks about the deal stopped in January 2016, but has now said the discussions continued as late as June 2016, after Trump had secured enough support in the primaries to win the Republican Party’s nomination to be U.S. president.

Russian officials, meanwhile, suggested that domestic problems and opponents of closer ties with Russia had pushed Trump o cancel the meeting. “If the domestic situation and the pressure from Russophobes like Ukraine and its sponsors prevents the U.S. president from developing normal ties with the Russian president…we will wait for another chance,” Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, adding that “love can’t be forced.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin is “ready to continue dialogue” with Trump, dryly adding “We are quite a patient country and we will, of course, wait for the necessary conditions to ripen for the next change in the president’s decision.” He said that it the interests of “the whole world” for Moscow and Washington to discuss pressing issues and that “the longer these questions are not discussed, the more it leads to tension.”

Peskov said that Putin and Trump greeted each other at some point on November 30, but there was no sign of anything but brief contact. News reports said they did not greet one another when leaders gathered at the start, and they stood far apart when leaders and their spouses posed for a photograph later in the day.

By contrast, Putin exchanged a happy grin and an elaborate, highly visible handshake with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has faced widespread outrage over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October. The Kremlin said that Putin would use the time that had been set aside for talks with Trump to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.