A Louisiana judge found Thursday that the Bayou Bridge Pipeline Company (BBP) trespassed on privately owned land when it constructed its oil pipeline in the sensitive Atchafalaya Basin, but allowed the company to exercise eminent domain over the property for its use. Landowners with property interests that span 38 acres in the basin, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, challenged the land grab and damage to the property resulting from the construction of the pipeline without their permission. Following three days of trial that concluded last Thursday, Judge Keith Comeaux awarded each of the landowners $150 in total for the expropriation and trespass. The landowners’ attorneys say they will appeal court’s ruling.

“This case was always about holding a billion-dollar corporation legally accountable for its violations of the Louisiana and U.S. Constitutions and the damage it is doing to the Atachafalaya Basin,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Staff Attorney Pamela Spees. “They made a calculated business decision that it was cheaper to violate the law than to follow it. While the court did find the company trespassed on our clients’ land, the damages award validates their business decision.”

“This case was never about the money, but clearly the judge chose not to send BBP a message by adhering to their ridiculously low appraisal of the land,” said Peter Aaslestad. “The value of the land goes far beyond what you could get if you ground it up for mulch. The court missed the very real value of the property as it is and the protection it provides to the public good. Their experts only spoke about their private gain, but the basin as a whole plays a larger and much more important role for the people and the state of Louisiana. I’m glad the judge ruled in our favor on the trespass, but we are not done fighting.”

“As landowners and people with deep roots in Louisiana, we feel violated that the court didn’t take into account this wasn’t just a trespass—BBP went ahead and damaged the land and laid the pipeline knowing they didn’t have permission and not taking into consideration how that pipeline is going to affect the Atchafalaya Basin in the future,” said Theda Wright.

Attorneys say BBP trespassed onto the land and began constructing the pipeline—including clearing trees and trenching—long before beginning a legal process to obtain the land, and that the company continued construction while permits were under challenge. In addition to defending against BBP’s eminent domain lawsuit, the landowners countersued BBP for trespass and illegal construction. They argued that far from serving a public and necessary purpose that would allow BBP to exercise eminent domain, the pipeline is contrary to the public interest. Attorneys say the judge’s award to compensate the landowners $150 vastly undervalues the land.

Said Atchafalaya Basinkeeper Attorney Misha Mitchell, “Although we are disappointed the court did not find that the crisis facing Louisiana’s coast and the Atchafalaya Basin warranted additional consideration in its determination of the public and necessary purpose of the project, the fact that the court found BBP unlawfully trespassed on the property at issue is substantial. For any individual to attempt to hold a huge company like BBP accountable under the law is no small feat—these landowners should be commended for their courage in confronting the illegal acts of a substantial opponent and standing for what is just.”

The Atchafalaya Basin is the country’s largest river swamp and contains old growth trees and many species listed as endangered.

“Pipelines contribute to increased flooding, coastal erosion, and climate change, and BBP’s extensive spill and leak record threatens a true environmental disaster. It is downright dangerous to allow corporations to take private land for environmentally destructive purposes,” said Bill Quigley of Loyola University Law School. “We want the courts to overturn the expropriation and take the pipeline out of the ground.”

By Jeff Sung

Artisan carpets woven across Azerbaijan are on display in South Korea’s capital, evoking the curiosity of many Korean visitors.

The “Carpets, Pearls of Azerbaijan” exhibition kicked off on Nov. 26 at a gallery in central Seoul.

The exhibition was a joint effort between Azeri Embassy and the Korea Foundation, a non-profit public diplomacy organization that promotes better understanding of the Far East country, as well as the Azerkhalcha Open Joint Stock Company, which oversees the production, development, sales, import and export of carpets within Azerbaijan.

It is the first exhibition of Azerbaijan carpets, which were added to the UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010, in South Korea, which established diplomatic ties with the Muslim nation in 1992.

On display were 18 carpets woven by nine carpet-weaving schools in Baku, Karabakh, Gazakh, Guba, Ganja, Yerevan, Nakhchivan, Shirvan and Tabriz regions.

“The purpose of the exhibition is to introduce the rich and centuries-old Azerbaijani carpet-weaving tradition here, as most Koreans are not aware of the Eurasia country being a carpet-producing country,” Ramzi Teymurov, the Azerbaijani ambassador to South Korea, told Arab News.

“The display of Azerbaijani cultural heritage is a historically important event that will serve as a milestone in boosting cultural exchanges further between the two nations.”

Azerbaijan carpets typically feature a recurring set of images, including plants and abstract geometric forms.

“The delicacy and complexity of the patterns mean our carpets are heavier than most, and that makes them all the more precious and unique,” added Teymurov. “A single carpet can contain up to 5,000 threads per square decimeter.”

The event kicked off in commemoration of Azerbaijan’s Independence Day in October, which marked 100 years since the country’s establishment.

The president of the Korea Foundation, Lee Shi-hyung, echoed the sentiment, saying: “The foundation is very glad to have had the opportunity to introduce Azerbaijani art and culture, which the Korean public may be somewhat unfamiliar with.”

“The ancient art of carpet-weaving has survived and evolved to this present day, so this exhibition will be testimony of Azerbaijan’s artistic and cultural heritage,” he added.

Patterns, color and weaving techniques differ from region to region. For example, carpets made in Baku stand out through the inclusion of Buta, the symbol of fire in Azerbaijan’s Absheron region.

In the city of Ganja, carpets are produced for both trade and local use thanks to good sheep-breeding conditions in the region’s mountainous and foothill districts.

Carpets made in the Yerevan region, meanwhile, are woven out of camel, sheep and goat wool, dyed in several colors and embroidered with birds and animals that pertain to religious conviction.

“Azerbaijani carpets exemplify custom, tradition and national economic activity,” Kwon Jong-ok, an academic, told Arab News. “The patterns symbolize the country’s history and people’s beliefs, while also bringing artistic capabilities to life.”

“Many young Koreans seem to be taking a keen interest in these patterns, which resemble those used for tattoos,” he added. “A new type of cultural exchange that reconciles youth fashion here with ancient design from Azerbaijan seems to be taking place.”

“I’m simply fascinated by the intricate skills of Azerbaijani carpet-makers,” said Said Hwang Ye-eun, 22, a student of Sangmyung University in Seoul.

During a group tour, Lee Hye-won, 24, a student at the same university, said the exhibition has made her keen to visit Azerbaijan.

“I have little knowledge about the country, but after seeing these carpets, I am curious to get to know its culture,” Lee said.

The world’s first specialized carpet museum, formerly known as the State Museum of Azerbaijani Carpet and Applied Art, was opened in Baku in 1967.

The Seoul exhibition will be held until Dec. 19.

Only a handful of international strategic investors are familiar with the Republic of Paraguay. It is located in the heart ofSouth America and the South Common Market Block, also known as the Mercado Comúndel Sur (MERCOSUR), with a territory of 406.752 square kilometers and shares borders with Brazil (from the East to the North), Bolivia (North to Northwestern side) and Argentina (covering the Western and South eastern part of the border). By many Latin American experts, Paraguay is tapped as one of the top three counties with the best investment climate in Latin America and the Caribbean as well it remains the most attractive nation of the hemisphere in doing business and is equipped with a series of legislations that protect strategic investments and guarantee a friendly environment for the development of large industrial plants and infrastructure projects.

The Paraguay River separates two natural regions, very different from one another, the Oriental Region, containing 98 percent of the population, and the Occidental Region or the Chaco. Both regions comprise important natural resources and a great potential for strategic investment projects. Paraguay’s topography is rolled with chains of hills and broad valleys, with abundant rivers and fresh water streams with native subtropical forests suitable for sustainable tourism projects and the median annual temperature is about 20 ºC. The Chaco region is sparsely inhabited, containing only 2 percent of the total population, it is a vast alluvial plain that softly climbs up to the Andean fronts and belongs to the tropical dry life zone. This region has a wealth of mineral resources including natural gas and vast reserves of petroleum and fresh water.

The mining sector in Paraguay has been developed since the times when iron was found and extracted among other minerals in the Tebicuary River Craton, becoming one of the first countries with a mining industry in South America.Mining activities are identified since the period of Spanish conquest in which was gold is used vastly especially in the sacred Catholic artistic work, as well as the exploration of forts found in the Apa River Craton, in the Oriental region.

After its independence in May 14-15, 1811, Paraguay became a power house in the building of railroads, mining, and the use of telegraph and equipped with an extensive fleet of merchant ships in South America.

Paraguay has an enormous geological potential, with the same geology that other countries currently have and exploit. With its unexplored pre-Cambrian and alkaline provinces, Asuncion is open for business and welcomes foreign investments focused in mining activities; such an industry combined with local hydroelectric resources could be greatly lucrative for investors and entrepreneurs.

