In a momentous policy decision on Wednesday, the Trump administration has decided to pull out the US troops from Syria. Although the current redeployment of American troops will be limited only to northern Syria to appease the US-ally Turkey where it has been a longstanding demand of the Turkish President Erdogan that Turkey will not tolerate the presence of the US-backed Kurdish forces west of the Euphrates River, according to the US officials, Washington will fully withdraw American forces from Syria within the next 60 to 100 days.

Clearly, an understanding has been reached between Washington and Ankara. According to the terms of the agreement, the Erdogan administration has released the US pastor Andrew Brunson on October 12, which has been the longstanding demand of the Trump administration, and has also decided not to make public the audio recordings of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, which could have implicated another US-ally the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman in the assassination; and in return, the Trump administration has given a free hand to Ankara to mount an offensive in the Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria and has also decided to withdraw 2000 US troops from Syria.

Regarding the murder of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2, a question would naturally arise in the minds of astute readers of alternative media that why did the mainstream media, Washington Post and New York Times in particular, take the lead in publicizing the assassination?

One apparent reason could be that Khashoggi was an opinion columnist for The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon. The Washington Post has a history of working in close collaboration with the CIA because Bezos had won a $600 million contract [1] in 2013 to host the CIA’s database on the Amazon’s web-hosting service.

It bears mentioning that despite the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman being primarily responsible for the war in Yemen that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and has created a famine in Yemen, the mainstream media hailed him as a “moderate reformer” who brought radical reforms in the conservative Saudi society by permitting women to drive and by allowing cinemas to screen the Hollywood movies.

So what prompted the sudden change of heart in the mainstream media that the purported “moderate reformer” was all of a sudden vilified as a brutal murderer? It could be the nature of the brutal assassination, as Khashoggi’s body was barbarically dismembered and dissolved in acid, according to the Turkish sources.

More significantly, however, it was the timing of the assassination and the political mileage that could be gained from Khashoggi’s murder in the domestic politics of the US. Khashoggi was murdered on October 2, when the US midterm elections were only a few weeks away.

Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner in particular have known to have forged close business relations with the Saudi royal family. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Donald Trump chose Saudi Arabia and Israel for his first official overseas visit in May last year.

Thus, the mainstream media’s campaign to seek justice for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was actually a smear campaign against Donald Trump and his conservative political base, which is now obvious after the US midterm election results have been tallied. Even though the Republicans have retained their 51-seat majority in the Senate, the Democrats now control the House of Representatives by gaining 39 additional seats.

Clearly, two factors were mainly responsible for the surprising defeat of the Republicans in the US midterm elections. Firstly, the Khashoggi murder and the smear campaign mounted by the neoliberal media, which Donald Trump often pejoratively mentions as “fake media” on Twitter, against the Trump administration.

Secondly, and more importantly, the parcel bombs sent to the residences of George Soros, a dozen other Democratic Congressmen and The New York Times New York office by Cesar Sayoc on the eve of the elections. Although the suspect turned out to be a Trump supporter, he was likely instigated by shady hands in the US deep state, which is wary of the anti-establishment rhetoric and pro-Russia tendencies of the so-called “alt-right” administration.

Another reason why the Trump administration has given a free hand to the Erdogan administration to mount an offensive against the Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria is that Ankara has been drifting away from Washington’s orbit into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, has been cooperating with Russia in Syria against Washington’s interests since last year and has placed an order for the Russian-made S-400 missile system.

In order to understand the significance of relationship between Washington and Ankara, it’s worth noting that the United States has been conducting air strikes against targets in Syria from the Incirlik airbase and around fifty American B-61 hydrogen bombs have also been deployed there, whose safety became a matter of real concern during the failed July 2016 coup plot against the Erdogan administration; when the commander of the Incirlik airbase, General Bekir Ercan Van, along with nine other officers were arrested for supporting the coup; movement in and out of the base was denied, power supply was cut off and the security threat level was raised to the highest state of alert, according to a report [2] by Eric Schlosser for the New Yorker.

Regarding the recent cooperation between Moscow and Ankara in the Syrian civil war, although the proximate cause of this détente seems to be the attempted coup plot against the Erdogan administration in July 2016 by the supporters of the US-based preacher, Fethullah Gulen, this surprising development also sheds light on the deeper divisions between the United States and Turkey over their respective Syria policy.

After the United States reversal of “regime change” policy in Syria in August 2014 when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 and threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally, Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan, Washington made the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria and Iraq.

It’s worth noting that the conflict in Syria and Iraq is actually a three-way conflict between the Sunni Arabs, the Shi’a Arabs and the Sunni Kurds. Although after the declaration of war against a faction of Sunni Arab militants, the Islamic State, Washington has also lent its support to the Shi’a-led government in Iraq, the Shi’a Arabs of Iraq are not the trustworthy allies of the United States because they are under the influence of Iran.

Therefore, Washington was left with no other choice than to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria and Iraq after a group of Sunni Arab jihadists, the Islamic State, transgressed its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014 from where the United States had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces are nothing more than the Kurdish militias with a symbolic presence of mercenary Arab tribesmen in order to make them appear more representative and inclusive in outlook.

As far as the regional parties to the Syrian civil war are concerned, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the rest of the Gulf Arab States might not have serious reservations against this close cooperation between the United States and the Kurds in Syria and Iraq, because the Gulf Arab States tend to look at the regional conflicts from the lens of the Shi’a Iranian threat.

Turkey, on the other hand, has been more wary of the separatist Kurdish tendencies in its southeast than the Iranian threat, as such. But after the recent concession by the Trump administration to let Ankara mount an offensive against the Kurds in northern Syria in order to deny them space west of the Euphrates River, the ball is now in Erdogan’s court whether he maintains a balance in relations between the Kremlin and Washington or once again takes Turkey back to the status of the client state of Washington.

Sources and links:
[1] Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark:
http://www.alternet.org/media/owner-washington-post-doing-business-cia-while-keeping-his-readers-dark
[2] The H Bombs in Turkey by Eric Schlosser:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-h-bombs-in-turkey

Western analysts often accuse China of “salami-slicing” in the South China Sea.  They mean that they think it is using a premeditated strategy to incrementally advance its interests there.  They say it purposely takes one small step forward at a time so that it does not clearly cross any political “red lines” in the eyes of its opponents and the international community. 

More pertinent to the U.S. in this situation, it also means that any kinetically confrontational response by an opponent to such a small seemingly innocuous step will make that opponent look unnecessarily belligerent and provocative.  Taking a page out of China’s playbook, the U.S. is now incrementally increasing its frequency and type of FONOPs in the South China Sea.  This is designed to reassure its friends and allies of its resolve and, more importantly, to put the onus on China to take the political and military risk of confrontation and possible conflict. But employing this tactic also has negative implications for its standing in the region.

This ‘incrementalism’ may reflect US National Security Advisor John Bolton’s penchant for brinkmanship and taking greater risks than his recent predecessors.  In any case it is clear that the U.S. is putting more ‘skin’ in this dangerous game and that the next move is up to China.  The recent “unsafe” and “unprofessional” https://www.foxnews.com/us/chinese-destroyer-made-unsafe-and-unprofessional-move-toward-uss-decatur-in-south-china-sea-official-says

confrontation and near collision between a Chinese warship and the US warship Decatur while it was executing a FONOP may reflect China’s decision to step up the intensity of its response to these provocative probes. Indeed, it may indicate a change in China’s rules of engagement from simply shadowing US warships undertaking provocative missions that violate China’s laws to physically harass them and even try to block them from doing so. .  At the least it is a warning that it could do so. Clearly this US ‘incrementalism’ could easily transition to confrontation and conflict. 

The U.S. Navy and some US analysts claim these FONOPs are non-political. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/10/02/us-pacific-fleet-says-chinese-destroyer-came-dangerously-close-to-navy-ship/ But China certainly does not see it this way. 

Indeed, it views them as an attempt to intimidate it with ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and therefore a threat to its national security. Seemingly confirming this perception, two days after the most recent FONOP challenging China’s maritime claims in the Paracels (the Chancellorsville incident), the U.S. also sent two U.S. Navy vessels through the Taiwan Strait.  This would usually not be a big deal. But it was the third such transit of the sensitive strait in a year after a previous year-long hiatus and it came on the eve of the US President Donald J. Trump-China President Xi Jinping meeting at the G20.  

Worse, given the rapid deterioration of US-China relations and it ratcheted up pressure on China to respond in some fashion.   Of course China vehemently protested the transit, pointing out that the Taiwan issue is “the most important and sensitive issue” between China and the U.S. .https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/2175724/beijing-heightened-alert-us-navy-vessels-sail-taiwan-strait

The problem with this approach at this time for the U.S. is that it undermines its political legitimacy on this issue vis a vis China that it wants and needs.  The U.S. is already losing the public relations battle.   Meeting shortly after the Decatur incident, the chair of the ASEAN Defense Ministers Plus Meeting Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Heng expressed unusually blunt concern. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/asean-nations-express-concern-over-us-china-tensions-in-south-10847704  

Ng said that “Some of the incidents are from assertion of principles, but we recognize that the price of any physical incident is one that is too high and unnecessary to either assert or prove your position.”  This criticism seemed directed at the U.S. use of warships to assert its legal position.

