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Is Strasbourg Attack A False Flag To Thwart Yellow Vests? – OpEd

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On Tuesday evening, a brazen terror attack occurred in the French city of Strasbourg, claiming three lives and injuring a dozen, six of whom are said to be in critical condition. The suspect was known to police as an Islamic extremist and has been identified as 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt.

The suspected shooter evaded capture from a police dragnet and is still on the run, prompting fears of a follow-up attack. The suspect was shot and injured by soldiers guarding the Christmas market in Strasbourg, but escaped in a hijacked taxi.

Cherif Chekatt is said to be on a watch-list of around 26,000 people, of whom 10,000are believed to have been radicalized. He had previously served prison sentences in France and Germany for common law offences and fought twice with security forces.

It’s worth noting that although the Western powers are ostensibly fighting a war against terrorism, they had worked hand-in-glove with the Islamic jihadists from 2011to 2014 to topple the hostile regimes of Qaddafi in Libya and Bashar al-Assadin Syria.

In line with their foreign policy, Britain, France and Germany gave a free hand to the Islamic jihadists and their patrons based in those countries to wage proxy wars against the governments in Libya and Syria. France was particularly vulnerable because it has a large Muslim diaspora from its former North African colonies.

The seven-year-long conflict in Syria that gave birth to scores of militant groups, including the Islamic State, and after the conflict spilled across the border into neighboring Iraq in early 2014 was directly responsible for the spate of Islamic State-inspired terror attacks in Europe from 2015 to 2017.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in August 2011 to June 2014, when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq, an informal pact existed between the Western powers, their regional Sunni allies and jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis. In accordance with the pact, militants were trained and armed in the training camps located in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan to battle the Syrian government.

This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the jihadists of the Middle East against the Iranian axis worked well up to August 2014, when the Obama administration made a volte-face on its previous regime change policy in Syria and began conducting air strikes against one group of Sunni militants battling the Syrian government, the Islamic State, after the latter overstepped its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq from where the US had withdrawn itstroops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

After this reversal of policy in Syria by the Western powers and the subsequent Russian military intervention on the side of the Syrian government in September 2015, the momentum of jihadists’ expansion in Syria and Iraq stalled, and they felt that their Western patrons had committed a treachery against the Sunni jihadists’ cause, that’s why they were infuriated and rose up in arms to exactrevenge for this betrayal.

If we look at the chain of events, the timing of the spate of terror attacks against the West was critical: the Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014, the Western powers began conducting air strikes against the Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014, and after a lull of almost a decade since the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005, respectively, the first such incident of terrorism occurred on the Western soil at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and then the Islamic State carried out the audacious November2015 Paris attacks, the March 2016 Brussels bombings, the June 2016 truck-ramming incident in Nice, and three horrific terror attacks took place in the United Kingdom within a span of less than three months in 2017, and after that the Islamic State carried out the Barcelona attack in August 2017.

More to the point, the dilemma that the jihadists and their regional backers faced in Syria was quite unique: in the wake of the Ghouta chemical weapons attacks in Damascus in August 2013, the stage was all set for yet another no-fly zone and”humanitarian intervention” a la Qaddafi’s Libya; the war hounds were waiting for a finishing blow and then-Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and the former Saudi intelligence chief, Bandar bin Sultan, were shuttling between the Western capitals to lobby for the military intervention. Francois Hollande had already announced his intentions and David Cameron was also onboard.

Here it should be remembered that even during the Libyan intervention, the Obama administration’s policy was a bit ambivalent and France under the leadership of Sarkozy had taken the lead role. In Syria’s case, however, the British parliament forced Cameron to seek a vote for military intervention in the House of Commons before committing the British troops and air force to Syria.

Taking cuefrom the British parliament, the US Congress also compelled Obama to seek approval before another ill-conceived military intervention; and since both the administrations lacked the requisite majority in their respective parliaments and the public opinion was also fiercely against another Middle Eastern war, therefore Obama and Cameron dropped their plans of enforcing a no-fly zone over Syria.

In the end, France was left alone as the only Western power still in favor of intervention; at that point, however, the seasoned Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, staged a diplomatic coup by announcing that the Syrian regime was willing to ship its chemical weapons stockpiles out of Syria and subsequently the issue was amicably resolved.

Turkey,Jordan and the Gulf Arab states, the main beneficiaries of the Sunni Jihad against the Shi’a-led government in Syria, however, had lost a golden opportunity todeal a fatal blow to their regional rivals.

To addinsult to the injury, the Islamic State, one of the numerous Sunni Arab militant outfits fighting in Syria, overstepped its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in 2014, from where the US troops had withdrawnonly a couple of years ago in December 2011.

Additionally,when the graphic images and videos of Islamic State’s executions surfaced onthe internet, the Western powers were left with no other choice but to adopt some countermeasures to show that they were still sincere in pursuing their dubious “war on terror” policy; at the same time, however, they assured their Turkish, Jordanian and Gulf Arab allies that despite fighting a war against the maverick jihadist outfit, the Islamic State, the Western policy of training and arming the so-called “moderate” Syrian militants will continue apace and that Bashar al-Assad’s days were numbered, one way or the other.

Moreover, declaring the war against the Islamic State in August 2014 served another purpose too: in order to commit the US Air Force to Syria and Iraq, the Obama administration needed the approval of the US Congress which was not available, as I have already mentioned, but by declaring a war against the Islamic State, which is a designated terrorist organization, the Obama administration availed itself of the war on terror provisions in the US laws and thus circumvented the US Congress.

But then Russia threw a spanner in the works of NATO and its Gulf Arab allies in September 2015 by its surreptitious military buildup in Latakia that was executed with an element of surprise unheard of since General Rommel, the Desert Fox. And now Turkey, Jordan, the Gulf Arab states and their jihadist proxies in Syria find themselves at the receiving end in the Syrian conflict.

Keeping this background of the quagmire created by the Western powers in Syria and Iraq to appease their regional allies, Israel and the Gulf states, in mind, it becomes amply clear that the Western powers are not sincere in pursuing their dubious war on terror policy as they have worked hand-in-glove with the Islamic jihadists in the Middle East.

Then how isit possible that a terror attack has occurred in Strasbourg when the Yellow Vests demonstrations have taken France by storm, which are demanding reduction in fuel tax, the reintroduction of wealth tax on large businesses, the raising of the minimum wage, and the resignation of the former investment banker and current President of France, Emmanuel Macron.

The only beneficiary of the Strasbourg shooting, it appears, is none other than the French government itself, because after the incident, the government would now put restrictions on freedom of assembly and all kinds of political demonstrations.

Thus it is quite likely that the French deep state might have instigated one of jihadists on its payroll to carry out the Strasbourg atrocity to break the momentum of the Yellow Vests protests, which have posed the single biggest threat to the elitist Macron administration since coming to power last year.


European Army: An Apple Of Discord – OpEd

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The initiative of creating a European Army actually is in the air of the European Union.

Both French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel declared this month that they support the need to create a joint European army. By the way these two countries are the strongest EU member states from economic and political points of view. Their words are not just “air shaking” but the subject to think it over.

France is the only remaining nuclear power in the EU once Britain leaves the organization – and Germany – its major economic power. Both countries make up about 40 % of the industrial and technological base in Western and Central Europe, as well as 40 % of the EU overall capabilities and of combined defence budgets.

The main reason why European leaders voiced the initiative now can be considered from two different points of view. From one hand this can be the indicator of European fears of Russia, China and even the US military activities. According to Macron, “an EU army is needed to “protect ourselves” with respect to these states.”

On the other hand such initiative can be used by France and Germany to stop the US from weakening Europe and promoting its interests in the region. Donald Trump reacted to the statement by tweeting: “Emmanuel Macron suggests building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia. But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two – How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!” Thus, he tied closely the idea of a European Army to his demand to increase defence spending to NATO.

At the same time the initiative of strengthening the European collective defence capabilities not only irritates the US but scares many EU countries as well.

As for the Baltic States, they have not formed their official opinion yet. The matter is the Baltics are “between two fires.” The EU membership gives them good political positions in Europe where they try to gain respect and influence. But the US remains their main financial donor and security guarantee at the moment. They can’t sacrifice relationships with Washington for the sake of ephemeral European Army. It means that there is a greater likelihood that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia will softly reject the idea.

It is not necessary to expect strong opposition to Germany and France. But they surely will do their best to postpone decision making.
After all the initiative could become an “apple of discord” in the EU and split the organization in two sides making the organization even weaker than now.

*Viktors Domburs is an engineer, born in Latvia, and now lives in the United Kingdom.

Marrakesh Compact: Towards A New, More Equitable, More Humane Migration Order – OpEd

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The Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, was held in Marrakech, Morocco on 10 and 11 December 2018.

The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration provides the first international and non-legally binding cooperative framework on migration. It is the result of a comprehensive process of discussions and negotiations among all Member States of the United Nations that started with the New York Declaration in 2016, unanimously adopted at the UN General Assembly in 2016.

The legalization of undocumented immigrants is one of the most contentious issues in any immigration reform discussions. However, Morocco pledged to promote and protect migrants’ rights, focusing more on human rights and combating human trafficking networks. Rules concerning refugees, asylum seekers and, more in general, foreigners living in the Kingdom whose administrative position has not been legalized will change.

King Mohamed VI pushed for the reform on his country’s immigration policies at the recommendation of the National Council of human rights (CNDH) which had demanded public policies to protect migrants’ rights.

