During the 90s of the XX century, in Kosovo and in Albania reined a situation characterized by political tensions, with deep economic crises and with the failure of the state apparatus to function properly. These circumstances, coupled with the rapid decline of communist ideology as inspiration ideologies, have led to an increase in the rate of corruption, the destruction of the education system, the degradation of the public health system and the disruption of many family structures. In these social circumstances, there have been two events of crucial importance for the presentation of Islamist extremism in Kosovo

Albania became a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)

After the Albanian Democratic Party had obtained the absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in 1992, Sali Berisha, who was then President of the State, had Albania join the Organization of the Islamic Conference right after he had just been in office for a few months as he was hoping that Albania would be granted economic aid.

The OIC gave the country full membership rights. After Albania had become a member of the OIC, Albanian authorities unilaterally facilitated granting visas to citizens of most of the Arabian countries or even excluded them from visa requirements, a path that was used for the unhindered penetration of various radical Islamist terrorist structures from the Arab world into Albania, Kosovo and other Balkan countries.

This was also evidenced in the “Balkan Arabs” trial, which was held in Cairo in 1999, against 107 people charged with terrorism, including Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Al Zawahiri, who was sentenced to death (in absentia).  Undoubtedly, Albania’s membership in the Organization of the Islamic Conference has influenced the awakening of religious awareness and empowerment of Islam in Albania and Kosovo.

The outbreak of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992-1995)

The outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the organized influx of mujahidin, who had fought in the war between Russia and Afghanistan, exacerbated the radicalization of the Muslim population in all of the territories of former Yugoslavia. After the Soviet troops had withdrawn and the “Islamic State of Afghanistan” had been proclaimed in 1992, the mission of thousands of mujahidin in Afghanistan was over. Therefore, these mujahidin, who were financed by Arabian circles, started pouring into Bosnia in order to realize their jihadist ambitions there and to spread their religious ideology that would enable certain Arabian states to expand their sphere of influence in the Balkans

After the war was over they had been deported from Bosnia, some mujaheddin who had served in Bosnia rose up the ranks to leadership positions in different international terrorist organizations. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who had conceived the terrorist attack on the USA in 2001 and another one was Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was a member of the cell in Hamburg that had prepared the plan for the terrorist attack on the USA on September 11^th, 2001. It is to be assumed that about 5.000 jihadists entered Bosnia-Hercegovina during the war. Some of them are still living in Bosnia, while others joined different jihadist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East.  

The activities of foreign Islamist organizations in Albania

While the democratic movement was on its way to Albania in 1990 and people were allowed to practice their religions, which had been forbidden since 1967, some members of Islamist NGOs from the Middle East traveled for the first time to Albania in order to reinforce a revival of Islam by providing different sorts of religious materials and aid. After the outbreak of the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina (which lasted from 1992-1995), the start of armed conflicts in Albania (1997) and the beginning of the war in Kosovo (that lasted from 1998-1999) respectively the outbreak of the war in Macedonia in 2001, all of the preconditions had been created for the unchecked entries of dozens of extremist Islamist organizations from the Middle East and for their unchecked destructive activities in all regions of the Balkans populated by Muslims.   These “religious” or “humanitarian” organizations, have promoted a new radical religious ideology, Some of these organizations are:

A) The International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO)

This humanitarian organization was founded by the Saudi King Chalid ibn Abd al-Aziz, and it is also an organization part of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.  A branch of this organization was registered in Albania in 1990 and chaired by Mohammad al-Zawahiri, the younger brother of Al-Qaida deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. This Islamist organization was the first of its kind to be permitted in Albania and they embraced a destructive activity, by financing the spread of a radical Islamist ideology through a different humanitarian stimulation.  

B)  The Arab-Albanian Islamic Bank

After Albania had joined the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 1992, the Islamic Development Bank demanded that the Albanian authorities open an “Arab Albanian Islamic Bank” in Tirana and they promised that considerable loans would be granted thereby for the reconstruction and economic development of Albania. Instead of living up to their pledge, the “Arab Albanian Islamic Bank” funded solely the construction of hundreds of mosques and the training of thousands of young Albanians in religious courses taking place everywhere in Albania and likewise in different Islamic centers in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan etc.   

C)  The Muwafaq Foundation

According to official sources, Osama bin Laden was in Albania in 1994.   An Interpol London report also confirms that he was very likely there. During this time, a branch of the Muwafaq (“Blessed Aid”) Foundation was opened.  Together with five private companies, this foundation operated under the umbrella of Makhtab al-Khidamat.  The latter organization was founded by Osama bin Laden. The Muwafaq Foundation which was chaired by Yasin Abdullah Ezzedine al-Qadi worked on spreading the Salafi doctrine in Albania.  Other branches of this organization in Bosnia, Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia etc., have also been engaged in exploring financial resources to finance certain international terrorist activities.

*Kolë KRASNIQI, Ph. D., was born in Gllaviçicë in the district of Peja on November 27th, 1961.  He attended elementary school in his home town. Later on, he went on to secondary school in Peja. In 1985, Krasniqi graduated from the Law School at the University of Prishtina.  He completed his doctoral studies at the Law School of the University of Vienna  in June 1998 and wrote his PhD dissertation    on “International terrorism with a special emhpasis on the terrorist attacks in Austria and efficient measures for combating international terrorism.”  Kolë Krasniqi has been working as a full professor at the FAMA College in Prishtina (since 2006).  In 2008-2012 he served as the Dean of Law School at the same institution.  He has also been working as a Distinguished Professor of Law at the Law School of the University of Peja (since 2012) and in the same institution he served as Dean of the College of Law (2012-2015).  He is the author of several scholarly books and research articles published in various Kosovar and International Academic Journals.

Could people who drink coffee and alcohol actually live longer than those who abstain? One study suggests so.

The 90+ Study, initiated in 2003, studies the oldest-old because little is known about the people who achieve the 90+ milestone, according to their website.

Since its beginning, more than 1,600 people have participated in this study, Fox 8 reports.

The participants of The 90+ Study are visited by researchers from the Clinic for Aging Research and Education in California every six months to undergo neurological and neuropsychological tests.

Participants are given a series of cognitive and physical tests to determine how well people in this age group are functioning.

Researchers reportedly used information regarding participants’ diets, activities, medical histories, medications, as well as other factors to determine what helps people live past 90-years-old.

Here are some major findings of the study, as listed in the study’s summary:

People who drank moderate amounts of alcohol or coffee lived longer than those who abstained.

People who were overweight in their 70s lived longer than normal or underweight people did.

Over 40% of people aged 90 and older suffer from dementia while almost 80% are disabled. Both are more common in women than men.

About half of people with dementia over age 90 do not have sufficient neuropathology in their brain to explain their cognitive loss.

People aged 90 and older with an APOE2 gene are less likely to have clinical Alzheimer’s dementia, but are much more likely to have Alzheimer’s neuropathology in their brains.

Worried at Russia and China’s technological edge, the US aims to have a hypersonic weapon by 2025, the US Navy said in a report. A fortnight later, Vladimir Putin was watching the test launch of Russia’s newest hypersonic missile.

The state-of-the-art Avangard hypersonic glider was successfully tested December 26. It performed in-flight vertical and horizontal maneuvers and hit its intended target, according to the Defense Ministry. The actual speed of the missile, which will enter service in 2019, can reach a whopping 30,000km/h.

The test launch was observed by the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who labelled it “a big event for the armed forces, and probably for the entire country.”

Merely a week before the Avangard test, US Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson released a plan dubbed “A design for maintaining maritime superiority. Version 2.0.” One of the Pentagon’s top priorities for the coming years turned out to be none other than to “develop and field an offensive hypersonic weapon by 2025.”

The Pentagon boldly accused Russia and China of seeking to “accumulate power at America’s expense” by deploying “all elements of their national power to achieve their global ambitions.”