In sharp contrast, he also said that “ASEAN and China should carry out more and bigger exercises in the future to build mutual confidence”. https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/china-engages-asean-to-build-mutual-trust.  Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said that ” _ _ the threat of confrontation and trouble in the waterway came from outside the region.” https://ww.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2173174/south-china-sea-asean-beijing-continue-wrk-towarss-code  Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad added that “big warships [in the South China Sea] may cause incidents and that will lead to tension.” https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/mahathir-tells-us-no-warships-in-asean-waters-but-small-patrol-boats-are-fine

Some analysts question whether repeating the same FONOP challenging the same claim in an already tense environment is unnecessarily provocative.  For example, the U.S. has undertaken many FONOPs that challenge China’s straight baselines around the Paracels as well as its regime requiring prior permission for warships to enter its territorial sea.  Indeed, since 2015 it has undertaken at least six such FONOPs, three of them against China’s baselines enclosing the Paracels, including two this year. http://ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/847.html Were these all necessary from the standpoint of preserving the US legal position? Were they worth the risk of instability, confrontation and possible conflict and the alienation of potential supporters in Southeast Asia?

Some think even one FONOP may be unnecessary to preserve the US legal position. They say US non-acquiescence to China’s claims could be effectively and sufficiently demonstrated by verbal and written diplomatic communiqués rather than ‘gunboat diplomacy.’ The U.S. has repeatedly officially stated its legal position.

Moreover, the U.S. State Department’s publication Limits in the Sea 117 makes crystal clear its detailed legal position regarding China’s closing baselines around the Paracels. It states that according to the UN Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) –which the U.S. alone among maritime powers has not ratified–no country would be allowed to establish straight baselines enclosing the entire Paracel Island group.  Moreover, its Limits in the Seas 112 clearly disputes many other Chinese claims in the South China Sea. These include its claims to excessive straight baselines elsewhere; to jurisdiction over airspace above the exclusive economic zone; its domestic law criminalizing survey activity by foreign entities in the EEZ; and China’s requirement of prior permission for innocent passage of foreign warships through its territorial sea. https://policy.defense.gov/ousdp-offices/fon/

Refraining from ‘in your face’ use of warships in favor of diplomatic protest is more consonant with the UN Charter. It requires that “[a]ll Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.”  Use of warships to challenge claims might even be interpreted as a threat of use of force which is also a violation of the UN Charter. According to William Aceves of California Western School of Law “the notion that states must take action which may lead to a violent confrontation or lose their rights under international law is inconsistent with the most basic principles of international law.” https://thediplomat.com/2017/10/are-us-fonops-in-the-south-china-sea-necessary/

Ironically, China may have recently adhered to this principle. In response to the Chancellorsville FONOP, China issued a formal diplomatic protest rather than harassing and trying to physically block the vessel as it did in the Decatur incident.https://www.click2houston.com/news/politics/us-sails-warship-past-contested-islands-in-south-china-sea

While the U.S. may think it is cleverly using a variant of China’s salami slicing strategy against it, it is losing in the court of public opinion.   Indeed, it is not in keeping with the spirit of ‘truce’ emanating from the Trump –Xi meeting at the G20. Many think the U.S. is playing an increasingly dangerous game at the potential expense of peace and stability in the South China Sea.

*About the author: Mark J. Valencia, Adjunct Senior Scholar, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China

This piece first appeared in the IPP Review.  http://ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/858.html

By William Chislett*

The recent snap election in Andalucía saw the far-right party Vox storm into the regional parliament with 12 of the 109 seats, and so end Spain’s exceptionalism.

Until then Spain, to the surprise of many, had bucked the nationalist surge that has swept across the EU, with, for example, France’s anti-immigrant and anti-system National Rally and Germany’s AfD, despite having, in the view of analysts, the conditions for such a party including very high unemployment and a large foreign community. The anomaly is viewed as a legacy of the 39-year right-wing dictatorship of General Franco, who died in 1975.

France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen was quick to tweet (in French): ‘Strong and warm congratulations to my friends from Vox, who scored a meaningful result for such a young and dynamic movement’. Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former chief strategist at the White House, offered technology services before the Andalusian campaign to help Vox put across its message in social media, but they were apparently not taken up.

Whether Vox’s victory –395,978 votes (11.9% of the total) as against just 18,422 (0.46%) in the 2015 Andalusian election– will see it going from strength to strength in next May’s municipal, regional and European elections and a general election if one is called ahead of the due date of July 2020 remains to be seen. Yet there are clear grounds for believing that Vox is here to stay. It won a mere 47,182 votes (0.2% of the total) in the 2016 general election.

Vox’s first success was largely at the expense of the conservative Popular Party (PP), which lost 316,409 votes and seven of its 33 seats, and to a much lesser extent the Socialists (402,035 and 14 of its 47 seats, respectively). The latter’s voters mainly switched to the liberal Ciudadanos (C’s, which won 21 seats, 12 more) and to some extent the leftist coalition Adelante Andalucía (AA) whose main component is the far-left populist Podemos and which until Vox was the main recipient of anti-establishment votes. The voter turnout of 58.6% was the lowest since 1990.

The Socialists won the most seats (33) of all the parties but it was their worst performance ever in their stronghold, which they have ruled for 36 years. AA’s 17 seats are not enough for the Socialists to carry on governing the region, and the PP (26 seats) will need the 17 seats of C’s and Vox’s 12 to form a very narrow majority government or a minority one with parliamentary support from Vox.

That the political earthquake caused by Vox, created five years ago by Santiago Abascal, a former PP politician, should happen in the leftist stronghold of Andalucía, which provides 20 of the Socialists’ 84 seats in the national parliament, surprised many (polls forecast a maximum of four seats). Yet there are fundamental factors why it happened in Spain’s largest region (population 8.4 million). As well as the fatigue with having been ruled by the same party for so long and the corruption scandals that have engulfed the Socialists, Andalucía has an unemployment rate of 23% (8 pp above the national average) and a very large immigrant community, particularly from non-EU countries.

This is particularly the case in the province of Almeria where 18.5% of the 700,000 population is foreign, mainly Moroccans and Sub-Saharans, well above the 10% for Spain as a whole. Eight of the 10 municipalities with the largest growth in votes for Vox were in Almeria, and in all of them more than 20% of votes went to Vox (30% in the case of one of them).

Non-EU foreigners tend to be employed in the sectors that Spaniards do not want to work in, particularly agriculture (sweating under a ‘sea’ of plastic greenhouses in areas like El Ejido) and are perceived as a drain on healthcare and education, although they are in fact net contributors to social security. They are also viewed as a threat to Spanish identity, even though many of them have been there for years.

The surge in illegal immigration this year will also have fed into people’s fears of the ‘other’. In the first nine months, there were 7,120 illegal crossings of Moroccans to Spain via the Western Mediterranean (see Figure 1). Figure 1. Illegal entry of Moroccans via the Western Mediterranean, 009-18 (1)

Spanish society has changed profoundly since Franco died and the country successfully moved to democracy. The country is no longer ethnically homogeneous: the number of registered foreigners has risen from 165,000 to 4.7 million, excluding the more than 700,000 naturalised Spaniards. Not all the change has been to the liking of conservatives, particularly personal-freedom issues such as the legislation of abortion and gay marriages (the latter in 2005). In addition, there is no longer a stigma about voting for the far right as there was in the first post-Franco years.

The election in Andalucía was the first since the one in Catalonia at the end of 2017, which saw those parties in favour of unilaterally creating an independent republic holding onto their narrow majority in the Catalan parliament. That election was followed in June of this year by the unseating of the PP national government, following a censure motion in parliament won by an unholy alliance of the Socialists, Basque nationalists and Catalan secessionists.

The right has not forgiven the Socialists, with only 84 of the national parliament’s 350 seats, for attaining power by this means thanks, in part, to Catalan parties who want to break up Spain. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is regularly attacked by the right for not being firm enough with the secessionists.

The Andalusian election was an opportunity to punish the Socialists and not just for local reasons, and also the PP, which has never won enough votes in the region to make a difference. Vox’s votes have achieved change, although its shape has yet to be determined.

The question now is whether Vox’s success is a flash in the pan or the start of something more significant. The evidence shows that once a party is installed in a parliament, be it regional or national, support for it tends to grow. This has been the case of Ciudadanos, which began life in Catalonia in 2005 against the burgeoning independence movement and after gaining three seats in the Catalan parliament in the region’s 2006 election moved out of its territory and won nine seats in the 2015 Andalusian election (21 in the latest election). This was then followed by winning 40 seats in the national parliament in the 2015 general election.

Moreover, in the case of ‘stigmatised’ parties, such as those on the far right, winning parliamentary representation makes them more respectable and hence an option for voters. Fourteen European countries have far-right parties in their parliaments (see Figure 2). Figure 2. Rise of nationalism in Europe: % of votes won by nationalist party in most recent national elections

Last updated: September 2018. Prepared by the BBC.