The first turn on migration initiated in 2014 was welcomed by the former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailing the guidelines of King Mohammed VI to the government to elaborate and implement a strategy and an action plan on migration.

“As one of the first member States to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1993), the Secretary-General welcomes the announcement by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, who gave his instructions to the Moroccan government to design and implement an appropriate strategy and action plan with a view to formulating a comprehensive policy on migration”, and “its call for the rights of migrants,” the Office of the Spokesperson of the UN said.

On the occasion of the Intergovernmental Conference held in Marrakech, King Mohammed VI addressed the participants of this landmark event stating that: “The international community can be proud of the page of history being written in Marrakech today. It is taking us a step closer to a new, more equitable, more humane migration order,” said King Mohammed VI in a message to the Conference, opened by UN Secreatry General Antonio Guterres.

“Between unacceptable laxity and the intolerable ‘all-about-security’ approach, there is a course of action which we are initiating today. A course of action, which embraces solidarity-based sovereignty rather than exclusion-centered nationalism, multilateralism rather than ostracism, and shared responsibility rather than institutionalized indifference,” the Sovereign pointed out in the message that was read out by Head ofv the Government Saad Eddine El Othmani.

“After all, this is what it is all about: putting an end to disorder, while injecting humane values into the order,” the Sovereign said.

The challenge for the intergovernmental conference on the global compact for migration is to show that the international community has opted for responsible solidarity, King Mohammed VI said insisting that migration is not a security issue – nor should it become one, and that migrants’ rights cannot be ignored simply because there are security concerns.

Migrants’ rights are inalienable. The side of the border on which a migrant stands does not make him or her more or less human, he said, adding that “addressing security concerns should go hand in hand with socio-economic development policies which tackle the root causes of risky migration.”

Insisting that security concerns should not be invoked to deny mobility, the Sovereign underlined that mobility can actually be turned into a lever of sustainable development, at a time when the international community is seeking to implement the 2030 Agenda.

Alluding to the controversy raised by nationalist and populist movements particularly in Western Europe that argue that the compact could infringe on countries’ national sovereignty, the King made it clear that “the sovereign right of each Member State to determine and apply its own migration policy ought to be fully respected.”

“This conference should show that multilateralism is not about empty chairs, desertion or indifference. Multilateralism is about synergies and about making commitments in which the right to differ is respected. The challenge for this Conference is therefore to unite, in the face of populism, to bring together, in the face of isolationism, and to come up, through dialogue and international cooperation, with meaningful solutions to one of the major issues of our time.”

No single country can, on its own, face up such a challenge. Just as there is no alternative to cooperation, there is no alternative to action, either. The Global Compact is not an end in itself. It will be meaningful only if it is effectively implemented. Viewed from this angle, the Marrakech Conference is, first and foremost, a call to action. And Africa has already responded to this call! It does not intend to be on the sidelines.”

Initially, Morocco is just a step for those illegal immigrants who seek at all costs to reach Spanish territory . But faced with the closure of Europe citadel and strengthened border control, attempts by some groups to force their way into the other side usually result into casualties and victims from both the Moroccan security forces and clandestine . These ensuing attempts have become rare due to the great efforts deployed by Moroccan authorities in their fight against human trafficking.

Today , the number of sub-Saharan illegal immigrants present in Morocco is increasing . Most are desperate to succeed to cross the the Straits of Gibraltar.  Morocco gradually has become their default home ground. However, the ever-increasing flow of illegal immigrants has an unsustainable pressure on Morocco, itself facing a high unemployment rate among its own youth.  Regardless of this challenging situation, Morocco is proud of what it is doing in terms of receiving and integrating migrants. It will keep up this practical, humanitarian approach.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at the opening of the intergovernmental conference on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration that the Pact aims to strengthen “cooperation on international migration in all their aspects”. The UN Chief underlined the importance of this Compact as a roadmap to prevent suffering and chaos, and to provide cooperation strategies that will benefit all.

So today more than 150 countries will join a United Nations conference to adopt a global pact to better handle migrant flows.   UN Special Representative for International Migration Louise Arbour said more than 150 governments had registered for the event in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh set to adopt the accord.   The pact is not legally binding but can provide very useful guidance for countries facing migration, she told a news conference.

“Many challenges will stand in the way of its implementation, not least the toxic and ill-informed narrative that too often persists when it comes to migrants,” she said.

After the adoption of the Marrakech Compact, the UN chief told journalists that “it was a very emotional moment” for him when he saw “the members of the conference unanimously in acclamation” adopt the Compact.  

The UN General Assembly is set to adopt a resolution formally endorsing the deal on December 19 in New York.

So, is the international community finally setting off towards a new, more equitable, more humane migration order. 

G20 Summit Confirms Countries’ Readiness To Seek Consensus In Global Economic Policy – OpEd

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The G20 leaders adopted a final declaration on the results of a two-day summit, which ended in Buenos Aires on December 1.

The summit participants reaffirmed the need to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO), agreed to promote economic growth, work together to eliminate the causes of refugees, and also declared their commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement.

Commenting on the results of the meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that during the preparation of the communiqué “controversy arose over a number of issues” but in the end it has been agreed.

“[They were] the migration crisis, trade and other issues, but in the end, nevertheless, our colleagues made an effort, and the document emerged. Yes, it is more of a general nature with, perhaps, some “rounded edges”. However, I think this is good. […] Why is it important? Because it shows the most important problems that the G20 deals with, and, in any case, shows the direction we’re moving in, where we need to go in order to meet our goals. I think this is a positive result anyway,” Russian leader said answering journalists’ questions.

Analyzing the results of the G20 summit, Nobuhide Hatasa, Professor, Nagoya University of Economics, expressed confidence that analysts and observers who watched the meeting were most worried about whether the leaders of G20 would be able to release a final joint communiqué.

“It was just happened within two weeks before the G20 summit during the 2018 APEC Summit held at Papua New Guinea that the leaders of APEC members for the first time since 1993 failed to issue Leaders’ Declaration. The fact that APEC Summit had ended without a formal leaders’ statement due to sharp conflicts […] casted a dark shadow over the results of the subsequent big international event of G20 in which the two hostile big nations sit at the same table again,” the expert told PenzaNews.

From his point of view, the summit can be considered successful only because the states managed to agree on a joint statement, although it does not include such words as “protectionism” and “unilateralism.”

“The countries decided to work together to develop and facilitate ‘a rules-based international order’,” Nobuhide Hatasa added.

Another important message shared among the leaders of G20 and incorporated in this year’s declaration is “the necessary reform of the WTO”, he said.

“The ideas of how to reform WTO system are completely different between Washington and Beijing but it is still a very significant statement as WTO has obtained endorsement from world leaders that it is the sole credible global platform where trade disputes are resolved orderly based on common rules,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Fernand Kartheiser, Luxembourg Parliament member for the Alternative Democratic Reform Party (ADR), noted that such meetings can be very valuable “in times of high international political tensions.”

“Even though they might not bring many concrete results in the short term, they undoubtedly have the merit to bring important leaders together and to offer a forum for discussions and thus prospects for longer-term improvements. The meeting in Argentina was therefore helpful, even though the relations between different leaders remained stressed,” the politician said.

Also, according to him, there were many economic problems that needed to be urgently addressed.

“The current weaknesses in multilateral diplomacy make bilateral negotiations on the margins of such events even more important. The meetings between the US and China and the US and European leaders on trade issues were promising,” Fernand Kartheiser said.

However, in his opinion, the final declarations of such summits “seem often to be automatic and hollow repetitions of what has already been stated many times before.”

“One could argue, that the declarations should be much shorter and more focused.. The policies followed by Saudi Arabia are for instance in flagrant contradiction with the passage on gender issues in the final declaration of the Summit. Nevertheless the G 20 meeting in 2020 is scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia. Interestingly, the passages on climate change appear to be slightly more careful about the climate change rhetoric than in the past. Considering the current issues on trade, it would also be important to give a new impetus to trade negotiations in the framework of the WTO,” Luxembourg Parliament member explained.

Meanwhile, the politician expressed disappointment with the cancellation of the official meeting between Russian and US presidents.

“It is to be hoped that such a meeting can be arranged soon. There are many international issues that wait for urgent responses, among which the future of the INF-Treaty,” Fernand Kartheiser added.

Fabio Masini from Department of Political Science at University of Roma Tre, Vice-President Italian Council of the European Movement, Managing Editor History of Economic Thought and Policy, Managing Director International Centre on European and Global Governance, expressed the opinion that the G20 in Argentina should be understood as “a declaration of suspension of the multilateral attempt to govern global issues.”

“G20 meetings have been trying to fill a gap in global governance. There is an increasing number of issues that call for a global response, and the G20 is a proxy for a global decision-making institution. The problem is that, being a diplomatic body where governments, not citizens, sit, negotiations substitute for decisions, and depend mostly on diplomatic relationships among them,” the analyst said.

According to him, the G20 participants try to find a compromise among conflicting national interests.

“There is no effective commitment on protectionism, on migrations, on climate change, etc. Each country goes on on its own, mainly by bilateral agreements,” Fabio Masini said.

“The failure of multilateralism is probably a sign that we urgently need to move forward, to a further step in global governance, designing more accountable and effective institutions, if we do not want to miss the challenges […] like global warming and climate change, a concrete struggle against poverty and conflicts, a new international monetary system, resource management,” the expert added.