Admitting to having “no existing countermeasures” against such weapons, the US has long been nurturing plans to boost its own hypersonic strike and deterrence capabilities. In April the Air Force awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin to develop a hypersonic weapon prototype, while, this month, DARPA announced it is seeking “new designs” and materials to make sure prospective hypersonic vehicles do not burn up in the atmosphere.

Another US project, dubbed ‘Glide Breaker,’ to develop an interceptor capable of neutralizing incoming hypersonic gliders, has also reportedly been in the works at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The trio of Russia, China and the US are considered the nations that have advanced to possess hypersonic technologies and, with the successful test of Avangard, Moscow seems to have claimed the lead in the tightly-packed race.

The murder of Rasputin, the monk who advised Nicholas II as a result of his work with the tsarevich’s hemophilia, was intended to stop the slide of the Russian Empire toward disaster; but instead, his killing 102 years ago today, legitimated murder for political goals and opened the way to millions of deaths, Leonid Mlechin says.

Rasputin was accused of giving the tsar bad advice and taking liberties with the imperial family, and many near the throne wanted him removed for one thing or another, the Russian historian says; but killing him backfired on its perpetrators and their supporters (echo.msk.ru/blog/mlechin/2343269-echo/).

Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, Prince Feliks Yusupov, and Vladimir Purishkevich were treated as national heroes by many after they killed Rasputin, Mlechin continues. The only one in the elite who got it exactly right when he observed that “no one has the right to murder.”  Such actions never are self-contained.

And in Russia, they led to the falling of dominos and the murder of millions of people. “The Romanov dynasty outlived Grigory Rasputin only for a short time. The monarchy fell, the Bolsheviks came to power, the Civil War began and all of Russia was drown in blood” not only during the course of that conflict but throughout the decades that followed.

The Taliban have rejected Kabul’s offer for talks in January, a Taliban leader said on Sunday.

The militants are set to meet with US officials next month in Saudi Arabia to work on further peace efforts.

Representatives from the Taliban, the United States and regional countries met this month in the United Arab Emirates for talks to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan. But, the Taliban have refused to hold formal talks with the Western-backed Afghan government.

“We will meet the US officials in Saudi Arabia in January next year and we will start our talks that remained incomplete in Abu Dhabi,” a member of the Taliban’s decision-making Leadership Council told Reuters.

“However, we have made it clear to all the stakeholders that we will not talk to the Afghan government.”

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also said the leaders of the group would not talk to the Afghan government.

The militants have insisted on first reaching an agreement with the United States, which the group sees as the main force in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have intensified after Taliban representatives started meeting US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad this year. Officials from the warring sides have met at least three times to discuss the withdrawal of international forces and a ceasefire in 2019.

But the United States has insisted that any final settlement must be led by the Afghans.

According to data from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission published in November, the government of President Ashraf Ghani has control or influence over 65 percent of the population but only 55.5 percent of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, less than at any time since 2001. The Taliban say they control 70 percent of the country.

A close aide to Ghani said the government would keep trying to establish a direct line of diplomatic communication with the Taliban.

“Talks should be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned,” the aide said on condition of anonymity. “It is important that the Taliban acknowledge this fact.”

US President Donald Trump has announced a pullout of American troops from Syria, a decision that prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis, and there have been reports that he is considering a partial pullout from Afghanistan.

Original source

(RFE/RL) — Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow remains open for dialogue with Washington.

Putin made the offer in a New Year letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, details of which were disclosed by the Kremlin on December 30.

Relations between the United States and Russia remain strained over a raft of issues, including Russia’s role in wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine, its alleged meddling in elections in the United States and elsewhere, and the poisoning of a Russian double agent in Britain.

At the end of November, Trump abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Putin on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Argentina, citing tensions after Russian forces opened fire on Ukrainian Navy boats before seizing them and capturing 24 Ukrainian sailors.

In the letter, Putin stressed that U.S.-Russian relations “are the most important factor for providing strategic stability and international security,” according to a statement by the Kremlin quoted by Russian media on December 30.

“[Putin] confirmed that Russia is open for dialogue with the U.S.A. on the most wide-ranging agenda,” the statement said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying that it is now up to the United States to decide whether to hold a new meeting in 2019.

“The issue should be addressed to Washington. Both our president and his representatives have said that we are ready for the talks when Washington is ready for it,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in televised remarks.

Putin also addressed a New Year’s letter to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been a recipient of Russian support throughout a seven-year civil war in the Middle Eastern country.

Putin “stressed that Russia will continue to provide all-around assistance to the government and people of Syria in their fight against terrorism and efforts to protect state sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

By Rajesh Rajagopalan

The shock resignation of US Defence Secretary James Mattis and President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw all US forces from Syria and some from Afghanistan has led to additional questions about the US’s global commitments.  These were concerns that were already in the air over the last decade but had become even more visible under Trump.  But while they may be concerned, Washington’s allies in Asia (and even Europe) are unlikely to fundamentally alter their strategic choices.  Facing threats that they cannot manage on their own, they have little choice but to continue to look to Washington.

This is not the first time that the US is withdrawing from its international commitments when those commitments no longer served its interests.  The best example is Taiwan, which Washington basically abandoned in 1979 when it established diplomatic relations with Beijing.

 Today it’s unclear whether the US would come to Taiwan’s aid if the mainland attempts to forcibly integrate it.  And of course, the US is not alone in abandoning partners and allies: after bleeding for almost a decade, Moscow decided to leave its clients in Afghanistan to their fate and pulled its forces out in 1989, with predictable results.  Great powers are more likely to play such games simply because they have more partners and allies and are involved in more countries and regions of the world.  But weaker powers are equally likely to engage in such behavior.  Egypt, to give only one example, threw out the Russians in the early 1970s and shifted to the US side when it became clear that Moscow was not going to be much help in making peace with Israel.

Alliances and partnerships in international politics are always matters of convenience and mutual necessity, something that is often overlooked in much of the foreign policy debate in New Delhi.  They are always temporary and fragile, with tensions about mutual obligations always present even in the tightest of alliances.  While the value of particular commitments – and withdrawal from such commitments – can always be debated, the fragility of such commitments also needs to be kept in mind. 

Ideally, most states would rather not align with others because allies understandably are never fully dependable, a potentially dangerous condition in an international order in which every country has to look after its own security.  Another danger is that allies can drag you into their conflicts even if these are not in your interests.  Despite such dangers, states nevertheless align because power is distributed unequally in the international system, especially within regions.  Thus, relatively weaker states have to balance the risks of alignment against the even greater security risks inherent in facing stronger powers all by their lonesome.

Alliance pressures are also different in different types of international orders.  Thus, as the international relations theorist Glenn Snyder pointed out decades back, though there are more choices of alliance partners in a multipolar system of many great powers, greater insecurity and the fear of being abandoned by allies tend to lead to tighter alliances.  On the other hand, in a bipolar world, fear of being abandoned by allies is lower because alliance choices are just the two great powers, making alignments remarkably stable.  But this confidence that alliance partners will be loyal also leads to more autonomous policies, with states adopting “independent, indeed contradictory, policies toward the opponent with little fear that the partner will defect in consequence”.  But such a binary view might be somewhat problematic:

While the pre-first world war multipolar order did lead to tight alliances, the pre-second world order, though also a multipolar one, led to loose “buck-passing” alliance in which allies tried to free-ride rather than help each other.

A common problem with such a structural view of alliance logic is that it focuses on the choices of the great powers rather than on that of weaker powers.  For the latter, the choices are somewhat simpler: if they are pressured by a great power, especially one that happens to be a neighbor, they can either choose to submit or, alternatively, seek a capable ally who is willing to help.  Submission may take different forms but in its essence it is better known as ‘Finlandization’, a posture of neutrality bred by massive inequality, fear and proximity.  It is a pragmatic and sensible recognition of the strategic reality that the relatively weak face in international politics.  But where allies are available, weak states will choose to resist the threats they face because an alliance, even with all of its problems, is a far better option than submission.  Most importantly, because weaker powers are bereft of choice, they will be much more forgiving of the follies and foibles of their great power partner, especially in a bipolar system.  This is why much of the criticism of the Trump administration finds little policy echo in Asia: not that Washington’s partners in Asia are not concerned about Trump’s apparent unsteadiness, but they recognize that the alternative is far worse.