Since 2015, when the mould of Spain’s essentially two-party system was broken by Podemos and Ciudadanos, political life has become fragmented and parliament gridlocked. Vox could well intensify that fragmentation by adding a fifth party.

*About the author: William Chislett, Associate Analyst, Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Source: This article was published by Elcano Royal Institute

The CBS board of directors was given a verbal report this week on the sexual recklessness of their pope, CBS Chairman and CEO Les Moonves. But no one, save for the board, is allowed to see the full report.
 
CBS employees are furious, but too bad for them—transparency is not going to happen. One source explained why: “No report was made so that CBS could protect itself.”
 
Imagine the bishops saying no one is permitted to see its reports on sexual misconduct, explaining that they need to protect themselves. What would the august New York Times say?
 
A little over three months ago, on September 13, an editorial in the New York Times called out the Catholic Church for the homosexual scandal (which it falsely says is a pedophilia scandal), citing “the lack of transparency or accountability among bishops” as one of the problems.
 
Where is the New York Times editorial on the contempt that CBS has for transparency? Where are all the other media outlets—print, internet, broadcast TV, and cable?
 
Is it because the media don’t want to open up a hornet’s nest about sexual misconduct within their own ranks that they don’t demand CBS exercise transparency? Or is it because transparency is a game, a card that the media play when it affects the Catholic Church?
 
Either way, it shows how utterly insincere the media are about sexual offenses. Who the victimizer is should not matter, but sadly it does.

Contact Dana McClintock, Executive VP, Communications: dlmcclintock@cbs.com 

Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Ground Force Brigadier General Mohammad Pakpour announced that his forces plan to launch massive military drills in southern parts of Iran on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Friday, Brigadier General Pakpour said the war game, codenamed “Payambar-e Azam 12 (The Great Prophet)”, will start on the southern island of Qeshm on Saturday.

The rapid reaction units and the Special Forces of the IRGC Ground Force and Air Force, will participate in the military drills, he said, adding that the combat and reconnaissance drones as well as radar and missile systems will be used during the war game.

The commander further said the IRGC Ground forces have started their preparations and training for the war game since December 15 in the southern province of Fars.

Brigadier General Pakpour went on to say that this war game is based on “the ground, water and coastal defense operations”.

Iran’s Armed Forces hold routine military exercises throughout the year.

Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the country will not hesitate to strengthen its military capabilities, including its missile power, which are entirely meant for defense, and that Iran’s defense capabilities will be never subject to negotiations.

Back in February 2018, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei called for efforts to maintain and boost Iran’s defense capabilities, hitting back at the enemies for disputing the country’s missile program.

“Without a moment of hesitation, the country must move to acquire whatever is necessary for defense, even if the whole world is opposed to it,” Ayatollah Khamenei said on February 18.

The US Congress adjourned Friday without passing a spending deal, assuring a partial government shutdown as President Donald Trump and lawmakers remain at odds over border wall funding.

Operations for several key agencies will cease in the early hours of Saturday, despite the last-gasp talks that continued on Capitol Hill between White House officials and congressional leaders in both parties.

Trump is seeking $5 billion for construction of a wall on the US border with Mexico but Democrats are staunchly opposed, and the absence of an elusive deal means federal funds for dozens of agencies will lapse at midnight.

Trump conceded on Friday there was a good chance the Senate would not approve his demand for $5 billion toward funding his border wall project and that there probably would be a government shutdown beginning at midnight.

Before meeting with Senate Republicans at the White House, Trump had written on Twitter that “Democrats now own the shutdown,” despite having said last week that he would be “proud” to shut down the government over the issue of border security and “I’ll be the one to shut it down.”

“If the Dems vote no, there will be a shutdown that will last for a very long time,” he said in a tweet.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer refused to take the blame.

“President Trump, you own the shutdown,” he said on the Senate floor. “You said so in your own words.”

Republican Senators Bob Corker and Richard Shelby had said negotiations were under way to see if a compromise funding bill could be shaped.

Trump had summoned Senate Republicans to the White House on Friday morning to push for his wall funding before they took up procedural votes on whether to consider a bill passed by the House of Representatives granting $5 billion for the wall. But afterward he said there was a good chance the bill would not clear the Senate and that a shutdown was likely.

The procedural vote had the potential to be a drawn-out affair as many senators who had left Washington to start their Christmas break were trickling back to work.

Earlier in the week the Senate, where Republicans have a 51-49 majority, passed a short-term government funding bill that included no money for the wall. On Friday Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged his members to vote for a bill that was approved by the House on Thursday to give Trump $5 billion toward building the wall on the Mexican border — one of the major themes of his presidency.

Republican Senators Lamar Alexander and Marco Rubio expressed frustration with what they said was a shifting position by the White House. Rubio said that earlier in the week the Republicans had supported the funding bill without wall money because Vice President Mike Pence had told them the White House was open to such a proposal.

“We had a reasonable path and there was every indication from the president that he would sign it,” Alexander said.

In a series of early-morning tweets on Friday, Trump called on McConnell to use the “nuclear option” to force a Senate vote on legislation with a simple majority, rather than the standard “supermajority” of 60 votes. But there was not enough support among Republican senators to do so.

The threat of a US government shutdown, which would leave thousands of federal workers idled at Christmas, continued to fuel investor anxieties on Friday over the trajectory of global economic growth as world stocks extended a steep sell-off.

The showdown added to tensions in Washington as lawmakers also grappled with Trump’s sudden move to pull troops from Syria, which prompted Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to resign and furthered concerns over the investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election that Trump won.

Three-quarters of government programs are fully funded through the end of the federal fiscal year next Sept. 30, including those in the Defense Department, Labor Department and Health and Human Services.

But funding for other agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the Agriculture Department, was set to expire at midnight on Friday.

If the House measure is put to a vote in the Senate, Democrats have pledged to deny it passage. It remained unclear what would happen if the House measure fails there.

A partial government shutdown could begin, with affected agencies limiting staff to those deemed “essential” to public safety. Such critical workers, including US border agents, and nonessential employees would not get paid until the dispute ends. National parks also would close unless the government declares them essential.

Alternatively, lawmakers could seek a solution that Trump finds acceptable, although it was unclear what that would be.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Trump was “not going to back down on this fight” and would stay in Washington rather than go to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the holidays as planned.

Trump’s border wall was a key campaign promise in the 2016 election, when he said it would be paid for by Mexico, and he sees it as a winning issue for his 2020 re-election campaign.

By Jeff Seldin

Voters who went to the polls last month in the United States’ midterm elections can rest assured that their votes were registered and counted properly.

However, a new report by the U.S. intelligence community concluded Americans were subjected to ongoing influence operations and disinformation campaigns by several countries, a finding that could trigger automatic sanctions.

“The activity we did see was consistent with what we shared in the weeks leading up to the election,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a statement late Friday.

“Russia, and other foreign countries, including China and Iran, conducted influence activities and messaging campaigns targeted at the United States to promote their strategic interests,” he added.

Early signs were there

In the months leading up to the November vote, intelligence and security officials, and analysts had expressed concerns that countries like Russia and even non-state actors might seek to physically compromise U.S. voting systems.

But the fears, based on evidence Russian hackers had accessed some U.S. state and local systems, such as voter databases, in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election did not play out according to the new assessment.

“At this time, the intelligence community does not have intelligence reporting that indicates any compromise of our nation’s election infrastructure that would have prevented voting, changed vote counts, or disrupted the ability to tally votes,” Coats said.

The report, required under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in September, supports the initial assessment by Homeland Security officials the day of the election and in the weeks that followed.

“There were no indications at the time of any foreign compromises of election equipment that would disrupt the ability to cast or count a vote,” Christopher Krebs, director of the DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said a week after voters went to the polls.

Report could spur new sanctions

The new report now goes to the U.S. attorney general and to the Department of Homeland Security, which have 45 days to review the findings. Should they concur with the intelligence community’s assessment, Russia, China and Iran could be slapped with new sanctions.

Those measures could include blocking access to property and interests, restricting access to the U.S. financial system, prohibiting investment in companies found to be involved, and even prohibiting individuals from entering the United States.

Additionally, the president’s executive order authorizes the State Department and the Treasury Department to add additional sanctions, if deemed necessary.

But as in the aftermath of the 2016 election, when the CIA and FBI concluded with “high confidence” that Russia sought to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process and help then-candidate Donald Trump win election, gauging the success of the 2018 meddling efforts is difficult.

“We did not make an assessment of the impact that these activities had on the outcome of the 2018 election,” Coats cautioned in his statement. “The U.S. intelligence community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze U.S. political processes or U.S. public opinion.”

‘Witch hunt’

That impact will likely be debated in U.S. political circles, fueled in part by the president’s own attacks against the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russia’s activities and into possible collusion with Trump’s own campaign staff.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt.”

Still, some lawmakers see the new intelligence community assessment as reason to act.