In turn, Neil MacKinnon, Global Macro Strategist at VTB Capital, expressed the opinion that the summit could not significantly affect the current state of affairs in the international economy.

According to him, the summit did not meet expectations regarding a possible settlement of the situation in trade relations between Washington and Beijing.

“Initial hopes that the G20 meeting would bring about a resolution of the US-China trade dispute have faded. This increases the downside risks facing the global economy in 2018 as well as increasing financial market uncertainty and volatility,” Neil MacKinnon explained.

Meanwhile, Brittaney Warren, Director of Compliance, Lead Researcher Climate Change & Environment, University of Toronto, drew attention to the importance of holding the G20 summits.

“They allow world leaders an opportunity to come together face-to-face in a relatively informal setting. It also gives leaders an additional opportunity to meet bilaterally and to come to agreement or discuss areas of disagreement. These meetings set the tone for the international community, and even if tensions were high this year and not all of the world’s problems were resolved, […] it is better if these world leaders continue talking. The alternative is that they do not talk and that could prove much worse for international relations and multilateralism,” the analyst said.

However, in her opinion, the tone of this year’s Buenos Aires summit was one of uncertainty.

“There were concerns that the leaders wouldn’t be able to produce a consensus communiqué, as happened at the APEC summit. On the first day of the summit several press briefings were cancelled or were closed to the briefing countries’ home media. There were also concerns about the ability of leaders to come to consensus on key issues, such as anti-protectionism and climate change, given the domestic issues many G20 countries were facing, and continue to face. But on the second day, the leaders were successful in producing a consensus communiqué, with 86 collective, politically binding, future-oriented commitments,” Brittaney Warren reminded.

However, from her point of view, the substance of those commitments was lacking.

“There was no strong statement on anti-protectionism, rising inequality, or climate change, which is being left to the UN’s COP24 to deal with, and which the G20’s oil producing members are continuing to thwart,” the expert said adding that the domestic turmoil happening in many G20 countries weakened the ability of the G20 leaders to take meaningful action and to make meaningful, substantial commitments.

Meanwhile, Sourabh Gupta, Senior Fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies in Washington, also stressed the importance of the annual meeting.

“Despite the deep bitterness in ties today among some of the major powers, it brings their national leaders under one roof. This is no small achievement, and it was evident in the body language of the assembled leaders. The more leaders talk to each other at the summit level, the lower the chances are that they will indiscriminately take recourse to force to pursue their national goals on the immediate burning international issue of the day. Unilateralism will not be reversed by such summits but the effects of such policies can perhaps be better managed,” the analyst said.

At the international economic systemic level, more conceptually, these summits do hold real value, he said.

“Economic power in the world today is too widely-dispersed for any one country or bloc of countries to impose its or their will on others. There is no global economic hegemon today although the US does enjoy the capacity to exercise a fair degree of financial hegemony due to the global role of the dollar. On the other hand, the lack of a hegemon also creates a coordination problem, especially when the overall system requires collective action on the part of major and intermediate powers to address critical challenges,” Sourabh Gupta said.

“It requires habits of cooperation under a broad-based international governance umbrella to furnish such joint cooperation. The G20 provides such an umbrella. And this umbrella becomes that much more critically-important on a rainy day – as was the case in the immediate aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008–2009,” the expert added.

The fact that all parties could issue a joint communiqué was itself modestly stabilizing, he said.

“It showed that countries were willing to forego some of their more selfish demands in order to forge a loose consensus on global macro-economic policy coordination. I know this is a low bar but unfortunately in the age of ‘America First’ and after the experiences at the G7 meeting in Canada and the APEC meeting in Papua New Guinea, this should be considered a welcome development,” Sourabh Gupta said.

Furthermore, from his point of view, it was important that China and the US were able to forge a truce with regard to their trade and investment conflict that will start on 1 January 2019.

“It remains to be seen whether the truce was worthwhile or not. But for the time being, it’s adequate to point out that it is fora like the G20 which allow such critically stabilizing give-and-take to happen,” the analyst concluded.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/65830-2018

William Blum: Anti-Imperial Advocate – OpEd

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In the incessant self-praise of the US imperial project, kept safe in a state of permanently enforced amnesia, occasional writings prod and puncture. Mark Twain expressed an ashamed horror at the treatment of the Philippines; Ulysses Grant, despite being a victorious general of the Union forces in the Civil War and US president, could reflect that his country might, someday, face its comeuppance from those whose lands had been pinched.

In the garrison state that emerged during the Cold War, the New Left provided antidotes of varying strength to the illusion of a good, faultless America, even if much of this was confined to university campuses. Mainstream newspaper channels remained sovereign and aloof from such debates, even if the Vietnam War did, eventually, bite.

The late William Blum, former computer programmer in the US State Department and initial enthusiast for US moral crusades, gave us various exemplars of this counter-insurgent scholarship. His compilation of foreign policy ills in Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, was written with the US as sole surveyor of the land, all powerful and dangerously uncontained. To reach that point, it mobilised such familiar instruments of influence as the National Endowment for Democracy and the School of the Americas, a learning ground for the torturers and assassins who would ply their despoiling trade in Latin America. The imperium developed an unrivalled military, infatuated with armaments, to deal with its enemies. Forget the canard, insists Blum, of humanitarian intervention, as it was espoused to justify NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

His Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, remains his best and potently dispiriting affair, one in which Washington and its Christian warriors sought to battle the “International Communist Conspiracy” with fanatical, God-fearing enthusiasm. In this quest, foreign and mostly democratically elected governments were given the heave-ho with the blessings of US intervention. Food supplies were poisoned; leaders were subjected to successful and failed assassinations (not so many were as lucky as Cuba’s Fidel Castro); the peasantry of countries sprayed with napalm and insecticide; fascist forces and those of reaction pressed into the service of Freedom’s Land.

The squirreling academic, ever mindful of nuts, has been less willing to embrace Blum. This has, to some extent, been aided by such curious instances as the mention, by one Osama bin Laden, of Rogue State in a recording that emerged in 2006. “If I were president I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently.” Sales surged at this endorsement from the dark inspiration behind September 11, 2001. “This is almost,” observed Blum wryly, “as good as being an Oprah book.”

Killing Hope, praised by various high priests in academe on its initial release in 1986, morphed. Various extensions and additions were not approved. Blum, considering the US in its vicious full bloom of the post-Cold War, saw the wickedness of the market in Eastern European countries, the hand of US power in sabotaging negotiations between the Muslims, Croats and Serbs in Bosnia that led to an ongoing murderous conflict, and ongoing mischief in the Middle East (the Syrian Civil War, sponsored jihadists).

Much of this, admittedly, finds an audience, if only for the fact that it excuses, to some extent, local factors and failings. Students of imperial history tend to forget the manipulations of local elites keen to ingratiate themselves and sort out problems with the aid of a foreign brute. It is worth pointing out that, in the vastness of US power, a certain incompetence in exercising it has also prevailed.

But the groves of the academy have tended to sway away from Blum for many of the usual reasons: tenure, security and treading carefully before the imperium’s minders. “It merits mention,” poses Julia Muravska, very keen to mind her P’s and Q’s before the academic establishment as a doctoral candidate, “that after the release of the last majorly revised edition in 1995, successive versions of Killing Hope have largely passed under the radar of mainstream punditry and academia, but remained stalwartly cherished not only in left-leaning circles, but also amongst conspiracy theorists and fringe commentators.”

Such is the damning strategy here: to be credible, you must wallow in mainstream acceptance and gain acknowledgment from the approving centre; to be at the fringe is to not merely to be unaccepted but unacceptable. Amnesia is a funny old thing. While Blum’s scholarship at points had the failings of overstretch, a counteracting zeal, his overall polemics, and advocacy, were part of a tradition that continues to beat in an assortment of publications that challenge the central premises of US power.

Much of Blum’s takes remain dangerously pertinent. “Fake news” has assumed a born-again relevance, when it should simply be termed measured disinformation, one that the CIA and its associates engaged in, and still do, with varying degrees of success. The Russians hardly deserve their supposed monopoly on the subject, though they are handy scapegoats.

Blum did well to note an absolute pearler by way of example: the efforts of the CIA’s Office of Policy Coordination and the US Post Office to solicit a letter writing campaign in 1948 to influence the course of Italy’s 1948 elections. American Italians, or so it was thought, were mobilised to swamp the mother country with warnings of atheistic communism and the threat it posed to Catholic authority. Should Italy turn red, US largesse and aid would stop flowing to a country still suffering from the ills of war. Italians known to have voted communist would not be permitted to enter the US.

Some individuals, guided by samples run in newspapers, offered specimens, but it soon became a campaign featuring “mass-produced, pre-written, postage paid form letters, cablegrams, ‘educational circulars’ and posters, needing only an address and signature.” Italian political parties, generally those of centre, could count on the CIA for a helpful contribution.

Empire remains a terrible encumbrance, draining and ruining both the paternal centre and its patronised subjects. It is a salient reminder as to why Montesquieu insisted on the durability of small republics, warning against aggrandizement. Doing so produces the inevitable, vengeful reaction. As Blum surmised, “The thesis in my books and my writing is that anti-American terrorism arises from the behaviour of US foreign policy. It is what the US government does which angers people all over the world.” To that end, his mission, as described to the Washington Post in an interview in 2006, has been one of, if not ending the American empire, then “at least slowing down” or “injuring the beast.”