Efforts by Asian powers to stabilize their ties with China thus does not reflect a real alternative to Washington.  India after Wuhan is one example, with New Delhi warily trying to sharpen its sword even as it seeks to stabilize its China ties. 

Prime Minister Abe in Japan is trying much the same tactic, and to some extent, so is Vietnam.  But this will be short-lived because there is little real middle-ground between the demands represented by the threat from China and the security and political concessions these powers can make to mollify it.  None of them will submit to China’s hegemony, at least not as long as the American counterbalance exists.  Thus, whatever concerns Asian powers may have of Trump’s unsteadiness, these will remain private as they seek a greater US role, not a lesser one.

By Akshobh Giridharadas

There is a great analogy to describe the efficacy and the reach of certain think tanks. This applies more so in the case of certain India analysts obsessed with the Washington-New Delhi relationship.

The analogy being that imagine if there was a grand buffet at the palace. And over a hundred dishes are going to be served. A think tanker’s role is akin to an outsider who has somehow managed to find the ear one of the kitchen staff (policy planner inside government) working at the palace.

The think tanker informs the member of the catering committee that the best strawberries in town are found in one particular farmer’s market (policy advice). The kitchen staff heeds to the advice and decides to purchase those strawberries. These strawberries go into only one out of ten desserts along with the other ninety other items on the menu, including entrees, canapés and drinks (final policy outcome).

But think tankers assume that the guests at buffet would be able to notice their contribution of the strawberry recommendations that got bought and put into the making of the strawberry pudding.

Food hyperboles aside, the analogy was to highlight the limited impact of certain India focused think tankers both in Washington D.C and New Delhi when it comes to affecting policy discourse between the White House and Raisina Hill.

According to one leading South Asia analyst at a prominent Washington think tank, the fallacy lies with the India’s foreign policy brains and the subsequent India analysts at various think tanks in Delhi and Washington who “go rah-rah every time there is bilateral dialogue”.

Another India watcher is quick to concur and says that “India is just one part of the United States’ foreign policy outlook”.  As Harvard academic Stephen Walt has described in his latest book, The Hell of Good Intentions, the United States has long followed a path of liberal hegemony.  That is spreading what Washington sees as key economic and political freedoms across the globe. 

And Washington is too preoccupied with its several political and economic interests that are more pressing in less stable parts of the world.

“India and the US relationship is a boring marriage spiced by the extra marital affairs of Pakistan and China” says one nuclear expert at a non-partisan think tank in D.C.

The fact of the matter is that “India is not a problem child, the State Department spends more time worrying about the problem child such as Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries” says a political science professor at a leading Washington based policy school. He goes on to add that “India, sort of has the stability factor as the United Kingdom, France or Australia when it comes to geopolitical relations with Washington. Of course, once in a while there will be issues on trade, which have to be ironed out and regular bilateral meetings will take place to reinforce the robust partnership”.

A former State Department officer who served in Islamabad and New Delhi and now works in the private sector said “at State, we always said if the US is not thinking about you, then you’re doing something good. The less we think about you, the less we have to worry about you” reinforcing Washington’s quest to unfurl the liberal values on the various said ‘problem children’.

The recent 2+2 dialogue between the respective foreign ministers and defense ministers of the two countries in New Delhi reinforced the strong commitment between the world’s oldest and the world’s largest democracy. The relationship between Washington D.C and New Delhi seems robust enough that Indian foreign policy wonks are currently administration agnostic. The overarching feeling in New Delhi is that currently both Democrat and Republican administrations will continue to coalesce with India on defense, cultural exchanges, counterterrorism, intelligence sharing, and cyber security, of course minor differences notwithstanding.

The United States will continue to see India as a key partner in South Asia and within the wider framework of the Indo-Pacific and even view India as a democratic counterweight to China.

And hence everything remains ticket-boo especially in the New Delhi-Washington romance, despite its “boring marriage” status. However, another prominent think tanker and scholar cautions the need to celebrate it more than it should. He feels that plenty of other India analysts in D.C are so obsessed with the Indo-US relationship, that they assume that writing lucid 800-word Op-eds would be enough to slowly but significantly affect US-India policy discourse. “It’s as if the belief is that Secretary Mattis and Secretary Pompeo devour all the articles written on the said relationship and accordingly shape their South Asia viewpoint”, he says.

Of course, India and the US will have their standoffs and a bit of a brouhaha when it comes to New Delhi wanting Washington to put more pressure on Islamabad to take a firm stance on dealing with terror. Or Washington’s vexation with New Delhi for depending on Tehran for its energy needs in oil imports or continuing to buy arms from Moscow for its defense needs.

“India needs to stop obsessing with its relationship with the US” says another Washington based academic who agrees that minor differences in trade and various partnerships will not hinder the relationship.  “It is a stable relationship, and once in a while, the State Department would need to extend an invitation to India to stroke any hairs that are standing up”. Akin to a property investor checking in to see if the investments are all intact.

The trouble is every time there is a bilateral discourse, it is the South Asia focused think tank analysts that get excited every time the US dials in to say hello.

On the eve of 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent New Year greetings to Heads of State and Government including BRICS members. According to the official website, Putin sent greetings to President of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Michel Temer, and President-elect of the Federative Republic of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro.

In connection with the end of Michel Temer’s tenure as Head of State, Putin expressed his gratitude for constructive cooperation and mutual understanding between the two leaders during the period of joint work, and highly praised his efforts to strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Addressing Jair Bolsonaro, the Russian leader noted that relations between Russia and Brazil are productively developing in the spirit of strategic partnership as the countries are cooperating in politics, trade, the economy, energy and culture and are coordinating their efforts in addressing important regional and global matters.

Putin reaffirmed his readiness to work together in order to build up cooperation between Russia and Brazil, both with regard to the bilateral and international agenda, including in BRICS, where Brazil will preside in 2019.

In his messages to President of the Republic of India, Ram Nath Kovind, and Prime Minister of the Republic of India, Narendra Modi, the President of Russia strongly emphasised that Russia-India relations are developing in a constructive and dynamic manner, and the agreements reached at the October summit in New Delhi contribute to strengthening privileged strategic partnership between our countries.

He expressed confidence that joint efforts will lead to further growth of mutually beneficial cooperation in various areas and greater coordination of efforts on key issues on the regional and global agenda within the UN, BRICS, the SCO, the G20 and other multilateral bodies.

Putin sent New Year and the upcoming Spring Festival greetings to President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping. “The relations of comprehensive trust-based partnership and strategic interaction between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China have reached an unprecedented level,” the message says.

He stressed the existence of an ongoing substantive political dialogue, the dynamic growth of bilateral trade, the successful launch of the reciprocal years of region-to-region cooperation and the good results of coordinating the efforts by Moscow and Beijing in addressing important regional and global issues.

He further expressed confidence that effective joint work on the bilateral and international agenda will continue in the coming year, which will mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Putin finally wished Xi Jinping good health, happiness and every success, and the friendly Chinese people happiness and prosperity.

In his end-of-year congratulatory message to the President of the Republic of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Russian leader stressed that Russia-South Africa relations were developing dynamically in various spheres in 2018, which was fully confirmed by the leaders’ talks in Johannesburg. “Russia and South Africa together make a significant contribution to building a fair, democratic system of international relations,” the message says.

Putin expressed confidence in the continued joint work to build up bilateral ties in the spirit of strategic partnership and effective coordination of efforts within the UN, the G20, BRICS and other multilateral organisations, which meets the core interests of the two nations and contributes to consolidating regional and global security.