The current Paraguayan government of President Mario Abdo Benitez, has taken various economic decentralization steps and is eagerly exploring ways to develop rural areas that are not suitable to agricultural production and cattle grazing, through the implementation of strategic mining projects which happen to be in their initial stages.

Asuncion has unrestrained taxes on the investments and movement of capital, personal rent tax is not present and the value aggregate tax (VAT) is only 10%. On the other hand, price control is not influenced by the government, and there are only rigorous programs of monetary and fiscal stabilization, and there are currently some legislative initiatives that will re-evaluate the local currency.

Thanks to the Law 117/91, foreign investments are guaranteed; foreign investors have the same guarantees, rights and obligations just like the local businesses. Every investor has the right to choose the insurance for investments, in the country or abroad and the law allows the establishment of joint ventures. Paraguay is the best kept secret of Latin America.

In 2012, the Asuncion Stock Exchange went through a highly positive trend; only in August it traded more than Gs. 95.69 Billion. This number represents a 485.7% increase over the same period of trades in August 2011. There is no income tax for investors in Bonds of Asuncion Stock Exchange.

The mining industry is protected and sanctioned by the Constitution and its laws. It’s controlled by administrative and cartographic mechanisms, guaranteeing property limits, protected by legislation that establishes trusted judicial mechanism to solve any potential conflicts that could arise.

The Following is a list of Departments (provinces) and their mineral resources.

For the prospective investor there is a term of five years for project execution, and an exploitation term that lasts for 25 years, which may be extended for another 25 years. Therefore, the investor becomes proprietary of the minerals extracted and conducts its operations within his property. Investors can freely sell minerals domestically and export abroad.

On November 29, 2018, Paraguay celebrated the 37th anniversary of the establishment of its diplomatic relations with the Republic of Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest nation with over 252 million people and one of the N – 11 Economies [1] and together with Paraguay is also a member of the Group of Eleven (G11), [2] whose efforts are focused towards reducing poverty.

Both nations have become members of the World Trade Organization in 1995. Although there is a great potential to further strengthen the commercial, political and economic partnership between the two countries, unfortunately, the Foreign Ministry of Paraguay is looking the other way, even though Jakarta is one of the fifteen most important commercial partners of Paraguay.

The South East Asian giant imported in 2012 over US$19.5 million, meanwhile there is a significant increase of imports in 2013, reaching over US$121.8 million worth of goods a services. There is an unmatched strategic importance of mutual interest towards exploring the tremendous bilateral business opportunities that can be accomplished through the signing of a Free Trade Agreement framework between Indonesia and Paraguay as well as Paraguay and the ASEAN nations (currently the world’s largest trading group together with Japan, China and Russia).

Paraguay has the best and most affordable arable land in the region; it is the fourth largest producer of soybean and is the largest producer of renewable energy per capita in the world. Despite the cow disease, in the course of 2014, Paraguay exported more than US$ 542 million worth of beef products, representing only 14.7 percent in relation to the same period last year, therefore this disease has not affected the cattle ranchers’ prospects and performance.

In 2014, there have been exported more than 250,000 tons of beef products abroad. And more than 400,000 are expected to be exported by 2015. In the last few years livestock companies in Paraguay, have significantly invested on improving the genetics of their cows, this is the reason why they are distinguished in the MERCOSUR by their peers.

One of the traditional food products in Indonesia is Tempeh a soybean based food made from the condensing or curdling of soymilk and then fermenting it, for which there is a need for large quantities of soybean.

In this regard, Paraguay as the world’s 4th largest Soybean producer, could easily become a ‘Tempeh Partner’ of Indonesia through a bilateral cooperation agreement and a possible mutual agreement between the Indonesian Tempeh Industry leaders, Paraguayan Soybean entrepreneurs and Paraguayan Food Industry leaders in order to implement the processing of this typical Indonesian food that is grown in Paraguayan soil, and that could be exported directly to Indonesia at highly competitive prices and consequently harnessing essential mutual benefits.

Nevertheless, these commercial agreements are considered highly beneficial and the efforts undertaken by Ministry of Industry and Commerce (MIC), as well as Paraguay’s Network of Investments and Exports (REDIEX), are truly admirable and certainly demonstrate a great performance as Asuncion for the first time has a visionary and a pragmatic leader as the head of its Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

President Mario Abdo Benitez and the Indonesian authorities have expressed a willingness to strengthen the bilateral partnership, which dates back to 1981, on the other hand the Paraguayan Foreign Ministry officials have to play a more active role towards strengthening this bilateral partnership with Jakarta.

The discovery of natural gas and oil fields in the Chaco area of Paraguay is also another strategic sector that will require the expertise and assistance of Indonesia’s major oil companies and their technology, to make the use of its oil resources according to the principles of sustainability and being environmentally friendly.

Indonesia’s natural gas and oil drilling industry plays a vital part in its national economy, and its wealth of experience in this sector would be a great asset to the Paraguayan Government, which is only now beginning its initial stages of exploring for petroleum and natural gas.

In the next 20 years, Asunción will need to diversify its national energy production as the current production levels at its two hydroelectric dams (Itaipu and Yacyreta) will not be sufficient to supply energy nationwide, therefore the construction of new hydroelectric dams in rivers stretching throughout Paraguay and reaching distances of over 6,500Km, as well as the effective use of oil and gas resources with the help of Indonesian experts would be of great value for Paraguay’s future.

Notes:
[1] The Next Eleven (known also by the numeronym N-11) are the eleven countries – Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey, South Korea and Vietnam – identified by Goldman Sachs investment bank and economist Jim O’Neill in a research paper as having a high potential of becoming, along with the BRICs, the world’s largest economies in the 21st century. The bank chose these states, all with promising outlooks for investment and future growth, on December 12, 2005. This group now has included three more large economies such as China, Japan and Russia and is known as ASIAN+3, as of today comprises the WORLD LARGEST TRADING GROUP.
At the end of 2011, the four major countries (Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey) also known as MIKT, made up 73 percent of all Next Eleven GDP. BRIC GDP was $13.5 trillion, while MIKT GDP at almost 30 percent of that: $3.9 trillion. The criteria that Goldman Sachs used were macroeconomic stability, political maturity, openness of trade and investment policies, and the quality of education. The N-11 paper is a follow-up to the bank’s 2003 paper on the four emerging “BRIC” economies, Brazil, Russia, India, and China. It can be compared with the CIVETS list coined by Robert Ward, global forecasting director for the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) – having a few differences, but many similarities. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Eleven)
http://www.portalguarani.com/278_martin_luis_vallejos_cuevas/10334_25_aniversario_relaciones_diplomaticas_entre_paraguay_y_la_republica_de_indonesia_.html

[2] The Group of 11 is a multilateral organization proposed by King Abdullah of Jordan in 2005, and its main objective is to reduce the debt burden and significantly reduce poverty by joining the efforts of the eleven nations including: Jordan, Croatia, Ecuador, Georgia, El Salvador, Honduras, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Paraguay, Sri Lanka. Both Indonesia and Paraguay
http://www.mre.gov.py/v1/Noticias/541-viceministro-cceres-recibi-en-audiencia-a-la-embajadora-de-la-repblica-de-indonesia.aspx
http://www.mre.gov.py/v1/Noticias/764-paraguay-solicit-en-indonesia-medidas-efectivas-de-cooperacin-con-pases-sin-litoral.aspx
http://www.rree.go.cr/?sec=servicios%20al%20publico&cat=servicios%20de%20informacion&cont=593&noticia=1421

In our current times, debates rooted on religious phobias are among the most aggressive scenarios, as it appears that hyenas from medieval times are rising over the bright renaissance of modern and post-modern cultures. In this debate there are contradictory approaches. There is a Christian-phobia, Islam-phobia, Anti-Semitism and all sorts of religious phobias that point poisonous arrows to each other that embody prejudice and hatred for one another.

In this world filled by ghosts of phobias that are rooted on religious ideology there are only a handful of nations, people and cultures that are dominated by a harmonious coexistence of religious values and there are even fewer countries, people and cultures that have built their identity based on inter-religious harmony. Albanian people and culture is one of those nations. Simply they must identify as Albanian.

For centuries, the Albanian identity has been a matter of studies, debates and discussions. Regardless of their different approaches and in some cases contradictory between them, the most convincing and overwhelming approach is that it is an autochthonous nation and a very authentic nation to its substance.

The autochthony of Albanians is connected with their unchanged geographical territories that have always been shrunk due to historical and great geopolitical reasons imposed from outside Albania. The authenticity of Albanians is connected to predominant characteristics that distinguish them from other nations across its borders.