“The Russians did not go away after the 2016 election,” Sen. Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Warner, who previously criticized the president’s executive order for failing to lay out strong, clear consequences for election meddling, said it was no surprise China and Iran tried to manipulate American voters, and that the problem will only get worse.

“We’re going to see more and more adversaries trying to take advantage of the openness of our society to sow division and attempt to manipulate Americans,” he added. “Congress has to step up and enact some much-needed guardrails on social media, and companies need to work with us so that we can update our laws to better protect against attacks on our democracy.”

Executive order praised

Former officials have urged patience, praising the executive order as a good start and cautioning it will take time to see how well it works.

“I don’t know that it will be a complete solution,” said Sean Kanuck, a former intelligence officer for cyber issues, said when the order was first introduced. “I doubt it will completely change the incentive-cost-benefit analysis of the other side.”

Even after the executive order was unveiled, U.S. officials, as well as social media companies, continued to turn up evidence that Russia and others tried to meddle in the 2018 U.S. midterm election.

In October, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against 44-year-old Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, 44, of St. Petersburg, charging her with helping to finance disinformation campaigns on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, targeting both Republican and Democratic voters.

As with previous efforts, the accounts were designed to make it appear as though they belonged to American political activists and some managed to generate tens of thousands of followers.

Later that month, Facebook said it had removed 82 accounts, pages or groups from its site and from Instagram that originated in Iran and targeted liberal U.S. voters.

But U.S. officials and experts have also warned that the heavy focus on social media and influence campaigns, and the lack of evidence of tampering with U.S. voting systems and databases, should not be seen as a victory.

Saving ‘best tricks for 2020’

They say that just as the U.S. has hardened its systems against attacks and intrusions, cyber adversaries like Russia have been watching and learning, with their eyes perhaps on a much more significant target.

“The Russians were going to save their best tricks for 2020,” said William Carter, deputy director, Technology Policy Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies, predicted in the days before the U.S. midterm elections in November.

“They’re going to let us chase our tails in 2018 and look for them where they’re not,” he added.

The US stock market has finished a week-long downward spiral that has many investors fearing a recession is on the way. Barring a Christmas miracle, this could be the worst December the market has had since the Great Depression.

The Nasdaq led Friday’s plunge, dropping 3 percent for a total week’s loss of 8.3 percent, breaking August’s record low. The Dow also continued its week-long decline, closing at 22,445 after a wild spike that saw it shoot up 300 points before sinking below zero again. The index broke 23,000 in its downward slide for the first time in over a year on Thursday and shows no sign of bouncing back anytime soon, having lost a total of 1,655 points in its worst week since October 2008.

The S&P 500 closed down 2.1 percent, finishing at 2,416 for the day. Driven low by drops in technology stocks like Facebook and Amazon, the index was down a full 7 percent for the week.

The Dow and the S&P are both headed for 1930s territory, having fallen over 12 percent each this month. The indexes, which have had their worst early December since 1980, are now down more than 9 percent for the year.

Several factors are driving the gloomy numbers, which kicked off with Wednesday’s interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve – the fourth this year, and a move US President Donald Trump condemned as a “mistake” – and worsened with confirmation of an impending government shutdown as Congress has repeatedly failed to reach an agreement over funding for the president’s border wall. A $5.7 billion funding bill that passed the House yesterday is stuck in the Senate with nowhere to go, meaning federal agencies will begin shutting down at midnight on Friday.

Alan Greenspan, the former Fed chairman, declared the end of the bull market Trump has enjoyed for most of his presidency, warning investors to “run for cover” and brace for a massive market correction earlier this week. Janet Yellen, the most recent Fed chairperson, has also revised her economic forecasts downward, warning of a looming corporate debt crisis earlier this month.

As UK Prime Minister Theresa May moves forward with Brexit, there are painful reminders of what is to come with Britain’s break from the EU in terms of European unity. This idea of union may be nearing the ash heap of history.

European leadership is weak and splintered. May still faces a battle, and US President Donald Trump’s support for the 2016 referendum and ties to pro-Brexit British politicians who are critical of May enable the White House to put pressure on London during this difficult transition if and when necessary, especially regarding the signing of the new US-UK trade agreement in March 2019. The full impact of Brexit is not yet understood.

Besides May, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angel Merkel are in trouble too. While Macron is facing a challenge from the yellow vest protests, Merkel is choosing to step down from her party’s leadership, which will impact Germany’s outlook on security across the continent. How a changing France and Germany see their divorced partner Britain in the coming years will be a critical test of any trans-Channel relations.

May, Macron and Merkel are politically weakened. This has left Britain, France and Germany even less capable of dealing with their diplomatic and trade disputes with the US, where the Trump White House has been cheering for Brexit and accusing Macron and Merkel of making key foreign policy mistakes.

Trump claims that both leaders created the conditions for higher crime rates and the threat of terrorism via their immigration policies. His comments feed anti-government sentiment, especially among populists and marginalized youth.

Brexit is creating a dynamic that is leading to skepticism about whether a united Europe still exists. Fragmentation is leading to evolving regional views that are at odds with one another. Trump is courting Hungary and Poland, which are populist in outlook.

Merkel’s announcement is a loss for the EU, which she championed from her earliest days in office. But European liberalism is even more at a loss with Macron, who is perhaps increasingly giving up his mantle of protecting progressive values, even though his ideas for the EU and the euro zone have very little energy to them besides rhetorical value.

The EU’s accelerating fragmentation as a political and economic organization will lead to demonstrations and manifestations of violence as norms shift. What is common in Sweden in terms of gang violence and acts of criminality may become more prominent in other European countries.

The yellow vest movement is a lower income-based phenomenon that is able to migrate to other European populations who face their own discontent. The idea of a European culture may well be on life support. What the EU may try to implement in a member country may now meet local resistance and an increasing desire to break away from political unions into smaller, sovereign entities.

A wide range of defense and security issues are subject to change following Brexit. Areas for negotiation include the impact on defense spending, industry and research; UK membership of EU bodies and mechanisms; the UK’s and Europe’s future defense capabilities, ambitions and global strategic roles; and knock-on domestic effects on Scottish independence and the Northern Irish peace process.

These issues have provoked deep uncertainty and speculation at a time when the UK and Europe are being challenged by the defense and security landscape. This includes threats from Russia, terrorism, the migrant crisis, conflicts in the Middle East, and the disruptive effects of new technologies and actors in cyberspace. A divorce during a multi-front fight is not going to be smooth or beneficial for European unity.

Overall, the UK is seen as a net contributor to Europe, but at this time Brexit is looking increasingly sharp with unknown consequences. The result could be that London will use any business or defense leverage as a bargaining chip in the divorce talks. However, this approach may alienate European partners and damage all parties. Conversely, the EU could punish Britain by pushing London away. Once again, Putin laughs last.

By Andrew Hammond*

As 2018 transitions into 2019, attention is turning to the wide range of key national elections in the next 12 months. These span the globe, and will have potentially big impacts for domestic politics, economics and international relations well into the 2020s.

In the Asia-Pacific region, there is an Indian general election, an Indonesian presidential election, a national ballot in the Philippines and an Afghan presidential election (unless it is delayed due to security concerns).

Perhaps most eye-catching will be the Indian ballot, with 850 million people eligible to vote, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a landmark second term in office against the Congress Party, which is under the dynastic leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

In Europe, there is a European Parliament election, Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary ballots, a Greek parliamentary ballot, and a significant possibility of a snap Brexit-related general election.

The ballot for the European Parliament, which has the ultimate say in selecting in 2019 the replacement for Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president, is likely to be center stage across the continent. It will be the first such election without British representatives returned to office since the early 1970s, when the UK joined the Brussels-based club.

There are growing concerns within mainstream, centrist European parties that populists will poll strongly. If so, this would build on the results from five years ago, which saw Euroskeptics prospering.

In the Middle East and North Africa, there is an Israeli general election, a Tunisian parliamentary and presidential ballot, and a UAE legislative election. Many eyes will be on the Israeli ballot, with the possibility of Benjamin Netanyahu winning a new mandate and becoming the first prime minister in Israeli history to win five terms in office.

In Africa, there are general elections in South Africa and Nigeria, two of the continent’s key countries, plus a presidential ballot in Algeria and a general election in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In South Africa, a key question will be the degree to which voters abandon the African National Congress, which has governed the nation since 1994.

In the Americas, there is a Canadian general election and an Argentinian presidential election. The latter is being closely watched to see if President Mauricio Macri can win a second term, given that his public approval ratings have sunk as Argentina’s economic woes have mounted.

While the outcomes of these ballots are uncertain, what is far surer is that foreign political consultants will be working behind the scenes in many of these countries, trying to steer candidates to success. Originating in the US, political campaigning has become a mini-industry driven by the potentially significant rewards on offer.

For instance, the US Center for Responsive Politics estimates that the overall cost of the 2018 congressional election was more than $5 billion, the costliest ever. Of that massive sum, consultants earned a significant slice for their services, including polling, campaign strategy, telemarketing, digital advice and producing advertisements.