The five BRICS countries are home to over 3.6 billion people (about 42% of the world’s population), collectively represent about 26 percent of the world’s geographical area and have a combined nominal GDP of US$16.6 trillion. The BRICS countries are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

By Emir Eksioglu*

Since President Erdogan has been successful in every election he has entered for years, there is a view that “Erdogan will never lose” which is accepted by most of the people in Turkey. This is actually a reasonable view because, despite several adverse events, Erdogan and the AK Party have been superior to the polls for years.

I think that President Erdogan will win the next election, even if he is not as strong as he used to be, as long as his health allows him and he wants to be in the political arena.

But of course, it is a fact that Erdogan is not as powerful as he was a few years ago, and the criticism towards the Erdogan government and the country’s course, including those who voted for him, is too much to be underestimated. We can also understand this from the alliance he had formed with the president of the Nationalist Movement Party, DevletBahçeli, which had criticized him repeatedly in the past.The AK Party, chaired by Erdogan, is no longer a party that will win the elections alone.

But it should also be noted that AK Party is a lucky party. Because, CHP (Republican People’s Party), which has been acting as the main opposition party for years, is not a party that can take over the majority of the people because of its constant chaos, wrong choices and attitudes. You may not be able to see another major opposition party, which draws an amateur image like CHP, in any country of Europe.

As a matter of fact, many secret meetings have been organized with many people who want to be in charge of the country’s government after Erdogan. I want to write the names of the different profiles that could play the first chair in the leadership of Turkey after Erdogan.

The only one who can win elections against Erdogan

Meral Akşener, who was elected to the parliament for the first time in 1995, while President Erdogan was the mayor of Istanbul, and served as the first female Minister of Internal Affairs in Turkish history after a year, is a respected name for her political experience by many people today.

In 2001, Akşener, who took part in the founding stages of the AK Party with two names, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Abdullah Gül, who later served as the Prime Minister and the President, left the party as a result of disagreements in the establishment of the AK Party, then turned into a very popular political icon in the Nationalist Movement Party, which is one of the most well-established parties of Turkey.

After the failed election results of the Nationalist Movement Party, where she served as a member of parliament and parliamentary deputy speaker for many years, Akşener, who rolled up her sleeves to become the party’s leader, has formed The Good Party against the obstructions of Devlet Bahçeli, who is thought to run the party with a dictatorial approach by many, and her party achieved a successful result in its first year, surpassing the 10% threshold.

I think Meral Akşener is the only name to win the election against President Erdogan, who has been superior to his rivals in every election for years. Meral Akşener is a politician who is at the forefront with her nationalism but keeps it in a very good balance and she’s not a person like French Marine Le Pen, who has rhetoric towards racism and fascism.

In Turkey, the majority of the population position themselves as the center-right wing and both the AK Party and most of the political parties that have been successful in the past are center-right parties. Meral Akşener is a figure who is positioned in the center-right wing, but she is also a strong social democrat leader with strong rhetoric and sympathetic attitude.

I can already say that Meral Akşener will continue her successful political graphics and that one day she will be at the highest level of Turkish politics, although she is subjected to a great deal of pressure from her party and her rise.

He loves Erdogan and the people love him

Suleyman Soylu, who was the president of the Democratic Party, which had an important place in Turkish political history in the past as it elected three presidents and seven prime ministers, became one of the most trusted names of President Erdogan after a few years, even though he did politics in opposition to Erdogan and the AK Party at the time.

Suleyman Soylu, who currently serves as the Minister of Internal Affairs, is one of the most respected names of the nationalist-conservative wing, just like Meral Akşener. Especially in recent years, his successful and determined struggle against the PKK, the terrorist organization that committed numerous murders in Turkey and his being in the forefront of positive developments regarding internal security has gained Suleyman Soylu a very positive sympathy by the Turkish people.

However, the possibility of Minister Soylu taking over the leadership of Turkey does not seem to be much at the moment, because Minister Soylu, who has expressed his loyalty to Erdogan at every opportunity, cannot make such a move when Erdogan is still the President. He even made it clear that he was planning to leave politics after Erdogan on a TV show he attended on CNN. But of course, there is a saying in our country that “A period of 24 hours is a very long time for politics” and we can see that Soylu to make a move for leading Turkey after Erdogan.

Besides, I have to say that apart from Suleyman Soylu, politicians who are currently working at the AK Party will crave for their seats in the AK Party in a possible disintegration process because, people, who have the qualities of leadership to meet the demands of the people like Erdogan, do not take part in the AKP positions.

Perhaps the only hope of the left in Turkey

As I mentioned before, if we look at the dynamics of Turkey, it is a very low possibility that a power with the left understanding rule the country, but MuharremInce, who is backed by the social democratic masses against Erdogan in the presidential election on June 24, 2018, and who has the characteristics of a leader that has been longed for years, is the strongest name on the left that can change this dynamic.

It would not be wrong to say that Ince, who served as a member of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) since 2002 when AK Party came to power, is Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s biggest rival, who has been sitting in the chair of the general presidency for years despite the party’s failed results. Although MuharremInce, who has been competing against Kılıçdaroğlu at every CHP congress in recent times, has not yet achieved this goal, but he is the is the most important name forcing Kılıçdaroğlu to resign and it will be a development that we can see very soon.

MuharremInce, who has already declared that he will be a candidate for the presidency in the elections after five years, has carried out a successful work in the elections a few months ago. Despite the intense love of those who voted for him, he got 30% and fell below Erdogan’s 52% electoral success.

To become the leader of Turkey, Ince has to step up on this rate and gain the sympathy of the right wing in Turkey. This is difficult, but with its political attitude and populist style, Ince can achieve it.

Turkish people may need the experience and knowledge of their former prime minister

Ahmet Davutoglu, who was one of the most important figures of the AK Party until a few years ago and who was both the president of AK Party, and the Prime Minister of Turkey between 2014 and 2016, is a name with a reputation in AK Party although he had to resign as a result of a ridiculous statement published by several media oligarchs in Turkey.

It would not be wrong to say that Davutoglu, who has not met with Erdogan in any way lately, has withdrawn into his shell because he is not as active in political developments as he used to be. I think that Davutoglu, who is said to be founding a strong political party against Erdogan from time to time, should carry out an active and correct opposition policy against Erdogan in order to become Turkey’s leader after Erdogan because, so to speak, it is not possible for the people to sympathize with the return of a name that is scratched and forced to withdraw to his shell by Erdogan to active politics after Erdogan.

However, Davutoglu, who is touted as Ahmet Hodja in the conservative sector, is one of the most experienced politicians in the country and is always a name that is likely to be re-elected to the top seat. One of Davutoglu’s greatest advantages will be the support given to him by some of the prominent figures who have successfully taken part in Turkish politics.

There are other alternatives as well

As we often see in Turkish political history, a name that is not known very much, may show up suddenly and become the leader of the country. So even though I can guess a few names, we should not forget that it may not be possible.

For example, Cihangir Islam, who is preparing to succeed the wise leader of Felicity Party that once came to power, Temel Karamollaoğlu, is a new hope of the highly conservative group in Turkey, even if he is far from his former power. Islam, who maintained his medical success in parliament and made a good opposition, will be one of the most remarkable figures of the parliament until the next general elections scheduled to take place in 2023.At the same time, he is a politician with a vision that can move Felicity Party and its masses, which is declared as reaction istby some people, to a lot of innovations and to get votes from the voters who are opposed to him.

If the wave of young leadership spreads to Turkey as it did with Macron in France, with Kurzin Austria, with Trudeau in Canada and with Tsipras in Greece, Faik Tunay, who became a CHP deputy at a young age, is also a name that can play first chair even though he is of central right origin. Tunay’s strong international connections and his ability to speak many important languages will be a great advantage for him and for his leadership of Turkey. Although Tunay has not been seen much in the political arena lately, it is quite likely that he will progress in the right direction at the right time, using his young age’s advantage.