The core of authenticity are the symbiotic elements of people – geography – language – culture, as a result such a thesis is gaining more and more influence. In other words the identity of Albanians is ‘Albanianism.’

Time after time even inside our elitist environments the debate on Albanian identity emerges from a myriad of directions. Moreover famous writers such as Ismail Kadare and Rexhep Qosja have debated and continue to defend their respective theories that come from rough directions. Mainly they both have a different approach on the confessions inside Albanian identity.

Kadare defends his theory that Islamic assimilation of Albanians was violent, enforced, as a result been very damaging and not in unison with Albanian communities. Kadare has defended Christian approach and mainly the anti-Islam mindset within Albanian identity.

Qosja advocates his theory that Islamic waves upon Albanians have been naturally accepted by them. As a result, according to Qosja the Islamic assimilation has made a difference among Albanians and the south Slavs in the region. Such a difference, the Islamic assimilation, according to Qosja has defended Albanian communities as they have for centuries confronted directly the barbarian Slavs in the region, let alone damaging Albanian interests.

Both approaches have elements of truth, rationale and usefulness for Albanian identity. On the other hand both approaches have unstable details, they are not rational and surge from different viewpoints, they are even harmful to Albanian identity today and tomorrow.

Moreover lately there has been a third tendency, in order to revive anti Semitic symptoms. These anti-Semitic symptoms are supported by certain political channels that are against Soros. Although anti-Semitism is historically a foreign nuance to Albanian identity, nonetheless the political tendency of anti-Soros could become an anti-Semitic wave and expand its influence in other societal spheres over time.

Inside the framework of this analysis on cultural diplomacy there is not enough space, there is neither audience nor a possibility to discuss it in depth. Therefore we will touch upon only one aspect, where limits of identity debates provoke clashes with dangerous consequences to the identity itself.

Here we are referring to various lengthy approaches on the multi-religious Christian-Islamic identity in Albania. The contradicting debates bring into clashes the Christian and Islamic existence inside Albanian identity. These debates while being confronted with the two religious sides within Albanian existence, with or without a purpose we make these two harmonious sides to become confrontational, exceptional and not in consistence with today’s identity.

Confrontations, lack of tolerance and exceptionality produce a PHOBIA instead of harmony. Phobias among various identities create fear, hatred and animosity among nations.
With this in mind the phobias INSIDE an IDENTITY create fear, hatred within one nation. Phobias created from unprincipled debates inside an identity are a serious threat to the core of existence of this identity.

In the case of peaceful geopolitical and geo-cultural situations these exhaustive debates create a relative concern without reaching threatening crises. On the other hand, when such a discussion is unraveling in a geopolitical and geo-cultural international setting where the situation is deteriorating, these debates exacerbate the internal discussions even worse and that is mainly affected by international confrontations rooted on different religious beliefs.

Today’s international crises are being instigated by religious phobias. Christian phobia in the Islamic world and Islam phobia in the Christian world, as well as the resurface of Anti-Semitic syndromes, all of these, if they are not deterred on time, they may cause the destruction of a coexistence foundation among civilizations at a global level while provoking tensions, conflicts and wars while defending them with theological arguments.

Under these unprecedented international conditions, the most vulnerable identities are those embodied by multi-religious values, which are part of phobia discussions against Christians or against Islam.

While potentially embodying a great danger from inter-religious phobias of the world, multi-religious identities such as the case of Albania, ought to be careful. Inter-religious identities are very sensitive to outside influences. The secret to maintain unity and cohesion inside Albanian multi-religious setting is based on the willingness to completely avoid PHOBIAS rooted in RELIGION.

In the reality of Albanian identity there is no ground for Christian-phobia, Islam-phobia, or anti-Semitism and no other religious phobias. Meanwhile on certain individuals, on particular groups there is a growing tendency of phobias based on religion. This phobic attitude is being inspired from outside, from individuals, groups and marginalized groups from east and west. Regional environment, with an admirable skill and covered by a veil of political motivations, is inspiring even more such an extremist attitude.

Albanian identity is “albanianism”, which has accepted, for many reasons and by different means, Christianity and Islam. Inside Albanian society these two religions are living under a Biblical-Koran harmony that is admirable.

The highest embodiment of such a multi-religious Albanian identity is the Albanian Saint, Mother Theresa. She was by blood Albanian, Christian by spiritual conviction, but her life was dedicated to serve a global multi-religious charity to the benefit of all humanity.

Translation from Albanian Language: Peter M. Tase

“This is going to be one of the most infamous news disasters since Stern published the ‘Hitler Diaries.’” —  WikiLeaks, Twitter, Nov 27, 2018

Those at The Guardian certainly felt they were onto something. It would be a scoop that would have consequences on a range of fronts featuring President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Julian Assange and the eponymous Russian connection with the 2016 US elections.

If they could tie the ribbon of Manafort over the Assage package, one linked to the release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails in the summer of 2016, they could strike journalistic gold. At one stroke, they could achieve a trifecta: an exposé on WikiLeaks, Russian involvement, and the tie-in with the Trump campaign.

The virally charged story, when run towards the leg end of November, claimed that Manafort had visited Assange in the embassy “in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016.” Speculation happily followed in an account untroubled by heavy documentation. “It is unclear why Manafort would have wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last apparent meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”

It was a strikingly shoddy effort. An “internal document” supposedly garnered from the Ecuadorean intelligence agency named a certain “Paul Manaford [sic]” as a guest while also noting the presence of “Russians”. No document or individual names were supplied.

The enterprise was supposedly to come with an added satisfaction: getting one over the prickly Assange, a person with whom the paper has yet a frosty association with since things went pear shaped after Cablegate in 2010. Luke Harding, the lead behind this latest packaging effort, has received his fair share of pasting in the past, with Assange accusing him of “minimal additional research” and mere reiteration in the shabby cobbling The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World’s Most Wanted Man (2014). “The Guardian,” Assange observed in reviewing the work, “is a curiously inward-looking beast.” Harding, for his part, is whistling the promotional tune of his unmistakably titled book Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House. The feud persists with much fuel.

Unfortunately for those coup seekers attempting a framed symmetry, the bomb has yet to detonate, an inert creature finding its ways into placid waters. WikiLeaks was, understandably, the first out of the stables with an irate tweet. “Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper’s reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”

Manafort himself denied ever meeting Assange. “I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him. I have never been contacted by anyone connected to WikiLeaks, either directly or indirectly. I have never reached out to Assange or WikiLeaks on any matter.”

WikiLeaks has also pointed to a certain busy bee fabricator as a possible source for Harding et al, an Ecuadorean journalist by the name of Fernando Villavicencio. Villavicencio cut his milk teeth digging into the record of Moreno’s predecessor and somewhat Assange friendly, Rafael Correa.

Glenn Greenwald, himself having had a stint – and a fruitful one covering the Snowden revelations on the National Security Agency – had also been relentless on the inconsistencies. If Manafort did visit Assange, why the vagueness and absence of evidence? London, he points out, “is one of the world’s most surveilled, if not the most surveilled, cities.” The Ecuadorean embassy is, in turn, “one of the most scrutinized, surveilled, monitored and filmed locations on the planet.” Yet no photographic or video evidence has been found linking Manafort to Assange.

The grey-haired establishment types are also wondering about the lack of fizz and bubble. Paul Farhi at The Washington Post furnishes an example: “No other news organization has been able to corroborate the Guardian’s reporting to substantiate its central claim of a meeting. News organizations typically do such independent reporting to confirm important stories.”

Another distorting aspect to this squalid matter is the Manafort-Ecuadorean link, which does little to help Harding’s account. A debt ridden Manafort, according to the New York Times, ventured his way to Ecuador in mid-May last year to proffer his services to the newly elected president, Lenín Moreno. Moreno could not have been flattered: this was a man’s swansong and rescue bid, desperate to ingratiate himself with governments as varied as Iraqi Kurdistan and Puerto Rico.

In two meetings (the number might be more) between Manafort and his Ecuadorean interlocutor, various issues were canvassed. Eyes remained on China but there was also interest in finding some workable solution to debt relief from the United States. Then came that issue of a certain Australian, and now also Ecuadorean national, holed up in the Ecuadorean embassy in Knightsbridge, London.

Moreno has been courting several options, none of which seem to have grown wings. A possibility of getting a diplomatic post for Assange in Russia did not take off. (British authorities still threatened the prospect of arrest.) The issue of removing the thorniest dissident publisher in modern memory remains furiously alive.