While the international success of this army of consultants is mixed, the phenomenon has had a lasting impact, prompting what some have called the globalization of politics. But in the eyes of critics, it is an international triumph of spin over substance that has tended to promote more homogenous campaigns with a repetitive, common political language.

A key underlying premise is that the consultants’ technologies and tactics can achieve success just about anywhere. Thus many foreign countries are sometimes deemed as mere international counterparts of US election battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Florida.

What started in the 1960s and 1970s as international elections and campaigning work soon branched out into providing more foreign governments, leaders, and bodies such as tourism and investment authorities, with international communications advice and ultimately “country branding.”

Country branding is founded on the realization that in an overcrowded global information marketplace, countries and political leaders are competing for the attention of investors, tourists, supranational organizations, non-governmental organizations, regulators, media and consumers.

In some cases, a single damaging episode can fundamentally damage a country’s standing, as China found out after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Other countries may simply wish to promote an opportunity based on a specific single goal, such as wanting to attract more foreign direct investment or increasing tourism, as the “Incredible India” campaign illustrates.

Looking to the future, demand for elections, communications and branding advice may only grow. Indeed, globetrotting firms may be on the threshold of some of the most challenging work they have yet encountered, with so many key ballots across the world in 2019.

• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.

The Saudi leader ‘most likely’ to have ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi oversaw double the number of executions in Saudi Arabia when he came to power, according to new figures.

The rate of people put to death spiked during the first eight months after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman came to power in June 2017.

The human rights charity, Reprieve, said that between then and March 2018 there were 133 executions, compared to just 67 in the eight months preceding him.

Among them were scores of migrants it claimed are typically forced to smuggle drugs in their stomachs.

The foreign workers, mostly from South Asia, were among nearly 150 executions in the desert kingdom during 2018.

Reprieve says there have been nearly 700 executions in Saudi Arabia since 2014.

This year there were about 13 a month, with 27 in July – including seven in a single day.

Last month Saudi Arabia put to death an Indonesian domestic worker, Tuti Tursilawati, who killed her abusive Saudi employer, apparently to prevent him from raping her.

The execution went ahead without either her family or the Indonesian government being informed.

Campaigners singled out the seemingly blood-thirsty rule of MBS for criticism, pointing out that the 33-year-old ruler had claimed he would be getting rid of the death penalty for drugs offences when he took power.

‘We’ve tried to minimise executions,’ he told Time magazine. ‘If a person kills a person, they have to be executed in our law. But there are a few areas that we can change it from execution to life in prison.’

But despite this pledge, the number of people executed for drugs has actually gone up.

Reprieve Director Maya Foa said: ‘Despite promises of reform from the Crown Prince, the Kingdom is executing drug offenders at an alarmingly high rate, and at least thirty people – including some arrested as teenagers – face imminent execution for exercising their democratic rights.

‘Jamal Khashoggi’s murder exposed the brutality of Saudi Arabia’s rulers to the world. Now the Kingdom must be held to account for its use of the death penalty, as political prisoners and vulnerable economic migrants await the executioner’s blade’.

Nearly 40% of those put to death in 2018 were convicted of drugs offences, and 77% of these were foreigners, who also made up half the number of people put to death.

Reprieve said: ‘These are typically poor migrant workers, coerced into smuggling drugs in their intestines’.

Last month the CIA concluded that MBS ‘most likely’ ordered the murder of the Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, in October.

The Washington Post journalist, who had criticised MBS’ reforms, was set upon by a hit squad when he arrived at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to collect paperwork so he could get married.

Reprieve said that only one person executed in 2018 was convicted in the Kingdom’s Specialised Criminal Court, which deals with prosecutions for political crimes and terrorism.

But it claimed that at least 54 people are facing death sentences for opposing the regime, 30 of whom could be executed any day.

Among these are Abbas al-Hassan, sentenced to death in 2016 on charges of treason, including spying for Iran, spreading the Shia faith and attending protests.

Earlier this year a UN investigation said his trial did not meet ‘fair trial and due process guarantees’, and the charges were ‘in contravention of the right to freedom of religion’.

Last month the death sentence on Abbas and 11 co-defendants, including two juveniles, was ratified by the king, meaning they can be out to death at any time.

They included Ali Al-Nimr, who was convicted as a child and sentenced to death by crucifixion.

Maya Foa said: ‘His execution – based apparently on the authorities’ dislike for his uncle, and his involvement in anti-government protests – would violate international law and the most basic standards of decency. It must be stopped’.

Original source

Many are saying Ukraine’s receipt of autocephaly from the Universal Patriarch is for Russia an act equivalent to the demise of the Soviet Union; but in fact, the editors of Ukraine’s Espresso TV say, it is even more than that: it represents the destruction of the idea of Moscow as the third Rome on which the Russian empire has rested for centuries.

“The strengthening of Constantinople” – the “second” Rome – and the departure of Ukraine from under the Russian Orthodox Church destroys one of the main ideologemes, on which the Russian Empire has rested, the thesis about ‘Moscow as the Third Rome’” (ru.espreso.tv/article/2018/12/20/kak_tomos_unychtozhaet_ymperskyy_slogan_quotmoskva_tretyy_rymquot).

According to the station, “the theory of ‘Moscow as the Third Rome’ became the foundation of messianic ideas about the role and significance of Russia. It was first formulated in two letters in 1523-1524 by Filofey, an elder of Pskov’s Eleazor Monastery,” although there have been suggestions that it was first circulated several decades earlier.

The elder “put the Muscovite prince on par with the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, identifying the latter as the ancestor of the prince.” Such ideas became possible after the Ottoman Empire seized Constantinople, the Second Rome, in 1453. As a result, Byzantium ceased to exist as a state and “as a center of world Orthodoxy.”

Moscow thus presented itself as its successor civil and religious.  In 1589, the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome became official policy and the basis for its imperial pretensions as unique and part of an apostolic succession. “Byzantium had fallen; Moscow took its place. As Filofey wrote, “Moscow is the Third Rome; a fourth there shall not be!”

The Third Rome doctrine was especially popular during the reign of Alexander III and was popularized by historian Vladimir Soloyev, who saw it as an indication that Moscow would unite East and West in itself and thus create “the so-called world unity.”  As such, it led to the formation of “’the Russian idea.’”

Now, with Ukraine having achieved autocephaly, the notion of Moscow as the Third Rome has been shown to be hollow. That is not something that many Russians can easily accept; and it is why Russia will continue to fight the rights of Ukraine and why the tomos is ultimately more significant than the Beloveshchaya accords of 1991. 

For the first time in a decade, the influx of immigrants into Russia during the first ten months of 2018 has failed to compensate for the excess of deaths over births among permanent residents of the country, according to the Russian government’s statistics agency (gks.ru/free_doc/doc_2018/info/oper-11-2018.pdf).

Rosstat reports that during this period, the natural decline of the indigenous population was 180,500 while net migration amounted to only 101,800, a pattern that means that migrants compensated for natural decline by only 56.4 percent. And the pattern was widespread: Only 22 of the more than 80 federal subjects showed natural growth in their populations.

That means that the total population of the country declined by 78,700 over this period, the first time that has happened since 2008. Nikita Mkrtchyan, a demographer at the Russian Academy of Economics and State Service, says that there is every reason to believe that this trend will continue (rbc.ru/economics/20/12/2018/5c1b70829a7947f16ebceb04).

“In 2018, after a lengthy interval was renewed the decline of the population in Russia, and even positive changes which could occur in the last quarter of this year will not lead to a different result.”  In-migration has just fallen too far: It is down by 43 percent compared to the same period in 2017

The decline in migration from Ukraine was 74 percent, from Uzbekistan 70 percent, and from Kyrgyzstan 40 percent. “The CIS countries are the basic donors of migrants for Russia, but this resource is exhausting itself.” Now people from Ukraine and Moldova try to go to Western Europe rather than Russia.

The reason is that “the competitive possibilities of Russia in comparison with the countries of the European Union is weak.” Consequently, people are going there when they can.

The chief reason for natural population decline in Russia remains the falling birthrate.  In the first 10 months of this year, there were 66,000 fewer births than in the same period a year earlier.  Efforts to promote more births have failed to compensate for the declining size of the prime child-bearing cohort.

“The contraction of the total number of the population of the country means that the number of Russians of working age will fall, and the number of elderly citizens will rise.  The first will put a brake on economic development, BKS economist Vladimir Tikhomirov says, noting that there is already a labor shortage in many areas.

He also notes that the worsening economic situation is playing “not the last role” in these trends. “The real incomes of Russians have contracted over the course of the last four years.” This trend isn’t likely to change soon.

In a new interview at RT, Ron Paul, who ran for United States president three times with a pro-peace platform, commended as “very good” President Donald Trump’s decision announced on Wednesday to remove US troops from Syria. Paul further notes that the US government’s intervention in Syria has lacked “a moral or a constitutional justification.”