China’s ‘Belt And Road Initiatives’ Must Be Based On ‘Peaceful Rise’ Arguments – Analysis

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The Chinese sponsored ‘BRI’ has reportedly gathered more criticisms and cautions from the Western powers as well as from international financial institutions on the grounds of rising indebtedness among the participating countries without accruing significant benefits to local economy, lack of transparency, disregard for an open and inclusive approach and sustainable financing.

Opposition to ‘BRI’ has also resonated in some of the Asian countries like Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Malaysian government led by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad reportedly halted Chinese projects involving around $22 billion including a railway link along the country’s east coast.

The government of Myanmar allegedly scaled down construction activities in the development of Kyaukpyu port. Similarly, when the Sirisena government of Sri Lanka leased out Hambantota port to China for 99 years under debt pressure, it not only led to criticisms from sections of people within the country but provided grist to the brewing western contentions that the ‘BRI’ is not merely an infrastructural and connectivity project rather loaded with military and strategic objectives.

India has expressed its concerns regarding BRI’s violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity particularly with reference to inclusion of Gilgit-Baltistan region into the CPEC project without India’s consent which it considers as its integral part although Beijing later clarified that it was purely a economic and development work and did not alter its stance on Kashmir (a bilateral issue to be resolved between India and Pakistan).

In Pakistan, CPEC has become more as a mysterious project shrouded sometimes by allegations of corruption, opacity, indebtedness and economic crisis and sometimes by applause for its infusion of economic vitality.

Chinese President Xi Jinping not only clearly articulated Beijing’s desire for a larger role in global affairs in his announcement to turn China into a leading nation in terms of national power and global impact by 2050 at the 19th National Congress of the Communist party, his implementation of ‘BRI’ unambiguously became a step in that direction. However, Xi’s vision and the mega project helped put to rest a much nuanced view of China that many Chinese scholars and preceding leaders had engendered.

Xi’s China has made an attempt to build up its image as a peace broker not only by engaging in Afghan peace process but offering a mediating role to arrive at settlement of Rohingya refugee issue between Bangladesh and Myanmar as well. With the world’s largest population, China has greatly contributed to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals worldwide, according to a UNDP report. Meanwhile, Xi has also announced a new package of aid and loans to more than 50 African leaders visiting Beijing for the Seventh Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC).

Scholars subscribing to the argument that China was becoming an important stakeholder in international community maintained that once China’s per-capita income grew, China would be able to contribute more towards international peace and stability. Corresponding to Chinese growth rates, the Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to contribute 8,000 troops for a UN peacekeeping standby force and has significantly enhanced Beijing’s contribution from 3 per cent in 2013 to 10.25 per cent by 2018 to the UN peacekeeping budget. But all these Chinese achievements rather than being congratulated have been viewed skeptically.

‘Peaceful Rise’ Claims Need to be adapted and Suspicions Allayed

While it is apparent that in the perception of many western analysts China has become a geopolitical threat, Chinese scholars and politicians alike can allay the negative perceptions by reinvigorating the debate that ‘BRI’ and Xi’s vision correspond to China’s rise as a peaceful player and it would benefit the international community in the long-run.

Zheng Bijian, a Chinese thinker argued that the Beijing’s participation in international institutions increased and its conformity to international norms enhanced in the post-Mao period. He saw in the Chinese move to be a ‘responsible stakeholder’ not any fear from any external power rather its willingness do so.

In a similar vein, Chinese scholars maintained that, China was bound to face problems like scarcity of resources, the deterioration of environment and economic imbalances in its rise and it needed cooperation from the international community to overcome these problems. However, with the onset of ‘BRI’, it was perceived that the argumentative China was gradually losing out to platitudes and the western response was becoming loaded with rhetoric as well.

It has become imperative to explain how China’s rise has been beneficial to the members of the international community as it can contribute not only to their trade benefits along with its own, it can also contribute more toward international peace as well. Beijing needs to work on and adapt the arguments in favor of its ‘peaceful rise’ to the present context.

For instance, Guoli Liu, a Chinese scholar and currently a Professor at the college of Charleston, USA, maintained that there has been a symbiotic relationship between China’s internal socio-economic reforms and peaceful international environment and therefore, successful reforms needed peaceful diplomacy.

Similarly, Bang Quan Zheng argued that China’s peaceful development was based on the stability of current international economic, political and security orders and therefore its rise need not be a threat to the US and the international system.

Meanwhile, the apologists of China’s peaceful rise believed that expectations from a rising China were high and therefore invited more criticisms of Chinese roles in international affairs. The Chinese decision to increase the number of troops to peace-keeping operations, its participation in counter-piracy operations in Somalia by sending naval fleets and its commitment to share intelligence and conduct humanitarian rescue operations in coordination with countries testified to the claim that China was increasingly preparing itself for a role of a responsible stakeholder.

In response to the allegations of Beijing’s less troop contribution to the UN peace-keeping, the Chinese official position clarified that it was more interested in non-combat role in peace-keeping and therefore dispatched higher numbers of technical teams of engineers, doctors and unarmed police forces.

The White Paper on China’s National Defence issued in 2010 emphasized such kind of role in peace-keeping and highlighted the achievements of China’s peace-keepers UN operations in non-combat role.

Another major reason provided for a little Chinese contribution towards international peace and security was China’s low per-capita income compared to the developed states which were able to contribute more towards the same purpose. Though Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of China increased substantially because of its higher growth and population, per-capita income remained relatively lesser compared to the developed states such as the US, Germany and Japan. In the Chinese perception, Beijing has been showing seriousness in protecting intellectual property rights since it joined WTO in 2001.

While China had rejected the western idea of ‘human rights’ in the past, it gradually shifted to a nuanced stance on the issue and subscribed to the standpoint that China respected human rights but prioritized socio-economic rights over legal and political rights.

The Chinese participation in the drafting and its subsequent ratification of the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was cited as an example of Beijing’s enhanced participation in multilateral organizations and in norm-setting. The Chinese behavior was belligerent was countered by the fact that China could reach an agreement with Japan successfully for a joint hydrocarbon project in controversial water-ways.

On the liberalization of trade issue, the Chinese perception was that they had fulfilled most of the obligations under the Protocol of accession to WTO.

If they granted any further trade concessions, it was natural that they would expect reciprocity. However, China believed that the countries which were pressurizing China for further liberalization would not reciprocate to Chinese concessions. Chinese scholars argue that China has contributed significantly to world economic growth.

According to the data of International Monetary Fund (IMF), between 1999 and 2004, 21 per cent of growth in the gross world product in purchasing power parity terms (PPP) was attributable to China while the US contributed 18 per cent (PPP) of the growth (B. Pablo, (2005), “China’s Emergence Threat or Peaceful rise”, ARI 135/2005 (translated from Spanish), Madrid, Real Instituto Elcano, p. 5).

On other economic issues like over-consumption of natural resources, the scholars argued that Chinese consumption of energy resources was much lower than that of the US and export of Chinese goods increased along with imports of certain foreign goods. The accusation that China attracted a disproportionate share of FDI was countered by the argument that Chinese share of FDI was much lower than its contribution to gross world product in PPP terms.

It was further argued that China had cooperated considerably with the international community in taking on the East Asian financial crisis and global financial crisis in 2008. China refused to devalue its currency in mid-1998 when Asian financial crisis was at its peak. If China had done so, it would have aggravated the crisis and possibly world recession would have been triggered.

Similarly, China was the first country to buy the bonds newly issued by the IMF to help countries to get over the global financial crisis (E. Amitai (2011), “Is China a responsible stakeholder”, International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 3, p. 550).

Chinese scholars argue that increasing criticisms from the US emanate from their own insecurity and threat perceptions. The US tries to justify its containment policy towards China on the basis of ‘China’s threat’ argument. Guo Xuetand maintained that it was the hegemonic American military strategy particularly in the Asia-Pacific region which might affect the Chinese resolve for peaceful development (G. Sujian, (2006), “Challenges and Opportunities for China’s “Peaceful Rise” in Sujian Guo (ed). China’s Peaceful Rise in the 21st Century, Ashgate Publishing, London, p. 6).

The Chinese expenditure on defence has increased due to growth in the economy but it is far less than that of the US. From the Chinese perspective, Beijing not only accommodated the concerns of its neighbours through talks and agreements, it also softened its attitude towards Taiwan. Hu Jintao made a statement during his visit to Canada in September 2005 that the Taiwan issue was a complicated one and required patience for resolution (Ibid). It was further argued that China has no history of territorial expansion and does not seek a change in the existing world order or regional supremacy.

While Beijing must build on the existing arguments on its peaceful rise, it must dispel, at the same time, the contentions of neighbors as well as countries with stakes in the Indo-Pacific region that its power is not directed toward assertion of claim over disputed areas in the immediate neighborhood. Many experts viewed Chinese assertion of indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea at the expense of the territorial claims of Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines being driven by Beijing’s geopolitical interests to gain control over strategic sea-routes.

The western perception as well as the perception of many neighboring countries has been guided by the view that following an era of internal reforms and cultivation of friendly ties with state actors led by the paramount communist leader Deng Xiaoping, Chinese role assumed a hegemonic design during the succeeding regimes. These activities provided relevance to an argument that China was adopting a ‘play now, fight later’ tactic which was explicit in its aggressive moves in the South China Sea following a period of peaceful cooperation when China’s economic penetration enmeshed these countries in a web that neutralized their ability to resist.