As ever, accounts of the Moreno-Manafort tête-à-tête vary. A spokesman for Manafort, one Jason Maloni, suggests a different account. Manafort was not the instigator, but merely the recipient, of a query from Moreno about “his desire to remove Julian Assange from Ecuador’s embassy.” Manafort listened impassively, “but made no promises as this was ancillary to the purpose of the meeting.” Russia, he sought to clarify, did not crop up.

Fraud might run through Manafort’s blood (convictions on eight counts of bank-and tax-fraud is fairly convincing proof of that), but the case assembled against Assange seems very much one of enthusiastic botch-up masquerading as a stitch-up. So far, the paper has batten down the hatches, and Harding has referred any queries through The Guardian’s spokesman, Brendan O’Grady. Zeal can be punishing. O’Grady will have to earn his keep.

Bioplastics are often promoted as an environmentally and climate-friendly alternative to conventional petroleum-based plastics. However, a recent study from the University of Bonn suggests that shifting to plant-based plastics could have less positive effects than expected. Specifically, an increased consumption of bioplastics in the following years is likely to generate increased greenhouse gas emissions from cropland expansion on a global scale. The study will be soon published in the scientific Journal Environmental Research Letters and is already available online.

Plastics are usually made from petroleum, with the associated impacts in terms of fossil fuel depletion but also climate change: The carbon embodied in fossil resources is suddenly released to the atmosphere by degradation or burning, hence contributing to global warming. This corresponds to about 400 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year worldwide, almost half of the total greenhouse gases that Germany emitted to the atmosphere in 2017. It is estimated that by 2050, plastics could already be responsible for 15% of the global CO2 emissions.

Bioplastics, on the other hand, are in principle climate-neutral since they are based on renewable raw materials such as maize, wheat or sugar cane. These plants get the CO2 that they need from the air through their leaves. Producing bioplastics therefore consumes CO2, which compensates for the amount that is later released at end-of-life. Overall, their net greenhouse gas balance is assumed to be zero. Bioplastics are thus often consumed as an environmentally friendly alternative.

But at least with the current level of technology, this issue is probably not as clear as often assumed. “The production of bioplastics in large amounts would change land use globally,” explains Dr. Neus Escobar from the Institute of Food and Resource Economics at the University of Bonn. “This could potentially lead to an increase in the conversion of forest areas to arable land. However, forests absorb considerably more CO2 than maize or sugar cane annually, if only because of their larger biomass.” Experience with biofuels has shown that this effect is not a theoretical speculation. The increasing demand for the “green” energy sources has brought massive deforestation to some countries across the tropics.

Dr. Neus Escobar and her colleagues Salwa Haddad, Prof. Dr. Jan Börner and Dr. Wolfgang Britz have simulated the effects of an increased demand for bioplastics in major producing countries. They used and extended a computer model that had already been used to calculate the impacts of biofuel policies. It is based on a database that depicts the entire world economy.

“For our experiment, we assume that the share of bioplastics relative to total plastic consumption increases to 5% in Europe, China, Brazil and the USA,” she explains. “We run two different scenarios: a tax on conventional plastics compared with a subsidy on bioplastics.” The most dramatic effects are found for the tax scenario: As fossil-based plastics consequently become considerably more expensive, the demand for them falls significantly. Worldwide, 0.08% fewer greenhouse gases would be released each year. However, part of this decline is due to economic distortions, as the tax also slows economic growth.

More fields, fewer forests

At the same time, the area of land used for agriculture increases in the tax scenario, while the forest area decreases by 0.17%. This translates into enormous quantities of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere. “This is considered to occur as a one-time effect,” Escobar explains. “Nevertheless, according to our calculations, it will take more than 20 years for it to be offset by the savings achieved by fossil substitution.”

All in all, it takes a lot of time for the switch to bioplastics to pay off. Furthermore, the researchers estimate the societal costs of this policy to decrease one tonne of CO2 at more than 2,000 US dollars – a high sum as compared to biofuel mandates. A subsidy to bioplastics would have very different effects on the global economy. However, both the compensation period and the costs for climate change mitigation would remain almost the same as with the tax.

“Consuming bioplastics from food crops in greater amounts does not seem to be an effective strategy to protect the climate,” said the scientist. Especially because this would trigger many other negative effects, such as rising food prices. “But this would probably look different if other biomass resources were used for production, such as crop residues,” says Escobar. “We recommend concentrating research efforts on these advanced bioplastics and bring them to market.”

The belief that bioplastics will reduce the amount of waste in the oceans may not even come true. Just because plastics are made from plants does not automatically make them easily degradable in marine environments, Escobar emphasizes. “Bio-PE and Bio-PET are for example not biodegradable, same as their petroleum-based counterparts.” Bioplastics and biomaterials have however one clear advantage: They help to reduce the fossil fuel dependency of highly industrialized regions. The scientists conclude that if governments really want to protect the environment, they should rather pursue a different strategy: It makes more sense to use plastic sparingly and to ensure that it is actually recycled.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh said Friday that Tehran would be exempt from the oil cuts within the production freeze deal of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-cartel members.

“Yes,” Zangeneh said before the OPEC-non-OPEC meeting, asked if Iran was exempt from the cuts under the deal, Sputnik reported.

The statement comes after the Islamic Republic reportedly asked other OPEC states to use the country’s March or April oil production levels of about 3.8 million barrels per day as a baseline for the potential output cut as part of the extension of the OPEC-non-OPEC deal.

Earlier this week the minister announced that Tehran was not going to discuss oil production quotas with OPEC while the country was being subjected to Washington’s sanctions.

The move comes amid the second round of US sanctions against Tehran that came into effect on November 5 following Washington’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May.

In late 2016, OPEC and non-OPEC states made a deal to cut oil production in a bid to stabilize oil prices. Since then, the agreement has repeatedly been prolonged with the final extension reaching the end of 2018.

A new study by MIT researchers finds that the growing practice of compiling massive, anonymized datasets about people’s movement patterns is a double-edged sword: While it can provide deep insights into human behavior for research, it could also put people’s private data at risk.

Companies, researchers, and other entities are beginning to collect, store, and process anonymized data that contains “location stamps” (geographical coordinates and time stamps) of users. Data can be grabbed from mobile phone records, credit card transactions, public transportation smart cards, Twitter accounts, and mobile apps. Merging those datasets could provide rich information about how humans travel, for instance, to optimize transportation and urban planning, among other things.

But with big data come big privacy issues: Location stamps are extremely specific to individuals and can be used for nefarious purposes. Recent research has shown that, given only a few randomly selected points in mobility datasets, someone could identify and learn sensitive information about individuals. With merged mobility datasets, this becomes even easier: An agent could potentially match users trajectories in anonymized data from one dataset, with deanonymized data in another, to unmask the anonymized data.

In a paper published in IEEE Transactions on Big Data, the MIT researchers show how this can happen in the first-ever analysis of so-called user “matchability” in two large-scale datasets from Singapore, one from a mobile network operator and one from a local transportation system.

The researchers use a statistical model that tracks location stamps of users in both datasets and provides a probability that data points in both sets come from the same person. In experiments, the researchers found the model could match around 17 percent of individuals in one week’s worth of data, and more than 55 percent of individuals after one month of collected data. The work demonstrates an efficient, scalable way to match mobility trajectories in datasets, which can be a boon for research. But, the researchers warn, such processes can increase the possibility of deanonymizing real user data.

“As researchers, we believe that working with large-scale datasets can allow discovering unprecedented insights about human society and mobility, allowing us to plan cities better. Nevertheless, it is important to show if identification is possible, so people can be aware of potential risks of sharing mobility data,” says Daniel Kondor, a postdoc in the Future Urban Mobility Group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology.

“In publishing the results — and, in particular, the consequences of deanonymizing data — we felt a bit like ‘white hat’ or ‘ethical’ hackers,” adds co-author Carlo Ratti, a professor of the practice in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab. “We felt that it was important to warn people about these new possibilities [of data merging] and [to consider] how we might regulate it.”

Eliminating false positives

To understand how matching location stamps and potential deanonymization works, consider this scenario: “I was at Sentosa Island in Singapore two days ago, came to the Dubai airport yesterday, and am on Jumeirah Beach in Dubai today. It’s highly unlikely another person’s trajectory looks exactly the same. In short, if someone has my anonymized credit card information, and perhaps my open location data from Twitter, they could then deanonymize my credit card data,” Ratti says.

Similar models exist to evaluate deanonymization in data. But those use computationally intensive approaches for re-identification, meaning to merge anonymous data with public data to identify specific individuals. These models have only worked on limited datasets. The MIT researchers instead used a simpler statistical approach — measuring the probability of false positives — to efficiently predict matchability among scores of users in massive datasets.