Of course, even if they haven’t been involved in politics until now, the successful names of the business world can step in this direction in a possible conjuncture. Ali Koç, who is the member of the country’s richest and most respected family, is the first to come to mind in this direction although he is dealing with the very unsuccessful outcomes of the football club he is currently president of. Although he has repeatedly stated that he does not intend to enter politics, he is a businessman who can be accepted by the public with his charisma and success. In the past, we have witnessed ultra-rich names such as Cem Uzan and Cem Boyner enter into politics and fail. Ali Koç, on the contrary, can be an example of success.

In conclusion, I should say that the emergence of a successful name from the business world to the leadership of Turkey will not produce as negative results as in the case of Trump, the first example in the world that comes to mind. At least in the international perspective.

*About the author: Emir Eksioglu, is a journalist and an entrepreneur. Previously, he published articles in important institutions such as Times of Israel, Huff Post, U.S. News, GQ, Tehran Times, Cumhuriyet and was introduced as the youngest media boss thanks to some of his investments in Turkey. His articles have been translated into numerous languages despite his young age. He has many initiatives in technology and media fields.

Source: This article was published by Modern Diplomacy

A mass grave of 34 Ethiopian Christians executed by the so-called Islamic State group in 2015 has reportedly been unearthed in Libya.

The bodies have been exhumed and will be eventually repatriated to Ethiopia, the Libyan interior ministry says.

Libyan government authorities found the mass grave Dec. 23 after obtaining information from arrested Islamic State members. The grave appears to be located on a farm near the coastal city of Sirte, 170 miles southeast of Misrata.

Islamic State gained control of Sirte in 2015, but United Nations-backed forces regained control of the city in December 2016 after months of deadly fighting.

According to the Libyan Express newspaper, a propaganda video posted to social media in April 2015 appeared to show the Islamic State members shooting and beheading the Ethiopian Christians, who were all wearing orange jumpsuits, on a beach. The Christians were in Libya to seek work as migrant workers, according to International Christian Concern.

The 2015 incident happened just months after Islamic State members executed a group of nearly two dozen Coptic Christians; a mass grave containing their bodies was found last October.

Islamic State and other terrorist organizations are still active in Libya and retain control of parts of the country.

A suicide bomber attack on the Libyan foreign ministry in the capital Tripoli, for which Islamic State claimed responsibility, killed at least three people and injured 21 on Christmas Day. A senior Libyan diplomat was among those killed.

New research using ancient DNA is rewriting the genetic history of two ancient peoples; the Hindus and the Jews – and shows that their two religious civilization are the result of multiple ancient ethnic migrations; into the Land of India in the case of the Hindus, and into diaspora Jewish communities in the case of the Jewish People.

First the Hindus. According to Tony Joseph, author of “Early Indians’’, Hindu nationalists believe the source of Indian civilization were the people who called themselves Aryans – a nomadic tribe of horse-riding, cattle-rearing warriors and herders who composed Hinduism’s oldest religious texts, the Vedas. Aryans, they argue, originated within the Land of India, spreading themselves and their family of Indo-European languages across large parts of Asia and Europe.

Many Indian scholars question the “out of India” thesis, arguing that Indo-European language speakers – or Aryans – were just one of many streams of prehistoric migrants who came into India after the decline of the much earlier Harappan (or Indus Valley) civilization, which thrived in what is now north-western India and Pakistan around the same time as the early Egyptians and Mesopotamians.

Hindu right-wingers believe the Harappan civilization was also an Aryan or Vedic civilization; but none of their languages have been deciphered so no one knows what language they spoke.

Now studies using ancient DNA are rewriting world history, and especially for the Hindu and Jewish Peoples, there have been many fascinating discoveries.

The most recent study on this subject, led by geneticist David Reich of Harvard University, who had also studied the genetic evolution of the Jewish People, was published in March 2018 and co-authored by 92 scholars from all over the world – many of them leading names in disciplines as diverse as genetics, history, archaeology and anthropology.

The study showed that in the last 8,000 years there were two major migrations into, and not out of. India. The first one originated from the Zagros region in south-western Iran (which has the world’s first evidence for goat domestication) and brought agriculturists, most likely herders, to India.

This would have been between 6,000 and 3,000 BCE. These Zagrosian herders mixed with the earlier inhabitants of the subcontinent – the First Indians, descendants of the Out of Africa (OoA) migrants who had reached India around 65,000 years ago – and together, they created the Harappan civilization.

In the centuries after 2000 BCE came the second set of immigrants (the Aryans) from the Eurasian Steppe lands, probably from Kazakhstan who brought with them an early version of Sanskrit, mastery over horses and new cultural and religious practices, all of which formed the basis of early Hindu/Vedic culture.

A thousand years earlier these Aryan peoples from the Eurasian Steppe lands had moved into Europe, mixing with agriculturists there, and spreading Indo-European languages into Europe.

Other genetic studies have brought to light more migrations into India, such as that of the speakers of Austro-Asiatic languages who came from south-eastern Asia. Thus India’s population is made up of a number of different layers added at different times.

As Tony Joseph writes in his book “Early Indians’’, the Indian population is like a pizza, with the first Indians forming its base. Though the base is thin in some places and thicker in others, studies show that 50% to 65% of the genetic ancestry of almost all Indians derives from the First Indians.

On top of the base comes the sauce – the Harappans. Then come the various toppings and the cheese – the Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Burman and Indo-European language speakers or Aryans, all of whom found their way into the subcontinent later.

Hindu nationalists will not admit that the Aryans were not the first inhabitants of India; and that the Harappan civilization existed long before their arrival for it would mean acknowledging that Aryans or their Vedic culture were not the singular fountainhead of Indian civilization.

The idea of the mixing of different population groups is even more unappealing to Orthodox Hindus and Hindu nationalists as they put a premium on racial purity. Plus the migration theory puts Aryans on the same footing as latter-day Muslim conquerors of India – such as the Mughals.

Some Hindu nationalists demand that the Harappan civilization be renamed the Saraswati river civilization. Since the Saraswati is mentioned in the Rig Vedic, such a renaming would serve to emphasize the link between Harappan civilization and the Aryans.

However, Tony Joseph says the real message that the new research carries is an exciting and hopeful one: that Indians have created a long-lasting civilization from a variety of heredities and histories. The genius of the Indian civilization during its best periods has been inclusion, not exclusion. Unity in diversity is, indeed, the central theme of India’s genetic make-up.

Now to the Jewish People. I would say that the same thing can also be said for the Jewish people in the 2500 years since the Babylonian exile. After all, are all present day Jews really the biological descendants of the Jews who inhabited the Land of Israel 3.000 years ago?

Yes and No. A new genetic analysis supports the historical record of Middle Eastern Jews settling in North Africa during Classical Antiquity, actively proselytizing and marrying local populations, and, in the process, forming distinct populations that later stayed largely intact for over 1500 years.

The study was published online August 6, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our new findings define North African Jews, and enhance the case for a biological basis for Jewishness,” said study leader Harry Ostrer, M.D., professor of pathology, genetics and pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

However, as anyone who has been to present day Israel knows, Jews come in many shades and looks. This is because even in the diaspora, and even against the will of the ruling religious authorities, Jews have quietly welcomed converts into the Jewish community, even against the formal rules of medieval rabbis. That is why most Jews in different geographical locations tend to look similar to the local majority after several generations.

The rabbinical rule that one should not refer to any Jew’s convert status is evidence of the desire of Jewish leaders to keep proselytizing activities secret from the non-Jewish ruling religious authorities..

In a previous genetic analysis, the researchers showed that modern-day Sephardic (Greek and Turkish), Ashkenazi (Eastern European) and Mizrahi (Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian) Jews that originated in Europe and the Middle East are more related to each other than to their contemporary non-Jewish neighbors, with each group forming its own cluster within the larger Jewish population.