Iran’s Nuclear Chief Says 20% Uranium Enrichment Not A Bluff

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The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said the country’s readiness to restart the process of enriching uranium to a purity level of 20 percent at the Fordow nuclear site in case efforts to save the Iran nuclear deal fail is not a bluff at all.

In an interview with state TV on the sidelines of a visit to the Fordow nuclear facility, Ali Akbar Salehi said while Iran has accepted to put confidence-building curbs on its nuclear program under the 2015 nuclear deal, such restrictions do not obstruct the “peaceful activities of Iran’s nuclear industry.”

“The enrichment is currently underway, but we would put aside the 300kg limit (set by the JCPOA) whenever we wish, and would do the enrichment at any volume and level,” Press TV quoted him as saying.

“We currently have 1,044 centrifuges in Fordow, and if the establishment wants, we will restart 20-percent uranium enrichment in Fordow,” he said.

The top official expressed hope that the remaining parties to the nuclear agreement would honor their commitments and fill the gap created by the US after its unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Otherwise, Iran will have to reduce its JCPOA commitments, he warned.

“I would like to warn that this is not a bluff; I have kept my word whenever I’ve said something. Now I’m emphasizing once again that if the establishment wants, we can easily return to the 20-percent enrichment, and meet the country’s needs at any level and volume,” Salehi concluded.

On May 8, the US president pulled his country out of the JCPOA, which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Following the US exit, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the accord.

Bipartisan US Senate Resolutions Rebuke Trump Policy On Saudi Arabia, Yemen

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(RFE/RL) — The U.S. Senate backed a resolution to end American military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and separately pinned blame for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi directly on Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman.

The bipartisan resolutions on December 13 represented rebukes of President Donald Trump’s policy of strong support for Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Senators voted 56-41 to recommend that the United States stop supporting the war in Yemen.

It was the first time Congress has ever backed a move to withdraw U.S. forces from a foreign military engagement under the War Powers Act, a law passed during the Vietnam War.

The act restricts a president’s ability to send U.S. forces to potential hostilities without approval from Congress.

Seven members of Trump’s Republican Party voted for the resolution, which still would require several legislative steps before becoming binding law.

A low-level conflict in Yemen escalated in 2015 when Iran-backed Shi’ite Huthi rebels seized control of much of the west of the country, including the capital, Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab states intervened militarily in an attempt to restore the internationally recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansur Hadi. They have received support from the United States, Britain, and France.

However, with reports of deaths of nearly 10,000 people, many of them civilians, and with millions more facing the threat of starvation, sentiment in the West has been turning against involvement in the conflict.

On December 13, Yemen’s warring parties agreed to cease fighting for the Huthi-held port city of Hodeidah and withdraw their troops, an apparent breakthrough for UN-led peace efforts.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised the UN-brokered talks, saying that “peace is possible.”

Iran also hailed the “promising” moves toward peace, saying, “We welcome the agreements between the two sides overseen by the representative of the United Nations secretary general and see the positive steps and the preliminary agreements for continued talks as promising.”

Immediately after the U.S. Senate passed the Yemen resolution, lawmakers voted unanimously to pass a resolution blaming the Saudi crown prince for Khashoggi’s murder and insisting that Riyadh hold to account anyone responsible for his death.

“Unanimously, the United States Senate has said that Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. That is a strong statement. I think it speaks to the values that we hold dear,” said Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Trump and other administration officials have said there is no conclusive evidence that the crown prince was behind the killing of Khashoggi, who was murdered during what he thought was a routine visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said evidence strongly points to the involvement of the crown prince, who has denied any involvement in the death of the U.S. resident and columnist for The Washington Post.



US Gun Deaths At 40-Year Record, Suicide Rate Spikes

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Gun deaths in the US are at an all-time high, but it’s not because more people are shooting each other, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Instead, they’re turning the weapons on themselves.

Firearms killed a record high of 39,773 people in 2017, according to the CDC’s WONDER database, which has only tracked gun deaths since 1979.

While mass shootings get most of the media attention, 60 percent of those deaths by firearm were suicides. Here, too, the numbers are on an upswing, with almost 24,000 people killing themselves with a gun in 2017, the highest figure in 18 years.

That doesn’t mean 2017 wasn’t also a banner year for gun homicides. The deadliest mass shooting in US history saw 58 people gunned down at the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas, and a total of 14,452 people were killed in gun homicides during the year, compared to 11,000 in 2010.

Access to a gun in the home increases the odds of suicide more than threefold, according to Dakota Jablon, policy analyst for the Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence. The group’s analysis of the CDC statistics showed the highest rates of gun suicides were found in three states that have the highest rates of gun ownership: Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming. While correlation does not imply causation, the impulsive nature of suicide attempts – studies have shown the decision is often made within minutes – means easily-accessible guns can make a difference between a successful attempt and a passing urge.

While white men are the most likely to use a firearm to commit suicide, dying at a rate of 14 per 100,000 compared with black men at 6.1, they are nearly ten times less likely to die in a firearm homicide.

This year is on track to give 2017 a run for its money, according to a study by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security that found 94 incidents of gun violence in American schools alone so far. Their database defined a “gun violence incident” as one where a firearm is “brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason.” This year has already outstripped the previous record-holder, 2006, by 60 percent, largely driven by February’s Parkland school shooting.

Yemen Talks: Truce Agreed Over Key Port City Of Hudaydah

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The announcement of a ceasefire between Yemen’s warring parties in and around the key port of Hudaydah, was hailed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday as a deal which would improve the lives of millions of people.

Speaking on the last day of UN-led talks in Sweden to decide the future of the war-torn country, where its people are in the grip of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Mr. Guterres told those present that they had “the future of Yemen” in their hands.

“You have reached an agreement on Hudaydah port and city, which will see a mutual re-deployment of forces from the port and the city, and the establishment of a Governorate-wide ceasefire,” he said, noting that the UN would play “a leading role” in the port.

“This will facilitate the humanitarian access and the flow of goods to the civilian population. It will improve the living conditions for millions of Yemenis,” he insisted.

Nearly four years after fighting escalated between the Government of Yemen and Houthi opposition movement, known officially as Ansar Allah, more than 24 million people – three-quarters of the population – need some form of assistance and protection.

Some 20 million are food insecure and 10 million of these people do not know how they will obtain their next meal.

While noting that “pending issues” have yet to be resolved, the UN chief said that representatives from the internationally-recognised Government of Yemen and the opposition had made “real progress” which had yielded “several important results”.

These included a “mutual understanding to ease the situation in Taizz”, Mr Guterres said, in reference to the country’s third largest city.

“We hope this will lead to the opening of humanitarian corridors and the facilitation of demining,” he added.

On the previously-agreed issue of a mass exchange of prisoners, the UN Secretary-General noted that both delegations had drawn up a timeline and provided further details on when it might happen.

This would allow “thousands – I repeat, thousands – of Yemenis to be reunited with their families,” Mr Guterres said, with UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, at his side.

Breakthrough over talks framework

Looking ahead to a new meeting between both parties in the new year, the UN chief insisted that another “very important step for the peace process” had been agreed, namely a willingness to discuss a framework for negotiations.

“You have agreed to meet again to continue to discuss this further at the end of January during the next round of negotiations,” Mr. Guterres said, adding that it was a “critical element” of a future political settlement to end the conflict.

“We have a better understanding of the positions of the parties,” he added, noting their “constructive engagement”, while also crediting the Governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait for their “concrete support” in making the meeting happen.

Welcoming the announcement on the Hudaydah ceasefire, the World Food Programme (WFP) underlined that the Red Sea port was “key” to importing some 70 per cent of Yemen’s humanitarian and 90 per cent of its commercial needs.

“Any progress towards peace is good progress, as long as it helps the Yemeni people who have suffered so much in this conflict,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley, noting that what Yemen needed most was lasting peace.

“Today’s announcement gives us hope that the World Food Programme’s work to feed 12 million severely hungry Yemenis may be made easier in the coming weeks and months.”

Owing to the conflict, in recent weeks imports have decreased by about half at Hudaydah’s docks, WFP spokesperson Herve Verhoosel said.

“In November, our target in Hodeidah Governorate was to reach 800 000 people in need of food assistance. This ceasefire will of course help us in our daily activities as the region is one of WFPs priorities.”

Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas Enjoy Mini Honeymoon In Oman

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Actress Priyanka Chopra and her new husband Nick Jonas reportedly escaped to Oman for a quick break this week after their headline-making nuptials in India.

The Bollywood star and US singer tied the knot in an extravagant wedding ceremony in the Umaid Bhavan Palace in the Indian city of Jodhpur in early December — a multiple-day celebration that took the international media by storm, with newspapers around the world reporting on the happy occasion.

The newly-married couple then took a short secret trip to Oman, according to media reports.

The newlyweds seem to have enjoyed the short honeymoon before their Dec. 20 wedding reception for Bollywood guests in Mumbai.
They shared snaps from their Oman holiday on Instagram, including one photo the bride captioned, “Marital bliss they say.”

The photo featured a makeup-free Chopra cozied up to her new husband, with the open sea and a mountain range visible in the distance.
The couple married in both Christian and Hindu wedding ceremonies, with the bride, groom and other members of the wedding party wearing outfits designed by Ralph Lauren for the former.

The Christian ceremony was officiated by the groom’s father, Paul Kevin Jonas, People magazine reported.