In their work, the researchers compiled two anonymized “low-density” datasets — a few records per day — about mobile phone use and personal transportation in Singapore, recorded over one week in 2011. The mobile data came from a large mobile network operator and comprised timestamps and geographic coordinates in more than 485 million records from over 2 million users. The transportation data contained over 70 million records with timestamps for individuals moving through the city.

The probability that a given user has records in both datasets will increase along with the size of the merged datasets, but so will the probability of false positives. The researchers’ model selects a user from one dataset and finds a user from the other dataset with a high number of matching location stamps. Simply put, as the number of matching points increases, the probability of a false-positive match decreases. After matching a certain number of points along a trajectory, the model rules out the possibility of the match being a false positive.

Focusing on typical users, they estimated a matchability success rate of 17 percent over a week of compiled data, and about 55 percent for four weeks. That estimate jumps to about 95 percent with data compiled over 11 weeks.

The researchers also estimated how much activity is needed to match most users over a week. Looking at users with between 30 and 49 personal transportation records, and around 1,000 mobile records, they estimated more than 90 percent success with a week of compiled data. Additionally, by combining the two datasets with GPS traces — regularly collected actively and passively by smartphone apps — the researchers estimated they could match 95 percent of individual trajectories, using less than one week of data.

Better privacy

With their study, the researchers hope to increase public awareness and promote tighter regulations for sharing consumer data. “All data with location stamps (which is most of today’s collected data) is potentially very sensitive and we should all make more informed decisions on who we share it with,” Ratti says. “We need to keep thinking about the challenges in processing large-scale data, about individuals, and the right way to provide adequate guarantees to preserve privacy.”

To that end, Ratti, Kondor, and other researchers have been working extensively on the ethical and moral issues of big data. In 2013, the Senseable City Lab at MIT launched an initiative called “Engaging Data,” which involves leaders from government, privacy rights groups, academia, and business, who study how mobility data can and should be used by today’s data-collecting firms.

“The world today is awash with big data,” Kondor says. “In 2015, mankind produced as much information as was created in all previous years of human civilization. Although data means a better knowledge of the urban environment, currently much of this wealth of information is held by just a few companies and public institutions that know a lot about us, while we know so little about them. We need to take care to avoid data monopolies and misuse.”

New research from Cornell University raises questions about the timing and nature of early interactions between indigenous people and Europeans in North America.

Until now, it’s been assumed that the presence of European trade goods, such as metals and glass beads, provide a timeline for the indigenous peoples and settlements in the 15th and 16th centuries. New research suggests this may be a mistake in cases where there was not direct and intensive exchange between the two groups of people.

Radiocarbon dating and tree-ring evidence shows that three major indigenous sites in Ontario, Canada, conventionally dated 1450-1550 – because there were no or very few European goods recovered – are in fact 50-100 years more recent. This dates the sites to the worst period of the Little Ice Age, around 1600.

“This seems extraordinary: Given this was only 400 years ago, how can we have been wrong by as much as 25 percent?” said first author Sturt Manning, professor of classical archaeology.

Manning is lead author of “Radiocarbon Re-dating of Contact-era Iroquoian History in Northeastern North America,” published in Science Advances. Other Cornell authors include Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory senior researcher Carol Griggs and doctoral student Samantha Sanft.

Previously, dates in the early contact period were based on the absence – and then presence – of types of glass beads and other European trade goods in excavated sites, along with shifts in material culture, such as changes in ceramic designs. Dates were assigned according to “time transgression,” the assumption that when European goods are found in one place with a confirmed date associated with them, that same date can be used for other places where those trade goods are found.

“But goods don’t get distributed evenly within societies or across distances,” said Manning. “This is a vast area with complex local societies and economies, so the concept that everybody gets the same thing necessarily all at once is a bit ludicrous in retrospect.”

The team’s chronological findings dramatically rewrite how history has been understood in the region. The period of first European contact, rather than following major changes in Iroquoian society, can now be seen to coincide with those changes. This suggests that contact-era transformations happened much later than previously thought.

“Of course, we’ve dated only one site sequence, and there are many more,” Manning said. “What this paper really shows is we now need to reassess all those site sequences where there’s not a clear historical link or association.”

A prominent man is found guilty in court and the story is covered by the major media. His conviction is later overturned. Fairness dictates that those media outlets that carried the first story should carry the second one as well. This was certainly true of the Associated Press, Reuters, and most media sources, but it wasn’t true of the New York Times or the Washington Post.

The prominent person was Catholic.

On July 31, 2018, the New York Times ran a 717-word story in the “A” section of the paper on the conviction of Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson; he was found guilty of covering up for sexual abuse by a priest.

On July 31, 2018, the Washington Post ran a 735-word story in the “A” section of the paper on the same subject.

On December 6, 2018, Wilson, the most senior cleric in the world ever to have been found guilty of covering up for sexual abuse, was exonerated. Judge Roy Ellis said that prosecutors failed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. “The conviction and the orders of the local court are quashed,” he said.

Why didn’t the New York Times and the Washington Post tell their readers that Archbishop Wilson’s conviction was overturned? As a result, many still think he is guilty.

Perhaps you can ask the editors to explain themselves.

Contact Executive Editor Dean Baquet: dean.baquet@nytimes.com
Contact Executive Editor Martin Baron: martin.baron@washpost.com

A destructive fire-generated vortex – a massive stream of rising, spinning, smoke, ash and fire – that topped out at 17,000 feet above the earth, accelerated the Carr fire that killed eight people and devastated a widespread area in the Redding, California region in July 2018. The vortex, a little-observed atmospheric phenomena, was spinning with the power of a class three tornado, which earned it the name of Firenado.

Atmospheric scientist Neil Lareau at the University of Nevada, Reno has authored a paper in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters documenting the rare firenado, finding a number of factors that combined at just the right time and place to catalyze the deadly fire. These observations may help forecasters and scientists identify – and potentially warn – for future destructive fire-generated vortices.

“This paints a clear picture of the sequence of events leading to the vortex development and intensification,” Lareau said. “This sequence suggests the Carr Fire vortex may qualify as pyro-genetic tornado, and not merely a tornado-strength fire-generated vortex.”

In his study, satellite and radar observations document the evolution of the vortex revealing similarities to tornado dynamics. A key factor in the vortex formation was the development of a fire-generated ice-topped cloud (known as a pyro-cumulonimbus) which reached as high as 39,000 ft. The development of the cloud helped stretch the underlying column of air, concentrating the rotation near the surface and causing the tornado strength winds, estimated at 143 mph, the strength of an EF-3 tornado.

Radar data show that the vortex formed along the fire perimeter and within a pre-existing region of wind shear immediately following rapid vertical development of the convective plume, which grew from four to eight miles high in just 15 minutes. The plume development was fueled by the onset of the pyro-cumulonimbus cloud, a process similar to the development of an ordinary thunderstorm. It is this link to the cloud aloft that distinguishes the Carr fire vortex from more frequently observed fire-thirls, which tend to be smaller and less intense. The only other documented case of a “firenado” is during the Canberra Firestorm of 2003 in New South Wales, Australia

The data in the study came from National Weather Service NEXRAD radars located at Beale Air Force Base, in northern California, Eureka, California and Medford, Oregon. While radar data has been used to study many other wildfires with pyro-cumulonimbus clouds, this is the first instance of NEXRAD radars observing the structure and evolution of a tornadic fire-generated vortex itself.

Other factors contributing to the firenado include:

• Exceptionally low fuel moisture due to unusual warmth throughout July.
• Climate impacts of a five-year drought followed by a near record wet season that produced an abundance of vegetation, then another exceptionally dry winter
• A near-surface cyclonic wind shear zone that developed in the hour prior to vortex formation
• The release of moist instability in the fire-generated cloud aloft
• Weather factors including very low humidity, record high temperatures, and terrain-channeled winds due to low atmospheric pressure.

The Carr Fire, which burned in Shasta and Trinity Counties, started July 23 after a tire blew out on a trailer and the rim made sparks on the pavement. It went on to burn 230,000 acres – 359 square miles – making it the seventh largest fire in California history. It was 100 percent contained by August 30.

The fire resulted in eight fatalities and destroyed 1,079 residences. Following ignition, the fire was initially terrain driven, spreading uphill from July 23 to July 25. Then, on July 26, the fire became wind-driven, advancing rapidly eastward and downhill into the western suburbs of Redding. The fire jumped the Sacramento River, and on the evening of July 26 the large fire-generated vortex formed along the northeastern flank of the fire. The fire-generated vortex was directly related to four deaths, numerous injuries and substantive loss of property.