Further, each of the four geographical groups genes, demonstrated Middle-Eastern ancestry, plus varying degrees of inclusion of converts to Judaism from the surrounding populations. This is true even though two of the major Jewish populations — Middle Eastern and European Jews — were found to have diverged from each other approximately 2,500 years ago.

The current study which extended the analysis to North African Jews, the second largest Jewish Diaspora group found that they also were more related to each other than to their contemporary non-Jewish North African neighbors.

The current study also included members of Jewish communities in Ethiopia, Yemen and Georgia. In all, the researchers analyzed the genetic make-up of 509 Jews from 15 populations along with genetic data on 114 individuals from seven North African non-Jewish populations.

North African Jews exhibited a high degree of endogamy, or marriage within their own religious group in accordance with Jewish custom. Ethiopian and Yemenite Jewish populations also formed distinctive genetically linked clusters, as did Georgian Jews.

So I would also say that the real message that the new genetic research carries is an exciting and hopeful one: that Jews have created a long-lasting civilization from a variety of ethnic and racial heredities and national histories. The genius of the Jewish civilization during its best periods has been inclusion, not exclusion.

Unity in diversity is the central theme of the Jewish People’s genetic historical make-up, and should inspire Israel’s political leadership to do everything necessary to encourage non-Jews living in Israel to become Jewish.

While the inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent, like those of China, have always outnumbered their conquerors, and thus been able to absorb them; the Jewish diaspora has always been a small minority, so opposition to ‘outreach’ may have been a wise precaution then.

But it is very counter-productive now, when Jews are a majority in Israel. Orthodox unwillingness to increase the number of non-Orthodox Jews by accepting Conservative and Reform converts is planting the seeds for major divisiveness in Israel’s future.

By Kamran Reza Chowdhury

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is poised to return to office for a record fourth time after Bangladesh’s ruling alliance won Sunday’s general election, a vote tainted by reports of deadly violence, intimidation and allegations of massive irregularities.

Hasina, 71, is heading to a third straight term as the nation’s leader after her Awami League party led an alliance that defeated the opposition in a landslide, despite criticism that her government had grown authoritarian.

The 11^th general election was the first one contested in 10 years, but the opposition that had boycotted the last balloting in 2014 labeled Sunday’s polls as “farcical,” leveling accusations that votes were stolen and ballot boxes were stuffed, among other allegations.

“We have received news of these types of vote robbery from almost all constituencies,” NUF leader Kamal Hossain said, adding that more than 100 candidates from different parties had walked out of the race at midday.

He said the alliance had received information from several constituencies that, “in coordination with election officials, some perpetrators [had] stamped ballots for the Boat and filled up ballot boxes last night,” he said, referring to the logo of the Awami-led Grand Alliance.

“Therefore we call to the Election commission to cancel/scrap this election right now. We reject so-called results of this election and demand a re-election under a nonpartisan government,” he said. Hossain was alluding to a pre-campaign demand by the opposition that a neutral caretaker administration govern the country during the polling season.

Meanwhile, at least 16 political-related killings had occurred nationwide in the 24 hours leading up to and covering Election Day, police said.

Voting was suspended during the day at 22 out of 40,000 polling sites because of violence, said Helal Uddin Ahmed, secretary of the Election Commission.

“Other than these violent incidents, the voting took place peacefully,” he said.

When the polls opened at 8 a.m. Sunday, the streets of the capital Dhaka were mostly deserted despite a heavy presence of security personnel at voting centers.

PM: The people ‘will vote for Boat’

Hasina cast her vote in the morning at Dhaka City College.

“The people of Bangladesh will vote for Boat. We have all felt the trust they have vested in us. Therefore, we must ensure that the credibility of the elections is not questioned,” the prime minister said in comments broadcast on Ekkator TV, a local station.

She and her Awami League party focused the election campaign on her government’s economic achievements. These featured an annual average growth rate above 6 percent during the past 10 years, fueled mostly by the nation’s garment industry, which generated U.S. $28 billion from 2016 to 2017.

The election took place amid international criticism and concern over whether the vote would be free, fair and held under safe conditions.

U.S. envoy Earl Miller, in a statement issued by the American embassy in Dhaka, had urged the government to provide conditions for citizens to “feel safe to go to the polls.”

There must also be space, he said, for peaceful expression and assembly and “for independent media to do its job covering electoral developments; for participants to have access to information; and for all individuals to be able to partake in the electoral process without harassment, intimidation, or violence.”

Voter turnout was low in Dhaka, presiding officers of polling places told BenarNews.

“The presence of voters is thin due to the cold. I hope the presence will go up as the temperature goes up,” said Mohammad Ruhul Amin, at the women’s polling booth at Manatat International School in the Gulshan neighborhood.

Poll monitors representing the opposition coalition had not turned up at two polling places, election officers said.

“The vote has been going on peacefully but voter presence is very low. The agent of the Sheaf of Paddy has not been allowed to come,” Sohel Rana, a monitor for the faith-based Islami Andolon party, told BenarNews, referring to the logo of the opposition NUF alliance.

The absence of opposition monitors raised concerns about possible voting irregularities.

“Every minute I am receiving phone calls from different parts of the countries, they are saying our monitors are forced to leave centers,” Kamal Hossain told reporters earlier in the day.

According to Mahbub Talukder, an election commissioner, no poll monitors from opposition parties were at the Dhaka voting center where he cast his vote.

“Apart from this, there have been allegations of irregularities from all over the country,” he said.

Commenting on reports about irregularities, K.M. Nurul Huda, the chief election commissioner, said he had heard of “minor isolated incidents” in Chittagong, Noakhali and other areas.

“It is not possible to control the events sitting in Dhaka,” said Huda, who had assured the public on Friday that the election would be “free, fair and festive.”

In southeastern Bangladesh, on the orders of the Election Commission, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees were barred from leaving their camps and settlements on Saturday and Sunday over concerns that these stateless people from Myanmar could be manipulated to cast fake votes in the Dec. 30 polls, officials and locals said.

Up to 104.2 million voters were eligible to cast ballots for 299 parliamentary seats in Sunday’s election. Only 151 seats were needed to secure victory under Bangladesh’s first-past-the-post electoral format.

Hasina led the ruling Grand Alliance coalition against an opposition bloc whose iconic leader, former three-time Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, was sidelined from the contest. Zia was disqualified because of her conviction and imprisonment in early 2018 on corruption charges, which she and her supporters said were politically motivated.

Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) spearheads a newly the formed NUF alliance, NUF, which was being led in her absence by Kamal Hossain.

The 84-year-old former senior Awami League official is an ex-protégé of Hasina’s assassinated father, the first leader of Bangladesh. Hossain, however, was not running for a parliamentary seat.

“There should be a very decisive victory for the opposition if it’s free and fair,” Hossain told The Associated Press in an interview on the eve of the vote. “If there is some kind of a decision in favor of the present government, I can assure you that it will not be a free and fair election.

Security presence

However, reports of deadly violence and intimidation carried out by activists from all sides overshadowed the run-up to Sunday’s polls.

On Sunday, violent incidents reported at polling sites included an alleged attack on a group of writers and photographers. Among them was Shahidul Alam, an acclaimed photojournalist who was jailed without charge for more than three months in 2018 on suspicion of violating the country’s defamation laws.

A group of men, including one who wore an Awami emblem around his neck, roughed up Alam and another photographer after ordering them to stop taking photos at a Dhaka area polling center at a local school, Alam said on his website, noting that he and the others in his party were accredited.

According to the Thailand-based Asian Network for Free Elections, which cited media reports, five people were killed and 2,682 injured in poll-related violence in Bangladesh as of last Thursday.

On Saturday, the army chief urged voters to not be afraid to venture out to the polls, saying 50,000 soldiers were being deployed nationwide to safeguard voting centers.