The 36-year-old star and fashion icon chose a stunning red outfit by Indian designer to the stars Sabyasachi Mukherji for the Hindu ceremony.
In an interview published in People magazine, the couple expressed their happiness about tying the knot.

“It was all tears. All tears. I could not hold it in. I think I was nervous and scared … But as soon as the curtains opened and I saw his face it was just like everything settled and I knew I was making the best decision of my life,” Chopra said.

Chopra, who headlined three seasons of the ABC crime drama “Quantico,” is one of Bollywood’s biggest female leads with acting credits in several big-ticket films.

Jonas, 26, and his brothers Kevin and Joe formed a band, The Jonas Brothers, in 2005 and soared to fame as members of Disney’s stable of teenage stars. The band split up in 2013.

Where Will The Yellow Vest ‘Revolution’ End? – OpEd

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By Mohamed Chebaro*

Demonstrations, Paris-style, usually involve a few rubbish bins being emptied or burned on a main avenue, possibly a few cars being torched, including a police car or two. Then representatives of labor, transport or other unions meet with government representatives and a compromise is reached, leading the protests to stop. But not this time it seems. 

The protesters angry at a rise in fuel prices in an already over-stretched French economy have now turned up the heat on President Emmanuel Macron. The protesters, who seem to have come from across the political and social spectrum thanks to social networking, have turned their anger on the president and the perceived elitism of France’s aloof ruling class.

But just how different is this leaderless protest-turned-revolution, as some have been rushing to call it? It is modern-day, digital, cross-border activism in a complex virtual and material world. The “gilet jaunes,” or yellow vests, are an example of the immediacy and the “now factor” of digital empowerment and the “I can” notion, at the expense of “wait and see what the mayor says” or “what answer would a parliamentary review yield?” It is a manifestation of the new realities fueled by the digital virtual sphere and in a world where the role of the state as we know it is eroding. 

This is a new trend in protests, the likes of which the world has never before witnessed. Though violence is condemned, the leaderless, mobile, multi-directional protests are clearly a front for many real social problems that have been neglected by the modern state, not only in France but in every country around the world, poor or rich. Of course such protests could have been mitigated and/or driven by a complex web of deceit working from afar to magnify a disconnect in an already difficult patron-client relationship between the state and its people.

It is like a new epidemic that has fallen from the sky and state institutions have no antidote to face such a threat down. In the last three or four decades, politicians in all countries —democratic, monarchist and dictatorship alike — marginalized equality and the rule of law in favor of collusion between statesmen and the financial sector. This resulted in ballooning greed. 

Macron’s retreat and efforts to mend relations with the public are likely to fall on deaf ears, as the entire liberal democratic value system and government model are hanging in the balance in the very capital city that gave the world the modern capitalist but compassionate state at the end of the 18th century. 

What began nearly two months ago as an online campaign against high taxes, declining living standards, a self-serving political elite and a president deemed arrogant and out of touch will saddle France and most Western countries with questions that have no easy answers. These include how to modernize without reform, how to prepare for the future and save the environment without raising taxes, and how to create an agile economy with limited compassionate vested interests overseen by a non-colluding political and financial elite that disregards the people and their right to a respectable and safe future.  

Away from Europe, the reactions, especially from the Middle East, toward what has been happening in France have been a mixed bag. Some have mainly focused on questions about the role of US President Donald Trump in disrupting the European project, while others weaved a web of deceit and conspiracy theories that alluded to Russian collusion and manipulation of the protests to destabilize the rule of Macron due to his position on Ukraine and role in upholding EU sanctions against Moscow. 

But the most lamentable reaction was from Syrian state television, which called on Syrian refugees who had escaped the regime’s onslaught — which left cities destroyed and more than half a million dead — to take care and stay away from flashpoints in Paris and its police brutality. 

In the age of fake news, manufactured elections and states meddling in other nations’ internal affairs, all of the above could be plausible and France and its disillusioned citizens could have fallen prey to this scenario or that. But none of the above could begin to answer the question of where these demonstrations are likely to end. Or how to restore confidence in state institutions and politicians, who are the elected representatives of the people and whose task it is to uphold the rule of law and good governance and safeguard the safety and wellbeing of all.

The French state, like many others in the world, desperately needs to realign its income with its expenditure. Its generous social security system model of the 1950s is no longer affordable. Macron’s government, like many others before it, is following economic recommendations to squeeze the ballooning state debts, while managing people’s expectations of continuing to have their needs met. But, just as others have tried and failed, Macron seems no different under the pressure of the yellow vests, who could, rightly or wrongly, inspire others to follow their example in other countries.

*Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’ experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.


Anti-Catholic Jokes Still Okay – OpEd

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Ask any comedian how he feels today about telling jokes about certain protected classes of people—gays being the most protected—and he will  confess what a minefield it is trying not to offend the politically correct police. But the sensitivity cops still have enormous tolerance for the most intolerant jokes about priests. There is no price to pay, no matter how vile and obscene the commentary.

Kevin Hart had to drop out from hosting the Oscars because he once told some jokes that offend gays. He said he has learned from his past mistakes, but that didn’t change anything: he was forced to exit. Even after he pulled out, that wasn’t enough to satisfy Kathy Griffin, who exploded, “I mean, f**k him.”

Griffin is upset with Hart slighting gays, but she is perfectly fine cursing  God. In September 2007, upon receiving an Emmy for her reality show, she screamed, “Suck Jesus, this award is my God now.” Besides the Catholic League, few complained. She paid no price for her sick remark by anyone in Hollywood.

If Hart is not acceptable to host the Oscars, why was Ellen DeGeneres in 2014? Didn’t her comments ridiculing nuns matter? Why was Seth MacFarlane deemed worthy in 2013 following his libelous remarks about priests? Why was Alec Baldwin fit to be the host in 2010 given his sweeping generalizations about priests? Why was Jon Stewart invited to host the Oscars in 2008 given his obscene attacks on Catholicism? Why was Whoopi Goldberg selected four times when she has a history of Catholic bashing? [Examples of their anti-Catholic statements are available on our website.]

Nothing has changed. Since Thanksgiving there has been a rash of comedic attacks on Catholicism.

On the November 27 edition of the TBS comedy, “The Guestbook,” there was an exchange about being good at Christmas for Santa. “If his parents are religious,” one of the characters said, “he still has all the Jesus bulls*** to keep him on the straight and narrow for a while.”

The December 4 edition of the ABC show, “The Kids Are Alright,” featured kids putting a microphone in the purse of their mother so they could hear what she said when going to confession. The skit proceeded to mock the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Seth Meyers has been busy attacking Catholics this Christmas season. On December 5 he made a joke about the clergy raping kids. On December 10, he made it clear which religion he was referring to: he engaged writer Jimmy Hagel in an assault on the Eucharist and allowed Hagel to lie about the Church’s teachings on sexuality.

It’s not just Hollywood that practices this double standard. On November 30, former “Saturday Night Live” writer Nimesh Patel was forced to leave the stage at Columbia University because he told some jokes about a gay black man that didn’t sit too well with the PC police. The Columbia Asian American Alliance, which hosted the event, had him booted.

This is the height of hypocrisy. It was an Asian student from Columbia who in 2002, during the half-time show of a football game between Columbia and Fordham, told the fans via a loudspeaker that “Fordham’s tuition is going down like an altar boy.” After I mounted a public protest, the president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, apologized to me about this incident.

Catholics have every right to treat all this hullaballoo about Kevin Hart as the real joke. Not until we get a level playing field, and anti-Catholic remarks are regarded as taboo, will we be persuaded that those who object to anti-gay remarks are principled.

Kuwait Agrees To Setting Up British Base On Its Territory

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Kuwait and the U.K. have reached an agreement to establish a British military base in the Gulf state, local Kuwaiti media reported Thursday.

The private Alrai newspaper said the two countries concluded a deal to establish the British military base in Kuwait.

The daily, citing diplomatic sources, said officials from both countries will meet on Thursday to discuss aspects of cooperation between the two sides.

The newspaper also quoted Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah while denying any link between the British base and a border dispute between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

“Our dispute with our brothers in Saudi Arabia is brotherly,” he said. “I can term it as a misunderstanding.”

The private al-Qabas newspaper also said Thursday’s meeting between Kuwaiti and British officials will discuss the establishment of a British military base to train the Kuwaiti army.

The newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said the U.K. base will be limited and will be opened soon.

There was no comment from Kuwaiti or British authorities on the report.

British ambassador to Kuwait Michael Davenport earlier said in an interview with Forces Network that London was considering a permanent military presence in Kuwait.

“We’re looking at all the possibilities. We’re not talking about a major deployment I don’t think, but we’re looking at what might work for both the United Kingdom and for Kuwait. As I say, it’s at a very early stage,” he said.

Original source

Where Did The Hot Neptunes Go? A Shrinking Planet Holds The Answer

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“But where did the hot Neptunes go?” This is the question astronomers have been asking for a long time, faced with the mysterious absence of planets the size of Neptunes very close to their star. A team of researchers, led by astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, has just discovered that one of these planets is losing its atmosphere at a frantic pace. This observation strengthens the theory that hot Neptunes have lost much of their atmosphere and turned into smaller planets called super-Earths, which are much more numerous. Results to read in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Fishermen would be puzzled if they netted only big and little fish, but few medium-sized fish. This is similar to what happens to astronomers hunting exoplanets. They found a large number of hot planets the size of Jupiter and numerous others a little larger than the Earth (called super-Earths whose diameter does not exceed 1.5 times that of the Earth), but no planets close to their star the size of Neptune. This mysterious “desert” of hot Neptunes suggests two explanations: either such alien worlds are rare, or, they were plentiful at one time, but have since disappeared.