“With the impacts from this fire, a discussion and studies are warranted about the potential to warn for future tornado-strength vortices,” Lareau, an assistant professor in the Physics Department of the College of Science, said. “In this case, the availability of high resolution radar and satellite observations provide advance indications for vortex formation such that watches, or even warnings, may have been possible.”

In the future, Lareau said, the operational meteorological and fire-fighting communities might develop routines to carefully inspect radar data for evidence of shear or rotation in wildfire plumes, and satellite data for indications of fire-cloud formations and storms.

Lareau’s research specializes in mountain weather and wildfire plume dynamics and examines atmospheric dynamics across a range of scales. Other specific research topics includes, boundary-layer and cloud interactions, mountain valley cold air pools and synoptic-scale storm tracks.

By Hannah Brockhaus

Ahead of the beatification Saturday of Bishop Pierre Claverie and his 18 companions, who were martyred in Algeria between 1994 and 1996, Pope Francis said martyrs have a special place in the Church.

“The Church has always paid special devotion to the martyrs, who have faith and love for the Lord Jesus, even to the shedding of their blood as witness,” he wrote in a letter to Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu.

Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Becciu, as the pope’s envoy, will celebrate the Dec. 8 beatification of the 19 Algerian martyrs at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Holy Cross in Oran.

In his letter, composed in Latin, the pope recalled the suffering and persecution experienced by Christ, quoting his words to his disciples that “a servant is no greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

These words have been confirmed throughout time and place in the persecution and martyrdom of Christians, he continued.

“Persecutions are not a reality of the past,” he said, quoting his 2018 apostolic exhortation Gaudete et exsultate, “for today too we experience them, whether by the shedding of blood, as is the case with so many contemporary martyrs, or by more subtle means, by slander and lies.”

He also said that “at other times, persecution can take the form of gibes that try to caricature our faith and make us seem ridiculous.”

But Christians should not be afraid of persecution, Francis said, because Christ told his followers that “all power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. […] And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

The death of these 19 martyrs has acted like a seed planted in the desert, and “the seeds have sprouted,” resulting in the growth of virtues, Francis said. The martyrs loved eternal life more than death, and now “they possess what they loved, and they will possess it even more fully at the resurrection of the dead.”

Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to recognize the martyrdoms in January.

Bishop Claverie, who was a French Algerian and the Bishop of Oran from 1981 until his Aug. 1, 1996 martyrdom, is one of the future blesseds. He and his companions were killed during the Algerian Civil War by Islamists.

In addition to Claverie, those being beatified are: Brother Henri Vergès, Sister Paul-Hélène Saint-Raymond, Sister Esther Paniagua Alonso, Sister Caridad Álvarez Martín, Fr. Jean Chevillard, Fr. Alain Dieulangard, Fr. Charles Deckers, Fr. Christian Chessel, Sister Angèle-Marie Littlejohn, Sister Bibiane Leclercq, Sister Odette Prévost, Brother Luc Dochier, Brother Christian de Chergé, Brother Christophe Lebreton, Brother Michel Fleury, Brother Bruno Lemarchand, Brother Célestin Ringeard, and Brother Paul Favre-Miville.

The best known of Claverie’s companions are the seven monks of Tibhirine, who were kidnapped from their Trappist priory in March 1996. They were kept as a bartering chip to procure the release of several imprisoned members of the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, and were killed in May. Their story was dramatized in the 2010 French film Of Gods and Men, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

After the death of the monks of Tibhirine, Bishop Claverie knew his life was in serious danger. A bomb exploded at the entrance of his chancery Aug. 1, 1996, killing him and an aide, Mohamed Bouchikhi.

By Dennis Jay Santos

Communist rebels in the Philippines declared a unilateral Christmastime ceasefire on Friday, apparently unaware that troops had arrested a senior consultant of the insurgent group and his wife earlier in the day.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said the order for the New People’s Army (NPA), its armed wing, to silence guns would be carried out in two stages over five days around Christmas and New Year’s Day. The first ceasefire would run from Dec. 24 through Dec. 26, and the second one from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1, the CPP said in a statement.

The CPP leadership ordered its fighters to “cease and desist from carrying out offensive military campaigns and operations against uniformed armed personnel” of the government during the days covered by the ceasefire but also admonished them “to stay on alert for active defense mode.”

The ceasefire declaration by the party’s Central Committee was dated early this week but only released Friday.

The declaration came after Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he would not recommend that government declare a traditional Christmas ceasefire, as he accused the rebels of exploiting a lull in fighting to bolster its arsenal.

The military also said it would object to any plans of declaring a government ceasefire over the year-end holidays.

According to Lorenzana, President Rodrigo Duterte would have the final say on a ceasefire, but the chief executive would likely follow his defense team’s recommendations.

In its ceasefire declaration, the CPP leaders called on “all Red fighters and commanders” to “maintain a high degree of militancy and vigilance against hostile actions or movements by enemy armed forces.”

However, at no point should the NPA “leave the people defenseless and place their units in danger,” the CPP said, adding that the truce could be cancelled at any time if communist rebels came under attack by government troops.

Couple arrested

The announcement was made public the same day police said they had arrested Rey Claro Casambre and his wife at their home in Bacoor city, a suburb south of Manila.

Casambre, 67, is a senior consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the political wing of the CPP. His wife, Patricia Cora, is 72. Both were arrested in connection with homicide charges filed against them in the southern city of Davao.

Last month, Vicente Ladlad, 68, a ranking party member, and two of his aides were arrested north of Manila.

The series of arrests came after President Rodrigo Duterte called off peace talks aimed at ending the communist insurgency, which began in 1969 and is considered Asia’s longest running rebellion.

“A handgun, grenade, bullets and bomb components were recovered from the suspect. The couple are now detained,” regional police commander Chief Supt. Edward Carranza said of the couple.

Since Duterte came to power two years ago, over 50 “prominent communist personalities” have been arrested, disrupting the group’s chain of command from the CPP leadership to its guerrillas on the ground, the military has said.

Shortly after assuming office in 2016, Duterte, a self-described leftist, opened peace talks with the CPP and released dozens of detained insurgent leaders as a goodwill measure.

The relationship soured months later when the rebels were accused of carrying on with attacks in remote areas of the country despite the peace talks. Duterte subsequently ended the negotiations.

Nonoy Espina and Jeoffrey Maitem contributed to this report from Bacolad and Cotabato city, Philippines.

By Mohammed Al-Sulami

Islamic values preserve the legal rights and freedoms of everyone and these values do not accept any form of division or discrimination, the secretary-general of the Muslim World League said in Abu Dhabi.

Mohammed bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa was speaking at the opening ceremony of the Forum for Promoting Peace, which drew hundreds of delegates from diverse religions and international humanitarian organizations.

Al-Issa told the audience that the responsibility of absurd words and deeds along with acts of hatred, violence and terrorism fell solely on individuals and not their religion.

Another inaccuracy about Islam was failing to realize that it preserved the legal rights and freedoms of everyone without exception, he said.

The third mistake was thinking that Islam sought to end other religions, he added, as Islam had been always open to the existence of other religions.

Some historical events involving Islam and other religions were political disagreements that had nothing to do with co-existence, delegates heard.

Al-Issa said safeguarding minority rights was one of Islam’s values.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) reached a new deal to curb global crude output. Oil prices surged over 4 percent following the news.

OPEC members and major oil producing countries led by Russia have agreed to cut crude output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd), a spokesman said as quoted by Bloomberg.

The long-anticipated deal was reached as OPEC and major global producers met in Vienna. The key purpose of the meeting was to negotiate production cuts in order to boost global crude prices that have seen a dramatic drop of nearly 30 percent over recent months.

Major crude benchmarks saw a 4 percent jump in prices after the deal was reached. Brent crude jumped to $63.04 per barrel at 14:08 GMT on Friday, while US crude benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) surged to $53.85 a barrel.

Earlier, Reuters reports emerged stating Russia was planning to agree to cut 200,000 bpd (barrels per day), if the 15-member organization offers the curbs of more than one billion bpd.

There were also earlier reports that the OPEC negotiations had stalled due to some members refusing to cut production.

Iran reportedly demanded exemption from the cuts amid Saudi-backed US sanctions, but Saudi Arabia was refusing to agree to the exemption. Iran, OPEC’s third-largest producer, has considerably reduced its oil exports so far.

The agreement on production cap was reportedly reached by the cartel and its partners at the beginning of December. However, discussion of individual quotas has reportedly stalled.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. prosecutors have laid out in court details of what they say are lies by former top associates of President Donald Trump regarding their interactions with Russian contacts, charges that will likely lead to long prison terms for the two men.

The accusations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former personal lawyer Michael Cohen were made in separate filings late on December 7 in federal court.