In addition to removing the troops, Paul emphasizes that the US withdrawal should be “complete,” which requires also terminating other means of US intervention in Syria, including by removing all Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents and special forces, as well as by ending sanctions.

Watch Paul’s complete interview here:

This week, Paul talked more about the removing of US from Syria in the Wednesday and Thursday episodes of the Ron Paul Liberty Report.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

By Sushant Sareen

Six months after the PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, and Governor’s Rule was imposed in the state, the baton for running the government has now passed on to the President of India.

President’s Rule doesn’t really change anything on the ground in terms of the administrative arrangements or political control, because the governor continues to run the affairs of the state with the backing of the central government.

It is therefore, only a constitutional transition to the next stage – elections to the state assembly – before an elected government is back in office.

Governor’s Rule ‘Got Things Done’

The last six months have been very eventful. A new governor assumed office and started to shake things up. On the security front, the governor gave a relatively free hand to the security forces to conduct their anti-terror operations.

Freed from the shackles imposed by politicians who wanted to play on both sides of the wicket, the security forces got significant successes in eliminating some of the top terrorists in the state. On the administrative front, too, things started moving, and the drift and sloth that dogged the administration under the political government seemed to change.

Ironically, all of this should have been done by elected politicians, but wasn’t.

The most significant developments were however on the political front. The escalating spiral of violence had more or less brought the political process to a grinding halt. Political leaders and workers had gone into virtual hibernation. Although the assembly existed – it was kept in suspended animation – the political class was nowhere to be seen.

Governor’s Top Job: Kickstarting Political Process

The governor kickstarted the political process by announcing the local body polls that had been inordinately delayed by the elected political government, which was reluctant to devolve power to the grassroots.

Initially, there was a lot of scepticism about the usefulness of these elections, more so after the two main Kashmir parties – NC and PDP – boycotted the elections. But the governor called their bluff and refused to give in to the political blackmail by both these parties.

Although the voting percentages were very low in some parts of the Valley, a new crop of politicians came to the fore. Suddenly the big two realised that the political ground was shifting under their feet and their boycott had ceded political space to new rivals – Sajjad Lone in particular – to establish themselves.

Worse, their boycott allowed the BJP to win wards and even capture municipal bodies in the Valley, something that would have been impossible, even unthinkable, if the NC and PDP had been in the fray. The fear of political marginalisation, even irrelevance, forced these parties to participate in the Panchayat polls in which the voter turnouts rose appreciably.

Fresh Elections, New Hopes

But the political process that has been set off has caused a flux and forced major political realignments. The PDP is caught between a rock and a hard place. There are major rumblings within the party and there has been a steady trickle of desertions from its ranks.

Coupled with the looming split in the party is the fact that its bastion – South Kashmir – is the epicentre of the violent convulsions in the Valley, meaning that PDP has lost a lot of political ground and political capital. The NC too is feeling the pinch. This is what prompted the big two to close ranks and rope in the Congress to make a pitch for forming the next government, thereby pre-empting a possible move by Sajjad Lone to stake claim of a majority with the backing of disaffected legislators of PDP and the support of BJP.

The political drama of competing claims finally led to the dissolution of the assembly in the last week of November.

With the assembly dissolved and the state now under President’s Rule, the stage is set for new elections, which will most likely be held with the parliamentary polls in mid-2019.

Given the stakes involved, everyone can rest assured that there will be no boycott of the assembly or parliamentary elections, other than by the usual suspects who have no stake in the system – the separatists, terrorists and others of their ilk and persuasion.

The turnouts might not be as high as in the past polls, but they will be reasonably healthy. That is the good news.

A Polarised J&K

The bad news is that it is unlikely that the elections will lead to a more stable political situation. In fact, there is a good chance that the elections will throw up a verdict that deepens the uncertainty and instability in the state. Worse, the political class has shown no sign that it has the vision and a plan to pull the state out of the morass in which it finds itself, much less answers and solutions to the daily problems of the people.

The reason for pessimism is the multi-level fragmentation of politics in the state. Jammu and Kashmir is today split not just along communal lines, but also along regional lines and even sub-regional lines. Some of these divisions are old – for instance, the Hindu versus Muslim versus Buddhist split, and the Jammu versus Kashmir versus Ladakh split.

But increasingly there are new lines of fragmentation that have appeared – the north vs central vs south Kashmir split; the Hindu-dominated vs Muslim-dominated districts split in Jammu region; the Kargil vs Leh split in Ladakh.

Against the backdrop of this multiple-level fragmentation of politics, the chances of getting a government that aggregates and represents various interests appears unlikely.

In fact the last such attempt – the Kashmir-centred PDP aligning with the Jammu-centred BJP – didn’t work out very well. And if the attempt to form a Valley-centred government – PDP, NC and Congress – had succeeded, it too would have only alienated Jammu and Ladakh and worsened the political disaffection in those parts.

Kashmir’s Tragedy

In the next assembly, the odds are that the political equations will be even more complicated. If the local body and panchayat polls are any indication, then the mandate in the Valley will be split four ways – between Sajjad’s People’s Conference, the NC, PDP and the Congress. The Jammu verdict too will be split with BJP and Congress taking the lion’s share and other parties picking up a handful of seats.

Even if the politicians somehow manage to get around the fragmented polity and form a government, they will have to run the government.

This will not be easy because of their shenanigans – flirtation with militants, the wink and nudge to mobs, the ambivalent positions on the violence that is wreaking havoc in the Valley, their double-speak and double games on militancy – which have muddied the waters in Kashmir.

What Kashmir needs desperately is someone who can pull the state out of the vicious vortex; what Kashmir will probably get is more of the same after the elections.

Kashmir has not been failed by India as much as it has been failed by Kashmiri leaders. That is the tragedy of Kashmir, and it won’t end with another election.

This article originally appeared in The Quint.

During the conversion of light into electricity, such as in solar cells, a large part of the input light energy is lost. This is due to the behaviour of electrons inside of materials. If light hits a material, it stimulates electrons energetically for a fraction of a second, before they pass the energy back into the environment.

Because of their extremely short duration of a few femtoseconds – a femtosecond is one quadrillionth of a second – these processes have hardly been explored to date. A team from the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics at Kiel University (CAU), under the direction of Professor Michael Bauer and Professor Kai Roßnagel, has now succeeded in investigating the energy exchange of the electrons with their environment in real time, and thereby distinguishing individual phases. In their experiment, they irradiated graphite with an intense, ultrashort light pulse and filmed the impact on the behaviour of electrons. A comprehensive understanding of the fundamental processes involved could be important in future for applications in ultrafast optoelectronic components. The research team has published these findings in the current edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

The properties of a material depend on the behaviour of its constituent electrons and atoms. A basic model to describe the behaviour of electrons is the concept of the so-called Fermi gas, named after the Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi. In this model, the electrons in the material are considered to be a gaseous system. In this way, it is possible to describe their interactions with each other. In order to follow the behaviour of electrons on the basis of this description in real time, the Kiel research team developed an experiment for investigations with extreme temporal resolution: if a material sample is irradiated with an ultrafast pulse of light, the electrons are stimulated for a short period. A second, delayed light pulse releases some of these electrons from the solid. A detailed analysis of these allows conclusions to be drawn regarding the electronic properties of the material after the first stimulation with light. A special camera films how the light energy introduced is distributed through the electron system.

Developed in Kiel: one of the world’s fastest systems

The special feature of the Kiel system is its extremely high temporal resolution of 13 femtoseconds. This makes it one of the fastest electron cameras in the world. “Thanks to the extremely short duration of the light pulses used, we are able to film ultrafast processes live. Our investigations have shown that there is a surprising amount of stuff happening here,” explained Michael Bauer, professor of ultrafast dynamics at the CAU. He developed the system, together with the working group of Kai Roßnagel, professor of solid state research with synchrotron radiation.

In their current experiment, the research team irradiated a graphite sample with a short, intense light pulse of only seven femtoseconds duration. Graphite is characterised by a simple electronic structure. Thus, fundamental processes can be observed particularly clearly. In the experiment, the impacting light particles – also called photons – disturbed the thermal equilibrium of the electrons. This equilibrium describes a condition in which a precisely-definable temperature prevails amongst the electrons. The Kiel research team then filmed the behaviour of the electrons, until a balance was restored after about 50 femtoseconds.

Numerous interactions within an extremely short period

In doing so, the scientists observed numerous interaction processes of excited electrons with the impacting photons, as well as atoms and other electrons in the material. On the basis of the film footage, they could even distinguish different phases within this ultrashort period: first of all, the irradiated electrons absorbed the light energy of the photons in the graphite, and thereby transformed it into electrical energy. Then the energy was distributed to other electrons, before they passed it on to the surrounding atoms. In this last process, the electrical energy is ultimately permanently converted into heat; the graphite warms up.

The experiments of the Kiel research team also confirm theoretical predictions for the first time. They enable a new perspective on a research topic which has hardly been investigated on this short time scale. “Through our new technical possibilities, these fundamental, complex processes can be observed directly for the first time,” said Bauer. This approach could also be applied in the future to investigate and optimise ultrafast motions of light-agitated electrons in materials with promising optical properties.