A few years ago, UNIGE astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope discovered that a warm Neptune on the edge of the desert, GJ 436b, was losing hydrogen from its atmosphere. This loss is not enough to threaten the atmosphere of GJ 436b, but suggested that Neptunes receiving more energy from their star could evolve more dramatically. This has just been confirmed by the same astronomers, members of the national research center PlanetS*. They observed with Hubble that another warm Neptune at the edge of the desert, named GJ 3470b, is losing its hydrogen 100 times faster than GJ 436b. The two planets reside about 3.7 million kilometres from their star, one-tenth the distance between Mercury and the Sun, but the star hosting GJ 3470b is much younger and energetic. “This is the first time that a planet has been observed to lose its atmosphere so quickly that it can impact its evolution,” says Vincent Bourrier, researcher in the Astronomy Department of the Faculty of Science of the UNIGE, member of the European project FOUR ACES** and first author of the study. The team estimates that GJ 3470b has already lost more than a third of its mass.

“Until now we were not sure of the role played by the evaporation of atmospheres in the formation of the desert”, states Vincent Bourrier. The discovery of several warm Neptunes at the edge of the desert losing their atmosphere supports the idea that the hotter version of these planets is short-lived. Hot Neptunes would have shrunk to become mini-Neptunes, or would have eroded completely to leave only their rocky core. “This could explain the abundance of hot super-Earths that have been discovered,” says David Ehrenreich, associate professor in the astronomy department of the science faculty at UNIGE and co-author of the study.

The evolution of the hot Neptune hunt

Observing the evaporation of two warm Neptunes is encouraging, but team members know they need to study more of them to confirm their predictions. Unfortunately, the hydrogen that escapes from these planets cannot be detected if they are more than 150 light-years from Earth (GJ 3470b is 97 light-years away), because hydrogen is then hidden by interstellar gas. Researchers thus plan to use Hubble to look for other traces of atmospheric escape, because hydrogen could drag upward heavier elements such as carbon. The solution could also come from helium, whose infrared radiation isn’t blocked by interstellar medium. “Helium will expand the range of our surveys,” said Vincent Bourrier, “the high sensitivity of the James Webb space telescope should allow us to detect helium escaping small planets, such as mini-Neptunes, and complete our observations of the edge of the desert.”

*Planets is a National Research Centre, a research instrument of the Swiss National Science Foundation dedicated to research on exoplanets.

**FOUR ACES, Future of Upper Atmospheric Characterisation of Exoplanets with Spectroscopy, is a project funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant under the European Commission’s Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020 (Grant No 724427).


How Chinese Travelers Use Technology Abroad

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Traditional cultural values and government policy influence how Chinese backpackers use technology while travelling, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

The study looked at how independent Chinese tourists use the internet during their trips abroad and found strong social influences on their digital behaviour. These result from their embedded culture, social circles, and the trust placed in word-of-mouth review platforms.

Researchers found that backpackers enjoy receiving comments and complements on their social media posts, and the process of editing and posting photos. Interacting with comments is an essential element of their trip.

They also highly value digital word-of-mouth recommendations when travelling abroad, making good use of their familiar review platforms, as well as popular ones banned in China. This requires them to learn to use new technologies more commonly used outside their home country.

The findings, published in the Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems, also show that Chinese travellers rely hugely on digital technologies such as Ali Pay and WeChat Pay for mobile payments.

The independent travel phenomenon is becoming increasingly important in China both domestically and internationally. Chinese travellers are known as tech-savvy and the study’s lead author, UEA’s Dr Brad McKenna – who worked with colleagues at the University of Greenwich, and University of Jyväskylä in Finland – said ‘Collective’ and ‘Confucius’ values of Chinese culture play a major role in their IT use.

“From a collectivistic culture, the relationship between generations is very close. In addition, for the past 30 years the Chinese one-child policy has had enormous social impacts, such that the new generation has become the core of the family,” said Dr McKenna, a lecturer in information systems at UEA’s Norwich Business School.

“This has led to a strong usage of social media when travelling, so that families can keep in contact. It has been suggested that the use of social media when travelling has developed into the issue of surveillance through IT. Chinese independent travellers are expected to have a constant virtual presence to appease their families’ worries and feel obligated to maintain connectedness with them.”

The Chinese concept of guanxi, which requires them to be continuously connected, also influences the way independent travellers use technology. The ‘social glue’ function of the technology allows them to maintain the high level of connectedness when travelling.

Social media posts enable Chinese travellers to not only share their travel experiences, but also to receive emotional support by replying to comments from their friends and families.

Technical infrastructure plays a strong role in their IT use and Dr McKenna said the findings have implications for the tourism industry: “Tourism providers should realise that Chinese independent travellers derive social inferences predominantly when using digital technology on holiday. How to ensure they can constantly maintain this virtual connection, and how to transfer tourism products into memorable and ‘sharable’ experiences is crucial.

“Currently, there is a gap between China mobile technology use and the rest of the world. There is a network of Chinese technology, such as WeChat, Weibo, Alipay, and DazhongDianping, and most of the popular Western apps have their Chinese equivalent.”

The authors say that when Chinese travellers go abroad they face many unfamiliar apps, and some of those they normally use in China do not work as efficiently, for example Baidu Maps and Baidu.com can be slow. Also, electronic word of mouth (eWoM) review platforms do not have as much information as they would in China.

“Tourism providers should bridge this gap to provide a smooth experience,” added Dr McKenna. “Maybe eWoM platforms can work in partnership. For instance, a Chinese online review platform could work with TripAdvisor so that Chinese tourists are able to access more reviews.”

The study followed 14 Chinese backpackers in three groups as they travelled in Europe – to Spain and Portugal, the UK and Poland. A Chinese-speaking researcher accompanied the groups, conducting interviews and collecting participant observations.

Online data such as participants’ posts on their social media, group chat histories and online travel journals were recorded before, during, and after the trip, in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of their travel experiences.

The researchers then identified and analysed seven of the main technology-related tasks the backpackers used while planning their travel or during the trip. These included: using an online travel forum to look for a travel companion or information; using word-of-mouth apps on their mobile device to look up restaurants, bars and attractions nearby; sharing travel experiences on social media; and maintaining connections with friends and families.

Scientific Basis For EPA’s Endangerment Finding Stronger Than Ever

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A new study published by Science this week has found that scientific evidence supporting the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding for greenhouse gases is even stronger and more conclusive now. This finding could strengthen challenges to proposed efforts to rollback emissions standards and carbon emissions regulations in the United States.

In the landmark Endangerment Finding the EPA determined that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, which created a legal obligation for the agency to regulate greenhouse gases emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Science paper comes three months after a senior Republican senator said that the Trump Administration might still try to repeal the landmark decision.

“When the Endangerment Finding was issued, the evidence supporting it was extremely compelling,” said Woods Hole Research Center President Philip Duffy, lead author on the paper. “Now, that evidence is even stronger and more comprehensive. There’s no scientific basis for questioning the endangerment finding.”

The Science paper includes 16 authors from 15 different organizations. It assesses how the scientific evidence has changed in the nine years since the finding was issued, with a specific focus on climate change impacts for public health, air quality, agriculture, forestry, water resources, sea level rise, energy, infrastructure, wildlife, ocean acidification, social instability, and the economy.

“There is no question that public health and welfare are endangered by climate change and we know that with much more confidence now than we did in 2009,” said study co-author Chris Field, Director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

The paper examines each topic covered by the Endangerment Finding and characterizes changes since 2009 in terms of evidence of links to anthropogenic climate change, severity of observed and projected impacts, and new risks.

“For each of the areas addressed in the [Endangerment Finding], the amount, diversity, and sophistication of the evidence has increased dramatically, clearly strengthening the case for endangerment,” according to the paper.

The study expands the range of negative impacts from climate change beyond those listed in 2009 to include increased dangers from ocean acidification, effects on national security and economic well-being, and even threats from violence.

“Much of what we’ve learned since the original Endangerment Finding in 2009 arises from extreme events,” said study co-author Noah Diffenbaugh, Kara J Foundation Professor of Earth System Science and Kimmelman Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University. “Our understanding of how global warming influences the odds of heat waves, droughts, heavy precipitation, storm surge flooding, and wildfires has increased dramatically in the last decade, as has our understanding of the related impacts, such as how hot conditions affect mental health, violence, and economic productivity.”

Organic Food Worse For The Climate

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Organically farmed food has a bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed food, due to the greater areas of land required. This is the finding of a new international study involving Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, published in the journal Nature.

The researchers developed a new method for assessing the climate impact from land-use, and used this, along with other methods, to compare organic and conventional food production. The results show that organic food can result in much greater emissions.

“Our study shows that organic peas, farmed in Sweden, have around a 50 percent bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed peas. For some foodstuffs, there is an even bigger difference – for example, with organic Swedish winter wheat the difference is closer to 70 percent,” says Stefan Wirsenius, an associate professor from Chalmers, and one of those responsible for the study.

The reason why organic food is so much worse for the climate is that the yields per hectare are much lower, primarily because fertilisers are not used. To produce the same amount of organic food, you therefore need a much bigger area of land.