Despite the allegations against former top associates of Trump, the White House late on December 7 issued a statement saying the filings offered nothing new or damaging about the president and blamed the media for “trying to create a story where there isn’t one.”

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and whether there was collusion between associates of Trump and Russia. Moscow denies it interfered, despite substantial evidence. Trump has repeatedly denied collusion between his team and Russia.

Mueller’s office charged in U.S. District Court in Washington that Manafort made “multiple discernible lies” regarding his contacts with Russian-Ukrainian political consultant Konstantin Kilimnik, violating the terms of a previous plea deal.

The filing states Manafort lied about Kilimnik’s efforts to tamper with witnesses, the circumstances around a $125,000 payment to a firm working for Manafort, and Manafort’s contacts with Trump administration officials.

Mueller’s office also said Manafort told investigators he spoke with officials only prior to and after they had left the Trump administration. But prosecutors allege that a review of Manafort’s electronic documents shows he had “additional contacts” with the officials.

Manafort’s lawyers deny he lied, and it will be up to a judge to rule on whether he broke his plea deal.

The 69-year-old Manafort already faces years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy counts in the Washington court and being convicted of financial fraud crimes at a Virginia court, which is scheduled to sentence him in February.

He pleaded guilty in September in the Washington case and had agreed to cooperate with the investigation. He is being held in jail after his bail was revoked.

Manafort did political work for Moscow-friendly former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his party, and undisclosed lobbying work he admitted to performing on behalf of Ukraine in violation of U.S. law.

Manafort joined Trump’s presidential campaign in March 2016 and became chairman but resigned five months later.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in Manhattan asked a judge to sentence Cohen to a “substantial” prison term after he admitted to paying a porn film actress money to keep her from embarrassing Trump during the 2016 election.

Some of the money that was paid to the women allegedly came from shell corporations that Cohen set up, and with money allegedly that was provided by Trump.

Investigators have been looking at whether the money Trump allegedly paid could constitute a contribution to his election effort, and whether it should have been disclosed under federal election law.

Mueller asked a judge for no additional prison time for Cohen on a separate set of charges that said the lawyer lied about potential Moscow real estate development that could have brought Trump’s business “hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources.”

The filing detailed how Cohen spoke to a Russian as early as 2015 who “claimed to be a ‘trusted person’ in the Russian Federation who could offer the campaign ‘political synergy’ and ‘synergy on a government level,'” although the meeting never took place.

Cohen, who has been cooperating with Mueller, pleaded guilty to charges including tax, bank, and campaign finance fraud in August.

Cohen worked for years for Trump’s business organization, serving as a “fixer,” to help out with business deals and other matters.

Cohen is scheduled to be sentence on December 12 on all the federal charges he has pleaded guilty to.

The moves follow the release of a sentencing memo on December 4 by the special counsel’s office regarding Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

In December 2017, 10 months after being fired by Trump, Flynn pleaded guilty to charges of lying to FBI investigations about secretive conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak.

Mueller recommended no prison time for Flynn because of the assistance he has provided prosecutors, but he offered few details into the scope of that cooperation.

A day or so ago the US Navy sent a guided-missile destroyer into Russian-claimed waters in the Sea of Japan in what it called a “freedom of navigation” operation. The operation comes as the US and Russia are in confrontation over a variety of serious security issues, including Russia’s violation of the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and Moscow’s operations to control the Sea of Azov and to ultimately control the lands above the Crimea Peninsula.

The USS McCampbell, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer operating from the US Navy base at Yokosuka, in Japan, sailed near Peter the Great Bay “to challenge Russia’s excessive maritime claims and uphold the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea enjoyed by the United States and other nations.” Russia responded that the USS McCampbell never crossed into Russian waters and the destroyer was under surveillance the entire time. Russia’s concept of maritime property rights is part of Moscow’s belief in extended jurisdiction over seabeds.

A US Navy spokesperson said: “US Forces operate in the Indo-Pacific region on a daily basis. These operations demonstrate the United States will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows. That is true in the Sea of Japan, as in other places around the globe.”

This idea of “Indo-Pacific” is important to note. US military doctrine toward China and East Asia underwent an upgrade at the Pentagon in May 2018. US Defense Secretary James Mattis announced that Pacific Command would now be the US Indo-Pacific Command to better reflect linkages and values in the region. For the Pentagon, relationships with Pacific and Indian Ocean allies and partners are proving critical to maintaining open and free maritime sea lanes.

Mattis stated that “…over many decades the former Pacific Command adapted to changing circumstance, and today carries that legacy forward as America focuses west.” The idea of “west” is meant to underscore Washington’s growing military relationship with India, which America is working with to counter Chinese maritime influence.

It is significant that as India is seeking to expand its naval “destiny” with a mix of Russian and European-made naval assets, Delhi bumps into Chinese regional interests. Attempting to expand its own interests, commercial activities, and energy goods imports, China has launched the “String of Pearls” project. This is the construction of a web of naval infrastructure, including ports and bases, throughout the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). These activities, along with the arms sales to IOR states, are rousing fears of Chinese control of blue water sea lanes, fueling an old rivalry between India and China.

The US Navy’s freedom of navigation operations have mostly involved making a show of sending ships into contended waters. The US Navy has conducted several such operations in the South China Sea, sailing past islands claimed by China near Gaven and Johnson reefs in the Spratly Islands. Just last week, the US sent the USS Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser, near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea to similarly challenge China’s maritime domain.

The US Navy has been exercising freedom of navigation numerous times over the past year, which is earning the ire of Beijing. For the Chinese, the US side is posing a grave threat to China’s sovereignty and security, severely damaged relations between the two militaries, and significantly undermined regional peace and stability. China thinks its sovereignty over the islands and their adjacent waters in the South China Sea is indisputable.

Thus, America is conducting freedom of navigation exercises around Russia and China as part of the wider move to protect naval sea lanes in accordance with international maritime law.

What we are seeing is an arc of maritime points that are coming into sharper focus. The Russia-China-India triangle in terms of sea lane security is important because of the interplay in terms of defense sales and technology shared between the three countries. Also, concepts of sovereignty between the countries, although not present in India yet, are strong and thus America is focusing on how the three countries use Belt and Road concepts in terms of sea lane logistics.

Overall, freedom of navigation exercises throughout the Indo-Pacific theater, stretching from Russia to India via many waterways and a few chokepoints, is now part of showing US resolve in terms of open sea lanes. America’s naval operations are supported by a number of countries in the region and thus state sovereignty is respected from this viewpoint. What is more important is that threats of coercion that focus on maritime trade are not rejected on the basis of what Secretary Mattis calls “predatory economics” as there appear to be many “belts and roads” in the Indo Pacific.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the economy added 155,000 jobs in November, with the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7 percent. With a modest downward revision to the job growth reported for the prior two months, the average over the last three months was 170,000, a clear slowing from the 204,000 average rate over the last year. Both the overall and prime age (ages 25–54) employment-to-population ratios (EPOP) were unchanged in November at their highs for the recovery.

Within the prime-age population there have been notable differences in employment patterns over the last year. Overall, the EPOP is up by 0.7 percentage points over the year. Monthly data are erratic for subgroups, so taking three-month averages finds the sharpest increase is for men and women between the ages of 25–34, with a rise of 1.0 percentage points for both. The rise for the former group is especially noteworthy since some economists had previously argued they had lost interest in work due to the attractiveness of video games.

Using three-month averages, the EPOP for men between the ages of 35–44 was unchanged over the year, while it rose 0.5 percentage points for women. For men between the ages of 45–54 the EPOP rose by 0.5 percentage points, while it rose by 0.8 percentage points for women in this age group. The EPOPs for men in all three age groups were still below prerecession peaks. For women, the EPOP for the 45 to 54 age group was still close to a percentage point below prerecession peaks. For the 35 to 44 age group, it is comparable to prerecession peaks but still close to two percentage points below 2000 peaks. For the 25 to 34 age group, the EPOP was above prerecession peaks and comparable to 2000 levels.

Other data in the household survey were mixed. The duration measures of unemployment all fell, with the median duration, at 8.9 weeks, tying its low for the recovery. By demographic group, the 5.9 percent unemployment rate for black workers tied its lowest level on record.

On the negative side, the number of involuntary part-time workers rose by 181,000, putting it 423,000 above the low reported in August. Voluntary part-time employment fell by 604,000, putting it below year-ago levels. The steep drop is likely an anomaly, but weakness in this measure could be due to increased difficulty getting access to insurance outside of employment (either from Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges).