“I am telling the voters to go to the polling centers without any fear. You cast your votes; we will be around … We are trying our best so that no one can create any anarchy,” Gen. Aziz Ahmed told reporters, according to the Daily Star.

“We want a good election,” he said. “[W]e will be alert so that no one can spread fear.”

‘Will I be able to cast my vote?’

Prior to the balloting, voters expressed concerns that the election would be free and fair, despite reports of political violence on all sides during the campaign.

“When we go to campaign for our candidate, we hear two questions: ‘Will I be able to cast my vote?’ and ‘Will there be any violence on Election Day?’” Umme Habiba Benozir, a student at Dhaka University, told BenarNews.

On Friday, BNP Senior Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi told reporters in Dhaka that party leaders, candidates and activists had been targeted in nearly 2,900 attacks by Awami supporters since polls were first announced Nov. 8.

“The armed Awami League men have been parading in the villages,” Rizvi said, adding that intimidation and violence had prevented opposition politicians from campaigning.

Hours after the election began, Brad Adams, Asia director for Human Rights Watch, slammed the government for holding the election “in a highly repressive political environment that has seriously undermined the credibility of the process.”

“The ruling Awami League has used state agencies to engage in widespread surveillance and a crackdown on free speech, which have contributed to a climate of fear,” he told BenarNews.

Bangladesh authorities have tried to stifle dissent and criticism including on newspapers, television networks, and on social media, Adams said.

“The police have arrested and detained opposition members, but failed to act properly against ruling party supporters when they target opposition supporters.”

Jesmin Papri and Prapti Rahman in Dhaka contributed to this report.

Ashes, even when washed way, can haunt the living. A cracked Patrick Melrose has come to retrieve the cremated remains of this late father. He is addicted, indulgent, outrageous. He drinks and doses to excess; his moments of brief sobriety are nothing more than painful interludes in poor living and self-inflicted disgrace. Painful lucidity is tampered with; the moments he is aware are chocked with horrendous memories. They are those of his father, the sinister overtures from a man sitting on a bed calling to his reluctant son; the son, hidden in a bathroom, desperate, sheltering and threatened. Then, the mother, waking him up to say that she will be away for a time. Life, on a precipice.

The screen adaption by David Nicholls is based on Edward St Aubyn’s own alter-ego, a five book exploration that acts as cathartic confession and analytical enunciation. This sort of life, he suggests, might kill you, but there are avenues of salvation, destructive as they seemingly are. You just have to work through them.

St Aubyn was born to a despotic, abusive father of Cornish landed background and an American heiress prone to drink. From five to eight, a period of horrendous cruelties were inflicted. These left St Aubyn lucid rather than repressed, a point he makes to the Radio Times. “I never had any trouble remembering what were the most outstandingly violent and life threatening events in my childhood. Why would you?”

Heroin came into his life, and as a school boy at Westminster, he had ceased being an amateur. Full addiction came its way. To take heroin suspended choices, an effective purgatory. To become an addict did not kill volition, as might be the logical conclusion; nor did it suggest its affirmation. “It was the perfect halfway house between living and suicide. It enabled me not to make either choice.”

Heroin remained a close companion to university (he read English at Oxford), even to the point of following him to the exams. His addiction and dissolution was financed by a sizeable fortune from his inheritance, the legacy of having a wealthy grandmother.

The scenes punch the audience from the opening of Nicholl’s adaption. There is a deft manipulation of the book sequence: start with the damaged man in Bad News; work your way through the rationale in Never Mind, which shows the father in demonic flow, tyrannising son and wife. The party guests are rendered complicit and helpless: before their eyes is cruelty left unaccounted for, a trauma nourished and assured of its durability. This is where the true sense of Philip Larkin’s reminder in “This Be the Verse” finds uncontested form: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do.”

Patrick, rendered rather masterfully by Benedict Cumberbatch, is twenty-five, far from lucid and on his way to New York to claim the remains of his father, played in icy fashion by Hugo Weaving. In between the haze of flaying drugs and drenching booze, he is found vertical, in a bath, on the floor, in various states of addled torment. There are extravagant seizures, howling, ingesting. The scenes are filmed with a rich, discomfortingly curious eye. His tortured state is total.

The childhood scenes drag the viewer back to a state of permanent recall – for Patrick M, that past – a mother who placed him in harm’s way; a father who carried out such harm – is permanent currency. But Patrick’s social circle is also coloured with rich displays of addiction and attempted recovery. Some Hope does much to show a society party in total decay, museum pieces in need of good dusting. Patrick is always reminded that one does not go to such parties to enjoy them.

Mother’s Milk features Patrick as father and husband, with two boys he adores. But he does so from the vantage point of total misery, and any effort to restore some semblance of calm is thrown out on learning that his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has disinherited his family: the family château in Provence is to be bequeathed to a group of new-age followers.

The tale of Patrick Melrose and his plight, not to mention the torment that links him to his mother and father, is one of terrible decisions, crippled choices and missteps. It is a life of perennially toxic legacies, of sins that run in the blood line. Even if there is a strong case to be made about the role of free will, this adaptation suggests, on the contrary, how utterly hollow invoking such an idea is. While there are moments of striking poignancy, notably in At Last – Patrick the boy of suffering finally taking a stand against his pederastic father; Patrick, the man sobbing at his mother’s funeral – these are few. Suspending choice might, at points, be the only way.

Today we live in a hyper-connected world where we are continuously distracted by our thoughts and technological comforts. It is rare for one to have their mind in the present 100% of the time. In fact, on average we spend 41% of our time with our mind lost in our thoughts – thinking about the future and the past – but rarely the current moment. Additionally, the social-feed gadgets we have – from our cell phones and computers to the television(s) we keep in our living rooms and bedrooms add to distract us from focusing on the present. Do you know that a single distraction can take more than 21 minutes to delink its effect from the immediate task at hand? This continuous bombardment of information or distraction hinders us from being productive and getting the most out of each moment.

How can we be more in control over our wandering minds and be focused? How can we become more mindful in all aspects of our lives – spiritual and temporal? That is where the practice of exercising mindfulness (or in the Islamic context – muraqabah) can help train our minds to become more disciplined and can thereby enhance our productivity whether it is with daily worship or other activities.

Mindfulness linguistically means “the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something,” and more specifically, “a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment.”

According to the American Psychological Association, numerous peer-reviewed studies show that mindfulness practices (such as relaxation or meditation) help to reduce stress, boost memory, enhance focus and concentration, decrease emotional reactivity, and improve personal relationships. Mindfulness practices also promote empathy and compassion [Justin Parrott, An Exercise in Islamic Meditation, Nov. 2017].

In Islam, the five compulsory daily prayers are meant for taking the time out from busy schedules, thus freeing the mind from worldliness and all its worries and concerns, thereby putting the trust in Allah (God) as the Rabb (Lord) that He would take care of his/her needs and problems. A Muslim in a state of muraqabah knows that Allah is Aware of him or her, both inwardly and outwardly. It is a complete state of vigilant self-awareness in one’s relationship with Allah in heart, mind, and body. The basis of muraqabah is our knowledge that Allah is always watching us at all time and, as a consequence, we develop greater attention and care for our own actions, thoughts, feelings, and inner states of being. As Allah says, “Remember that God knows what is in your souls, so be mindful of Him.” [Qur’an 2:235]

Imams Ibn Al-Qayyim and Al-Ghazali both have chapters in their books about the merits and realities of muraqabah, which is the realization of the supreme character trait, spiritual excellence (al-ihsan). As the Prophet (S) defined in the famous hadith of Gabriel, spiritual excellence “is to worship Allah as if you see Him, for if you do not see Him, He certainly sees you.” [Bukhari]

The fruit of muraqabah, aside from the reward of eternal Paradise in the Hereafter, is a state of tranquil calm (al-sakinah) leading to contentment in this life.