The ground-breaking aspect of the new study is the conclusion that this difference in land usage results in organic food causing a much larger climate impact.

“The greater land-use in organic farming leads indirectly to higher carbon dioxide emissions, thanks to deforestation,” explains Stefan Wirsenius. “The world’s food production is governed by international trade, so how we farm in Sweden influences deforestation in the tropics. If we use more land for the same amount of food, we contribute indirectly to bigger deforestation elsewhere in the world.”

Even organic meat and dairy products are – from a climate point of view – worse than their conventionally produced equivalents, claims Stefan Wirsenius.

“Because organic meat and milk production uses organic feed-stock, it also requires more land than conventional production. This means that the findings on organic wheat and peas in principle also apply to meat and milk products. We have not done any specific calculations on meat and milk, however, and have no concrete examples of this in the article,” he explains.

A new metric: Carbon Opportunity Cost

The researchers used a new metric, which they call “Carbon Opportunity Cost”, to evaluate the effect of greater land-use contributing to higher carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation. This metric takes into account the amount of carbon that is stored in forests, and thus released as carbon dioxide as an effect of deforestation. The study is among the first in the world to make use of this metric.

“The fact that more land use leads to greater climate impact has not often been taken into account in earlier comparisons between organic and conventional food,” says Stefan Wirsenius. “This is a big oversight, because, as our study shows, this effect can be many times bigger than the greenhouse gas effects, which are normally included. It is also serious because today in Sweden, we have politicians whose goal is to increase production of organic food. If that goal is implemented, the climate influence from Swedish food production will probably increase a lot.”

So why have earlier studies not taken into account land-use and its relationship to carbon dioxide emissions?

“There are surely many reasons. An important explanation, I think, is simply an earlier lack of good, easily applicable methods for measuring the effect. Our new method of measurement allows us to make broad environmental comparisons, with relative ease,” says Stefan Wirsenius.

The results of the study are published in the article “Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change” in the journal Nature. The article is written by Timothy Searchinger, Princeton University, Stefan Wirsenius, Chalmers University of Technology, Tim Beringer, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and Patrice Dumas, Cired.

More on: The consumer perspective

Stefan Wirsenius notes that the findings do not mean that conscientious consumers should simply switch to buying non-organic food. “The type of food is often much more important. For example, eating organic beans or organic chicken is much better for the climate than to eat conventionally produced beef,” he says. “Organic food does have several advantages compared with food produced by conventional methods,” he continues. “For example, it is better for farm animal welfare. But when it comes to the climate impact, our study shows that organic food is a much worse alternative, in general.”

For consumers who want to contribute to the positive aspects of organic food production, without increasing their climate impact, an effective way is to focus instead on the different impacts of different types of meat and vegetables in our diet. Replacing beef and lamb, as well as hard cheeses, with vegetable proteins such as beans, has the biggest effect. Pork, chicken, fish and eggs also have a substantially lower climate impact than beef and lamb.

More on: The conflict between different environmental goals

In organic farming, no fertilisers are used. The goal is to use resources like energy, land and water in a long-term, sustainable way. Crops are primarily nurtured through nutrients present in the soil. The main aims are greater biological diversity and a balance between animal and plant sustainability. Only naturally derived pesticides are used.

The arguments for organic food focus on consumers’ health, animal welfare, and different aspects of environmental policy. There is good justification for these arguments, but at the same time, there is a lack of scientific evidence to show that organic food is in general healthier and more environmentally friendly than conventionally farmed food, according to the National Food Administration of Sweden and others. The variation between farms is big, with the interpretation differing depending on what environmental goals one prioritises. At the same time, current analysis methods are unable to fully capture all aspects.

The authors of the study now claim that organically farmed food is worse for the climate, due to bigger land use. For this argument they use statistics from the Swedish Board of Agriculture on the total production in Sweden, and the yields per hectare for organic versus conventional farming for the years 2013-2015.

More on biofuels: “The investment in biofuels increases carbon dioxide emissions”

Today’s major investments in biofuels are also harmful to the climate because they require large areas of land suitable for crop cultivation, and thus – according to the same logic – increase deforestation globally, the researchers in the same study argue.

For all common biofuels (ethanol from wheat, sugar cane and corn, as well as biodiesel from palm oil, rapeseed and soya), the carbon dioxide cost is greater than the emissions from fossil fuel and diesel, the study shows. Biofuels from waste and by-products do not have this effect, but their potential is small, the researchers say.

All biofuels made from arable crops have such high emissions that they cannot be called climate-smart, according to the researchers, who present the results on biofuels in an op-ed in the Swedish Newspaper Dagens Nyheter: “The investment in biofuels increases carbon dioxide emissions”

On Older People Type 2 Diabetes Associated With Decline In Brain Function Over Five Years

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New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes [EASD]) shows that in older people living in the community, type 2 diabetes (T2D) is associated with a decline in verbal memory and fluency over 5 years.

However, contrary to previous studies, the decrease in brain volume often found in older people with T2D was not found to be directly associated with cognitive decline during this time period. Yet compared with people without T2D, those with T2D had evidence of greater brain atrophy at the beginning of the study.

Previous research has shown that T2D can double the risk of dementia in older people. In this new study, Dr Michele Callisaya (University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, and Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia) and colleagues aimed to discover whether type 2 diabetes is associated with greater brain atrophy and cognitive decline, and whether the two are linked. It is the first study to compare decline in both cognition and brain atrophy between people with and without T2D together in the same study.

The trial recruited 705 people aged 55-90 years from the Cognition and Diabetes in Older Tasmanians (CDOT) study. There were 348 people with T2D (mean age 68 years) and 357 without (mean age 72 years) who underwent brain MRI (lateral ventricular and total brain volume – measures of brain atrophy) and neuropsychological measures (global function and seven cognitive domains) at three time points over a mean follow-up period of 4.6 years.

The results were adjusted for age, sex, education and vascular risk factors including past or current smoking, heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and body mass index. The authors reported there were significant associations found between T2D and greater decline in both verbal memory and verbal fluency.

Although people with diabetes had evidence of greater brain atrophy at the start of the study, there was no difference in the rate of brain atrophy between those with and without diabetes over the time course in this study. There was also no evidence in the study that the rate of brain atrophy directly impacted on the diabetes-cognition relationship.

In people without type 2 diabetes, verbal fluency slightly increased on average each year (0.004 SD/units per year), whereas it declined in those with type 2 diabetes (?0.023 SD/units per year). The authors say: “Such accelerated cognitive decline may contribute to executive difficulties in everyday activities and health behaviours –such as medication compliance — which in turn may poorly influence future vascular health and cognitive decline, and possibly an earlier onset of dementia in those with type 2 diabetes.”

They add: “Contrary to our hypotheses and results from previous cross-sectional studies, the rate of brain atrophy over these 5 years of study did not directly mediate associations between type 2 diabetes and cognitive decline. It is possible that greater accrual of cerebrovascular disease than occurred in our study may be more likely to reveal whether there is such a relationship.”

They conclude: “In older community-dwelling people, type 2 diabetes is associated with a decline in verbal memory and fluency over approximately 5 years, but the effect of diabetes on brain atrophy may begin earlier, for example in midlife, given the evidence of greater brain atrophy in people with T2D at the start of the study. If this is the case, both pharmacological and lifestyle interventions to prevent brain atrophy in people with T2D may need to commence before older age.”

India: Pro-Hindu Party Fails In State Elections

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ndia’s pro Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which currently rules nationally, suffered a massive defeat when it failed to secure power in any of the five states where election results were declared on Dec. 11.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP was unseated in the three major states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. It also failed to make gains in northeastern Mizoram and southern Telangana states where two regional parties prevailed.

“Nobody expected such a crushing defeat for the BJP,” said Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur, who is based in Chhattisgarh state capital Raipur.

BJP’s rival Congress party swept Chhattisgarh by winning 68 of the 90 legislative seats, unseating the BJP, which held power there for 15 years.

The election result was a “befitting reply” to the BJP’s lopsided policies, said Father Maria Stephen, spokesman of the bishops’ council in Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP also lost after running the government for 15 years.

Father Stephen said BJP policies were divisive and sectarian as the party’s governments supported the Hindu militant idea of making India a Hindus-only nation. They ignored violence against minorities, including socially poor Dalits formerly known as “untouchables” and tribal people as well as neglecting the poor in states such as Madhya Pradesh.

Congress and allies together won 121 seats in Madhya Pradesh’s 230-seat legislature, allowing them to form the government.

The BJP was close behind with 109 seats. The Modi government’s failures at national level should be seen as the major cause of defeat in all three states, said Bishop Oswald Lewis of Jaipur in Rajasthan, where Congress and its alliance partner together won 105 seats in the 200-seat house.

Congress’s victories showed that people were upset with the Modi government’s failure to fulfil promises of jobs for young people as well as greater social and economic development, Bishop Lewis said.

In southern Telangana state, the BJP was only able to secure one of the 119 seats. A regional party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti, won 88 seats, while Congress and allies won 27 seats. In Mizoram, the regional Mizoram National Front won 26 seats in the 40-seat house, Congress pick-up five and the BJP only managed to win one seat.

The results are a setback to the BJP’s sectarian politics that has taken dominance over secularism in the country, said Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. “People of this country want to live in peace and harmony,” the archbishop said, noting that during the past five years there had been an atmosphere of hate and violence. “People have decided to end it.”

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