The percentage of unemployment due to voluntary quits also edged downward to 11.8 percent. This measure of workers’ confidence in their job prospects is inconsistent with the low overall unemployment rate. It was over 14 percent in 2000 and peaked at 15.2 percent in April of that year.

The employment gains in the establishment survey were broadly based. Health care added 32,100, a bit more than its average of 27,400 over the last year. Manufacturing added 27,000 jobs, in spite of the continued rise in the trade deficit. Employment in the sector is up by 288,000 (2.3 percent) from year-ago levels. Restaurants added 21,200 jobs, while retail added 18,200.

Job growth in construction was weak at just 5,000, which is consistent with falling housing starts. Employment in the motion picture industry fell by 9,700 and is now 12,700 below its year-ago level. There was also a drop of 8,200 in the number of workers in state and local education. Employment in public education is up by just over 0.1 percent over the last year.

There is some evidence that wage growth is picking up. The average hourly wage has risen 3.1 percent over the last year. The annualized rate for the last three months (September, October, November) compared with the prior three months (June, July, and August) is up 3.3 percent. With inflation likely falling back to near its core rate of 2.0 percent due to lower energy prices, this allows for modest real wage gains. On the flip side, there was a modest drop in the length of the average workweek in November, so the average weekly wage actually dipped slightly.

On the whole, this is a mostly positive report indicating a decent pace of job growth, but items like the low share of voluntary quits and drop in hours provide some evidence of weakness.

A new study has revealed an intriguing link between babies born with a vitamin D deficiency and an increased risk of developing schizophrenia later in life. Although the discovery stems from observational research, the scientists suggest vitamin D plays a major role in fetal brain development, New Atlas says.

The initial hypothesis arose through a study of epidemiological research finding an increased risk of schizophrenia in people living in urban versus rural settings, residents of high altitude locations, dark-skinned ethnic groups, and those born across winter and spring. A common factor that the researchers could map over all those individual risk factors is higher levels of vitamin D deficiencies.

Over 2,600 adult subjects with diagnosed schizophrenia were subsequently selected to examine vitamin D levels from blood samples taken when they were born. The results were incredibly convincing, finding newborns with a vitamin D deficiency were 44 percent more likely to develop schizophrenia compared to a control group of healthy adults born with normal vitamin D levels.

“As the developing fetus is totally reliant on the mother’s vitamin D stores, our findings suggest that ensuring pregnant women have adequate levels of vitamin D may result in the prevention of some schizophrenia cases, in a manner comparable to the role folate supplementation has played in the prevention of spina bifida,” says John McGrath, lead on the new study.

While it is appropriate to be mildly hesitant when interpreting results that only suggest a correlation and not a causation, there is a body of evidence that backs up the hypothesis that prenatal vitamin D deficiency could increase schizophrenia risk. A variety of animal studies have demonstrated the tendency for transient prenatal vitamin D deficiency to disrupt everything from brain volume to gene and protein expression.

Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy has also been recently linked to the development of autistic traits in young children. In addition to this, a recent study revealed intriguing molecular similarities in gene expression between autism and schizophrenia.

Despite this well-conceived new study, much still remains unclear. The results were only generated from a single blood sample taken at birth so it is not known whether extended vitamin D deficiency across the first few years of life influences schizophrenia risk. Maternal behaviors during pregnancy that could influence vitamin D levels are also unclear in relation to the child’s ultimate schizophrenia risk.

“The next step is to conduct randomized clinical trials of vitamin D supplements in pregnant women who are vitamin D deficient, in order to examine the impact on child brain development and risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia,” explains McGrath on the path moving forward.

Watching the ongoing debate between liberal and right-wing pundits on US mainstream media, one rarely gets the impression that Washington is responsible for the unfolding chaotic situation in Central America. In fact, no other country is as accountable as the United States for the ongoing chaos and resulting refugee crisis. So why, despite the seemingly substantial ideological and political differences between right-wing Fox News and liberal CNN, are both media outlets working hard to safeguard their country’s dirty little secret?

In recent years, state and gang violence — coupled with extreme poverty — have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras, among other countries in Central and South America. The mainstream media in the US, however, is rarely interested in the root cause of that reality.

Fox News, for example, is tirelessly peddling the offensive language used by President Donald Trump, which portrays the refugees as criminals and terrorists who pose a threat to US national security. At a press conference in October, Trump urged a reporter to take his camera into ”the middle” of a caravan of migrants on the treacherous journey through Mexico, to locate ”Middle Eastern” people who have, he alleged, infiltrated the crowd. In Trump’s thinking, “Middle Eastern people” is a synonym for terrorists.

CNN, on the other hand, has laboured to counter the growing official and media anti-immigrant sentiments that have plagued the US, a discourse that is constantly prodded and manipulated by Trump and his supporters.

However, few in the liberal media have the courage to probe the story beyond convenient political rivalry. Most persist in their hypocritical and insincere humanitarianism that is divorced from any meaningful political context.

The fact is that the Central American refugee crisis is similar to the plethora of Middle East and Central Asian refugee crises of recent years. Mass migration is almost always the direct outcome of political meddling and military interventions by the West. From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya and Syria, millions of refugees have been forced, by circumstances beyond their control, to seek safety in some other country. Millions of Iraqis and Syrians have thus found themselves in Lebanon, Jordan or Turkey, while a far smaller number trickled across to Europe; all sought safety from the grinding wars in their own lands.

So-called “populist” political opportunists in Europe are no different from their American counterparts. While the former have seized on the tragedy of the refugees to sow the seeds of fear and hate, Americans have blamed the refugees for their own misery.

Blaming the victim is nothing new. The Iraqis were once blamed for failing to appreciate Western democracy; Libyans for their failed state; Syrians for taking the wrong side in a protracted war; and so on. Yet the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Syria are all, in varying degrees, outcomes of military interventions, a truth that does not seem to register in the self-absorbed minds of both right-wing and liberal intellectuals in Europe and the US.

The irony is that the hapless refugees, whether those escaping to Europe or to the United States, are perceived to be the aggressors — the invaders, if you like — whereas the reality is that it was the US and its allies which had, in fact, invaded these once stable and sovereign countries.

Trump has often referred to the Central American migrants’ caravan as an “invasion”, a claim which has been parroted by Fox News. The US President, incredibly, injected the possibility of having the refugees shot upon arrival. If Fox News lacked the decency to treat refugees as human beings deserving of sympathy and respect, CNN lacked the courage to expand the discussion beyond Trump’s awful language and inhumane policies.

To expand the parameters of the conversation would expose a policy that was not introduced by Trump, but by Bill Clinton, and applied in earnest by George W Bush and Barack Obama. Media grandstanding aside, Democrats as well as Republicans are responsible for the current refugee crisis.

In 1996, Democratic President Clinton unleashed a war on refugees when he passed two consecutive pieces of legislation: the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. Millions of people who had escaped US-instigated wars and military coups were deported back to Central and South America. Two million people were deported during the Bush terms, with 2.5 million being deported under Obama. A terrible situation was exacerbated; violence and want flared even more.

To rally his angry and radicalised constituency, Trump waved the migrant card once more, threatening to build a “great wall” and to close “loopholes” in US immigration law. Like his predecessors, he offered little by way of redressing an unjust reality that is fomented constantly by destructive US foreign policy, stretching back decades.

Nevertheless, the refugees kept on coming, mostly from Central America’s Northern Triangle region. Without proper political context, they, too, were duly blamed for their own hardship. Considering the lack of quality coverage by Fox News and CNN, this is hardly surprising. Few Americans know of the sordid history of their country in that region, starting with the CIA-engineered coup d’état in Guatemala in 1954, or the US support of the coup against the democratically-elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, in 2009; or of everything else that happened in between.

Indeed, the unhealthy relationship between the US and its southern neighbours goes back to as early as 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt declared the “right” of his country to hold “international police power” in Latin America. Since then, the entire region has been regarded as Washington’s business.

The free trade agreement (CAFTA-DR) signed between Central American countries and the US has done its own share of damage. The deal “restructured the region’s economy and guaranteed economic dependence on the United States through massive trade imbalances and the influx of American agricultural and industrial goods that weakened domestic industries,” wrote Mark Tseng-Putterman in Medium.

Acknowledging all of this is threatening. If US mainstream pundits accept their country’s destructive role in Central and South America, they will be forced to abandon the role of the victim (as embraced by the right) or the saviour (as embraced by the left), which has served them well. The same stifling political and intellectual routine is also witnessed in Europe.

This denial of moral responsibility, though, will only exacerbate the problem, not resolve it. No amount of racism on the part of the right, or crocodile tears from the liberals, will ever rectify this skewed paradigm. This is as true in Central America as it is in the Middle East; there is a conspiracy against refugees.