Utah’s Wasatch Mountains are famous for having “The Greatest Snow on Earth.” Snow-seekers in pursuit of world-class skiing and snowboarding contribute over a billion dollars annually to the economy. Snowmelt also provides the majority of water to rapidly growing populations along the Wasatch Front, including Salt Lake City. Understanding what controls snowmelt timing and magnitude is critical for Utah.

It’s more complicated than warming air temperatures; the sun’s energy and longer daylight hours in the spring are the main drivers of snowmelt. Like wearing a black shirt on a hot day, anything that darkens the snow surface–such as dust–will absorb more sunlight and accelerate melting. As humans continue to alter landscapes, dust is more likely to blow onto nearby peaks. Yet scientists are just beginning to understand the impact of dust on snow.

A new University of Utah study analyzed the impacts of dust deposition at an alpine study plot in Alta, Utah in the Wasatch Mountains. For the first time, researchers measured dust in the air and in the snow simultaneously. They found that a single dust storm on April 13, 2017, deposited half of all dust for the season. The additional sunlight absorbed by the dust darkened the snow surface, and led to snow melting a week earlier.

Using computer simulations, the team modeled where the dust originated. They found that first, ahead of the storm, dust came from the south, but then shifted to the west. The westerly winds brought dust from “hot spots” in the Great Salt Lake’s dry lake bed, a relatively new dust source due to historically low lake levels.

“What’s important about the Great Salt Lake is that there are no water rights, no policy to maintain lake levels. As the lake declines, dust events are projected to become more frequent,” said McKenzie Skiles, assistant professor of geography at the U and lead author of the study. “Anything that impacts snowmelt could have economic and hydrologic consequences. And now one of the dust source regions is right next door. Could we could do something about it by enacting policy that maintains a minimum lake level?”

The study published online on in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Snowmelt in the Wasatch

Skiles and her team observed five dust events during the spring of 2017, but focused on a single storm on April 13 because it deposited the largest volume of dust, and because the dust seemed to be coming from the Great Salt Lake dry lake bed. The team collected data at the Atwater Study Plot, near Alta Ski Resort in Alta, Utah. They collected data in three ways. First, they sampled the size and number of air-borne particles. Second, they excavated pits to analyze the snow’s properties and sample dust concentrations. Third, they used computer simulations to estimate where the dust came from, and where it would be expected to go. They were confident in the simulations because they captured the patterns in samples from the air and snow.

To measure how the dust impacted the snow, Skiles calculated the difference in energy absorption between snow darkened by dust, and the same snow if it had remained dust free. The equation incorporates snow properties such as snow grain size, snow density, depth and aerosol mixing. The overall impact from dust was to accelerate melt by 25 percent.

They found that most of the dust was deposited about an hour after the actual storm passed through, in the so-called “post-frontal” winds. Sources such as the Great Salt Lake Deseret were the largest dust emitters; dust from the dry lake bed hotspots accounted for about 10 percent of deposited dust. However, the computer simulations suggest that much of the dust blew north of the study plot. Without snow observations in the region, the researchers were unable to verify higher dust deposition but they hypothesize that the impact was likely greater in the northern Wasatch.

“In most people’s minds, dust is a natural aerosol. But the magnitude and frequency of airborne dust is impacted by human activity, altering landscapes makes dust more likely to get picked up by wind,” Skiles said. “We know that since settlement of the West, the amount of dust in the air has increased. And at the same time, due to upstream water withdrawals, lake levels are also declining, exposing even more dust.”

Dust is a global problem

In October, Skiles co-authored a paper that reviewed literature on the growing global issue of “light absorbing particles” on snow in the journal Nature. The climate-science community has recognized the impact of aerosols that are clearly linked to human activity, like soot, but have yet to consider other particles that make snow darker and speed up melting.

“Globally snow is in decline and it’s not just from a warming climate–it’s more complicated than that– snow is also getting darker,” said Skiles. “We know that in some places aerosols are impacting water resources, and it’s having this long-term climactic impact. We also know that deposition levels are unlikely to decrease in the future. While we don’t yet understand the exact magnitude of impact, we know that dust warrants more attention.”

Skiles has studied dust on snow in the Colorado Rockies, but wants to continue to look at other mountainous areas.

“I’m interested in looking in Wyoming, Montana and here in Utah because we need the regional perspective–we know that dust has a dramatic impact on snowmelt in Colorado, but what’s the impact like in other places? If dust isn’t as important in these regions, then what is controlling changing snowmelt patterns?” she asked.

Researchers from UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Stanford have demonstrated a computer system that can discover and identify the real-world objects it “sees” based on the same method of visual learning that humans use.

The system is an advance in a type of technology called “computer vision,” which enables computers to read and identify visual images. It is an important step toward general artificial intelligence systems–computers that learn on their own, are intuitive, make decisions based on reasoning and interact with humans in a more human-like way. Although current AI computer vision systems are increasingly powerful and capable, they are task-specific, meaning their ability to identify what they see is limited by how much they have been trained and programmed by humans.

Even today’s best computer vision systems cannot create a full picture of an object after seeing only certain parts of it–and the systems can be fooled by viewing the object in an unfamiliar setting. Engineers are aiming to make computer systems with those abilities–just like humans can understand that they are looking at a dog, even if the animal is hiding behind a chair and only the paws and tail are visible. Humans, of course, can also easily intuit where the dog’s head and the rest of its body are, but that ability still eludes most artificial intelligence systems.

Current computer vision systems are not designed to learn on their own. They must be trained on exactly what to learn, usually by reviewing thousands of images in which the objects they are trying to identify are labeled for them.

Computers, of course, also cannot explain their rationale for determining what the object in a photo represents: AI-based systems do not build an internal picture or a common-sense model of learned objects the way humans do.

The engineers’ new method, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows a way around these shortcomings.

The approach is made up of three broad steps. First, the system breaks up an image into small chunks, which the researchers call “viewlets.” Second, the computer learns how these viewlets fit together to form the object in question. And finally, it looks at what other objects are in the surrounding area, and whether or not information about those objects is relevant to describing and identifying the primary object.

To help the new system “learn” more like humans, the engineers decided to immerse it in an internet replica of the environment humans live in.

“Fortunately, the internet provides two things that help a brain-inspired computer vision system learn the same way humans do,” said Vwani Roychowdhury, a UCLA professor of electrical and computer engineering and the study’s principal investigator. “One is a wealth of images and videos that depict the same types of objects. The second is that these objects are shown from many perspectives–obscured, bird’s eye, up-close–and they are placed in different kinds of environments.”

To develop the framework, the researchers drew insights from cognitive psychology and neuroscience.

“Starting as infants, we learn what something is because we see many examples of it, in many contexts,” Roychowdhury said. “That contextual learning is a key feature of our brains, and it helps us build robust models of objects that are part of an integrated worldview where everything is functionally connected.”

The researchers tested the system with about 9,000 images, each showing people and other objects. The platform was able to build a detailed model of the human body without external guidance and without the images being labeled.

The engineers ran similar tests using images of motorcycles, cars and airplanes. In all cases, their system performed better or at least as well as traditional computer vision systems that have been developed with many years of training.

By Eliza King

“The stability and prosperity of our region,” Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad claimed earlier this week, “rely heavily on a united and integrated ASEAN.” The call for regional unity came as Malaysia’s prime minister was conferred an honorary doctorate in Thailand in the field of social leadership, entrepreneurship and politics, an occasion that marked Mahathir’s second visit to the country since winning a landmark election in May this year. His earlier visit saw him pledge to facilitate peace in the southern border provinces of Thailand amid a persistent separatist insurgency.

While his speech may have been stirring, Mahathir’s grandiose vision of a more unified ASEAN community does not extend to his own government’s policies, at least judging by the escalating border dispute Putrajaya has ignited in recent weeks with neighbouring Singapore. The same Mahathir that called for regional unity in Thailand is refusing to remove ships from disputed waters, while a senior member of his party threatened Singapore with “pain by a thousand cuts”. The provocative language harkens back to the long and tense relationship between the two countries since their 1965 split, with boundary issues typically flaring up in parallel with domestic politics.

This latest dispute straddles two sets of issues. On the maritime side, Malaysia’s October claim to extended limits of the Johor Bahru port has been rejected by Singapore on the grounds that the new boundaries exceed previous claims. In terms of airspace, Malaysia has voiced opposition to the Instrument Landing System (ILS), an assisted navigational aviation facility for Seletar Airport. Malaysia protests the system’s implementation on the grounds that it infringes on national sovereignty and creates adverse impacts on flight paths and shipping in Pasir Gudang.

Mahathir’s renewed aggression toward Singapore marks a notable about-face from predecessor NajibRazak’s efforts to build stronger ties between Malaysia and the city-state. Najib sought to increase mutual trust through cross-border infrastructure and education projects. “We certainly do not want to return to the era of confrontational diplomacy and barbed rhetoric between our two countries,” he declared earlier this year in a barely-veiled barb at Mahathir’s preceding stint in office. “It was an era that we want to forget.”

That attitude was echoed by international observers, who held high hopes for bilateral relations upon Mahathir’s election as PM in May despite his widely-known frosty attitude towards Singapore. A few months in, those hopes have given way to somber disillusionment. The tensions of the past several weeks have revived uncomfortable memories of cross-causeway relations during Mahathir’s first stint in power, when he ruled Malaysia with an iron fist from 1981 to 2003.

One focal point of tensions is Mahathir’s so-called 2001 “crooked bridge” plan, designed to replace the causeway linking the two countries with a bridge to allow ships to cross the Johor Strait. Singapore refused to back the project, declaring the bridge unnecessary as long as the causeway was in good condition. Mahathir’s insistence on building Malaysia’s end of the bridge, and more recent attempts to revive project discussions, have confirmed fears that his return to power would revive old issues previously laid to rest.

It’s difficult to determine exactly why Mahathir is so blatantly after confrontation with Singapore. Two main theories have emerged to explain the PM’s enmity towards Malaysia’s tiny neighbour. According to the first theory, the idiosyncratic Mahathir holds a grudge from his university days in Singapore, where he faced anti-Malay prejudice and condescension from Singaporeans.

Mahathir does indeed have a history of holding grudges. Long before the Seletar airport issue and the revival of the Johor Strait bridge project, Mahathir had one-time protégé Anwar Ibrahim thrown in jail on trumped up sodomy charges after they disagreed over financial policy in the wake of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Anwar, who has since re-emerged as a critical political ally for Mahathir, was just one of a long list of political opponents to suffer similar fates during Mahathir’s first tenure.

That trend has carried over into the premier’s second term. Having already spoken at length of his soured impression of successor Abdullah Badawi, the newly reinstated leader is now going after predecessor Najib. Arrested in July in connection with the billion-dollar corruption scandal surrounding state investment fund 1MDB, Malaysia has also filed criminal charges against Goldman Sachs for its involvement in the embezzlement of large sums of money. The unfolding case against Najib is being held up as a litmus test of Mahathir’s commitment to justice. The supposedly “bitter” Mahathir is unlikely to disappoint.

The second theory, however, may offer a more straightforward explanation. It suggests Mahathir is using this latest spat with Singapore as a means of drawing attention away from domestic problems. A Nikkei Asian Review report released earlier this year held Mahathir’s government responsible for a rapidly declining ringgit, with the new administration lacking in substantial new economic policies and failing to curb capital outflow.

Mahathir’s economic woes are compounded by rising concerns over Malaysia’s ballooning debt. In the wake of the 1MDB scandal, realizations that government debt exceeds RM1 trillion – more than $238 billion – are ringing national alarm bells. The benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Composite Index has fallen nearly ten percent since Mahathir took office.

Amid rising debt, dubious economic policies, and broken election promises, Mahathir’s comments in Thailand earlier this week belied what could very well be a conscious strategy of exploiting regional tensions to maintain domestic control. While ASEAN unity almost certainly is the only path to shared regional prosperity, Mahathir does not seem to be to be listening to his own advice.

Source: This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

By Brig. Ashish Chhibba*

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a regional grouping of seven countries i.e. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand that lie in the littoral and adjacent regions of the Bay of Bengal. Recently, the member countries got together in New Delhi to hold the first conference on cyber security cooperation from 05 to 07 December 2018.

The BIMSTEC region has a population of around 1.5 billion people, which constitutes nearly 22 per cent of the global population., The member states have a combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US $ 2.7 trillion. The region is witnessing an exponential growth in internet usage and mobile telephony with social media, especially Facebook, having its largest user base from the region. It is therefore crucial that BIMSTEC takes an active part in various internet governance forums, promulgates best practices and cyber norms and works to ensure speedy build-up of cyber capacity and capability, transparent and quick information sharing, and coordinate their responses in fighting cyber-crime in the rapidly evolving cyber ecosystem of the region.

BIMSTEC Regional Cyberspace Ecosystem

As per Digital in 2018 yearbook, out of the total global population of 7.593 Billion (data as of January 2018), roughly 4.021 Billion (approximately 53 per cent of global population with an annual growth rate of 7 per cent) have access to internet with 3.196 Billion (42% of global population with an annual growth rate of 13%) being active social media users. There are 5.135 billion (68% of global population with an annual growth rate of 4%) unique mobile phone users in the world, a majority of them having the basic mobile handset without internet connectivity with an increasing large number migrating to smart phones with 3G and 4G mobile internet connectivity. Of these, the BIMSTEC countries account for nearly one fourth of the global internet population which is likely to grow in the near future. This is in spite of the fact that South Asia has a low internet penetration of 36 % (above only central and eastern Africa) against a global average of 53%.

The BIMSTEC countries also have the largest share of social media users in the world. Nearly 23% of active social media users (735 Million) are from the region. India has the second highest growth rate of social media users (31%) with the highest number of Facebook users (250,000,000). Bangkok and Dhaka respectively are the top two cities with the largest number of active Facebook users. These figures notwithstanding, social media penetration in South Asia still stands at 20% in against a global average of 42%.

The BIMSTEC region is the largest user of mobile phones in the worldwith 51% of unique mobile phone users (2.630 Billion). India, Nepal and Bhutan on an average generate 3.9 GB of monthly mobile data per smart phone against a global average of 2.9 GB. This is in contrast to the fact that the mobile internet speed in these countries is much below the global average of 21.3 MBPS.

Barring Thailand, which has a robust e-commerce penetration of 62%, the remaining countries of BIMSTEC region have a lower e-commerce penetration but, India with penetration of 26% is the fastest growing e-commerce market in the world. As the internet penetration increases with faster mobile data rates and a greater number of people migrate from basic mobile phones to smartphones, the e-commerce sector is bound to increase drastically and offers enormous opportunities for business and economy.

India has the second highest digital optimism in the world with 79% of the population believing that new technology offers more opportunity than risks. The majority of population living in the region have tremendous faith in internet and digital technology and believe that it is the engine for good governance, poverty alleviation, reducing corruption and providing prosperity to all.

However, even as the BIMSTEC region is at the cusp of a major internet and mobile telephony transformation, its poor literacy rates make the population susceptible to cyber-crime, data thefts, identity frauds and propagation of rumours and fake news – against a global average of female (80%) and male (88%) literacy rate, South Asia has a corresponding literacy rate of 61% (female) and 78%(male).  

Cyber Security and Future Trajectory of Cyber-Crime in the BIMSTEC Region

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) publishes a yearly Global Cyber Security Index as a measure of the commitment of countries to cyber security.  The Global Cyber Security Index of 2017 featured 134 countries with Bangladesh securing 53, Bhutan 109, India 23, Myanmar 99, Nepal 93, Sri Lanka 71 and Thailand 22 rank. It is evident that the overall cyber security posture of the region is poor and much needs to be done towards building a safer cyber environment which assumes even greater importance as the region is moving towards greater internet and mobile penetration.

The estimated global cyber-crime revenue in 2018 is around US $ 1.5 Trillion.  Of this, illegal online market (U $ 860 Billion), trade secret & online theft (US $500 billion) and data trading (US $ 160 Billion) will be the top earners with negligible revenue being roped in by crime-ware (US$1.6 Billion) and ransomware (US$1 Billion). The above is a good indicator of the future global trajectory of cyber-crime.

As per a white paper “2018 Current State of Cyber Crime”, cyber crime has shifted from web based attacks to mobile phone based attacks as more and more people migrate to smart phones for carrying out banking, e-commerce and other financial transactions. The BIMSTEC region with the largest share of mobile phone users in the world is particularly susceptible to these crimes and frauds primarily due to low cyber security posture coupled with large population of digital illiterates entering the e-commerce and digital banking sector for the first time.

It has also been brought out that due to the massive data breaches in the last two years, there is a growing market of illegal sale of non-financial personal credentials with a 70% growth in the visible fraud activity on social media platforms. Again, the region is likely to witness unauthorised harvesting of private digital data being the largest users of social media platforms.

Conclusion

The BIMSTEC region is witnessing an explosive growth in cyber space infrastructure coupled with a growing number of first-time users of cyber space and e-commerce. In order to fully exploit the digital dividend, it is imperative that the member countries collaborate and cooperate to ensure rapid cyber capacity and capability building, exchange of skilled manpower, development of a regional cyber eco system and joint representation at international internet and mobile telephony governance councils and bodies. Secondly, mass cyber education drives need to be undertaken to educate and protect the interests of the population especially those who will be joining the internet and undertaking e-commerce activities for the first time. Thirdly, the ICT companies need to recognise the immense potential of the BIMSTEC region and participate whole heartedly in nation building and improving the national security environment as a whole. And lastly, intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the BIMSTEC region need to seamlessly cooperate with each other for intelligence sharing, combating crime and maintaining a highly resilient and safe cyber environment.   

Views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IDSA or of the Government of India.

*About the author: Brig. Ashish Chhibbar is Senior Fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi.

Source: This article was published by IDSA