The Virtue of Silence and Seclusion

A famous proverb says, “Silence is golden.” Silence (al-samt) is the preferred default state of being, according to the saying of the Prophet Muhammad (S), “Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, let him speak goodness or remain silent.” [Bukhari]

Silence has an important effect on our hearts and character.

Silence is related to muraqabah in that observing silence in seclusion for a regular period of time cultivates presence, the mind’s quiet awareness of here and now. Abu Bakr al-Farisi was asked about the silence of one’s innermost being (samt al-sirr) and he said, “It is to abandon preoccupation with the past and the future.” [Al-Risālah Al-Qushayrīyah, 1:247.]  Only during silent reflection or mindfulness exercise can one be present in the moment without worrying about what is past or future or elsewhere in creation. It is an opportunity to nourish presence before Allah the same way we are required to be in ritual prayer. There is definitely an appropriate time to think about the past or the future—to learn from our mistakes, to plan action, to live daily life, and to reflect on our fate.

However, the point of learning to be present in silence is to limit our thoughts on the past or future only to what is necessary and beneficial – otherwise we risk living excessively in a time other than the now.

In this regard, let us be reminded by some wise sayings:

The Messenger of Allah (S) advised Abdullah ibn Abbas (RA), “Young boy, let me teach you a few words and Allah, the Most Exalted, will bless you if you would live up to them. (1) Constantly be mindful of Allah, and you will find Him Omnipresent. (2) Recognize Allah’s blessings when you are in comfort, and He will provide for you when you face hardships. (3) If you were to ask for anything, then ask only of Allah. (4) If you needed a helper, seek only the help of Allah. (5) The divine pen of destiny has already dried up after it has written the divine decree confirming the divine primordial knowledge of what will happen. The world is an abode of affliction and trial, not a place of rest and repose. Hence, even if the entire creation assembles to give you something that Allah did not allot for you, they cannot give it to you. (6) Similarly, even if the entire creation assembles to prevent you from receiving something that Allah has allotted for you they cannot withhold it from you. (7) Therefore, devote your deeds solely to Allah and offer them with contentment, full conformity and conviction. (8) Understand that there are ample benefits if you can exercise patience towards what you dislike. (9) Victory comes with perseverance in patience. (10) The gateway to safety and comfort is wide open during adversities. (11) And finally, realize that ample access to happiness is present even during most difficulties. [Hilyat’ul Awliya Wa Tabaqat’ul Asfiya: Al-Zuhri (R)]

“Where is the room here for joy and gladness?
To be mindful of God in every condition is then the key to salvation.”

Khwajah ‘Abdallah Ansari (R) [Intimate Conversations with God (Munajat), tr. Wheeler M. Thackston, Paulist Press, NY (1978)]

Seclusion for worship is the close companion of silence. Seclusion, properly practiced, is ultimately a cure for bad feelings in the heart, as Ibn al-Qayyim said, “In the heart are disorders that cannot be remedied but by responding to Allah, in it is a desolate feeling that cannot be removed but by intimacy with Him in solitude (khalwah).” [Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyah, Muḥammad ibn Abi Bakr. Madarij Al-Salikin Bayna Manazil Iyaka Na’budu Wa Iyaka Nasta’in]

Meditation in Islam

Meditation can be done in many ways and for many purposes. For some, it is simply a means of calming relaxation and stress relief, a way of slowing down their thoughts. Others meditate by intensely contemplating an idea or focusing their attention on God or something else.

Ibn Al-Qayyim has provided one of the best and most concise explanations of the many meanings of “meditation” in Islam. He states that an integral part of our preparation for the Hereafter is by “reflecting (tafakkur), remembering (tadhakkur), examining (nathr), meditating (ta’amul), contemplating (i’tibar), deliberating (tadabbur), and pondering (istibsar).” Each of these words represents different shades of mental activity that can be considered forms of meditation. There is considerable overlap in meaning among all of them, but there are subtle differences as well. Ibn Al-Qayyim continues:

It is called ‘reflection’ because in that is the utilization of thought and its procurement during it. It is called ‘remembrance’ because it is the fetching of knowledge which must be considered after being distracted or absent from it… It is called ‘meditation’ because it is repeatedly examining again and again until it becomes evident and uncovered in one’s heart. It is called ‘contemplation’—taking lessons—because one takes a lesson from it to apply elsewhere… It is called ‘deliberation’ because it is examining the conclusion of matters, their endings and consequences, and deliberating on them.

[Ibn Qayyim al-Jawzīyah, Miftāḥ Dār Al-Sa’ādah, 1:182]

All of these types of Islamic meditation involve some form of remembering or awareness of Allah, the purpose of which is to purify the heart of evil feelings and the mind from evil thoughts. Every human soul is like a mirror that is polished by mindfulness or tarnished by unmindfulness. A person cannot think about Allah and the world at the same time; it is one or the other. Too much unnecessary thought upon the world weakens our overall mindfulness.

Accordingly, we should make a quiet time for reflection upon Allah and the Hereafter every day, as a means of increasing our mindfulness of His presence, gratitude for His many favors, and to prepare for the life to come.

Reading the Qur’an itself, which has been named “the Remembrance” (Al-Dhikr), is one of the most powerful and rewarding forms of meditation. Imam Al-Ghazali recommends for us to engage in four distinct daily spiritual practices (al-watha’if al-arba’ah): supplication (dua’), remembrance (dhikr), recitation of the Qur’an (qira’at), and contemplation (fikr). [al-Ghazzālī, Iḥyā’ ’Ulūm Al-Dīn, 1:337]

Dhikr is certainly genuine mindfulness, because it is mindfulness of the Divine (Allah), who is the One, the True Reality.  It is through the struggle for abundant and plentiful dhikr that that heart or qalb gradually becomes fully involved in dhikr. Allah says: Truly, it is with Allah’s remembrance that hearts find their tranquillity (13:28)

As to dhikr, Imam Ghazzali advices that the worshiper should sit in seclusion, empty his/her heart of all concerns, and “not scatter his thoughts with the recitation of the Qur’an, nor pondering over its explanation, nor with books of hadith, nor anything else; rather, he/she strives to let no thought enter his mind besides Allah the Exalted.” The worshiper does so to instill “presence of the heart” until “his heart is diligent in remembrance.”
Allah said, “We created man—We know what his soul whispers to him.” [Surat Qaf 50:16] Thoughts also originate from an external source, the whisperings (al-waswasah) of a devil or an angel.

The Prophet (S) recited the verse, “Satan threatens you with the prospect of poverty and commands you to do foul deeds; God promises you His forgiveness and abundance.” [Surat al-Baqarah 2:268]

Ali (RA) said, “I have selected twelve teachings from the Book of Allah, and I remind myself with these thrice every day. These are: Allah says, ‘O men:

(i) You should never fear either Satan or any ruler, as long as you live under My dominion.

(ii) You should never worry about your rizk (provisions) as long as you find My world full of such provisions. And truly My provisions never end.

(iii) Whenever you are in need, you will always find Me, because it is I who provide everything, material and spiritual.

(iv) I have befriended you. So befriend Me.

(v) Do not be unmindful of Me as long as long as you have not crossed the bridge…’”

[For the entire quotation, read this author’s book: Wisdom of Mankind, available in amazon.com]

Justin Parrott suggests the steps below that one can follow towards ‘Mindfulness Exercise in Islam’.

• To begin, choose a time of the day when you can be in a quiet place alone. Some Muslims prefer the time before the dawn prayer (fajr) or another prayer, before or after work, at lunch break, or even before bed.
• Next, choose a posture that you find comfortable.
• Now, begin by focusing awareness on your natural breathing. Progressively relax the muscle tension throughout your body: your arms, your legs, your core, your jaw. You can close your eyes or simply lower them. As you start with relaxed breathing, feel for a sense of your state of heart and mind in this moment. What are you feeling? What are you thinking? Is your mind racing or calm? Try to settle your mind by bringing awareness to your natural, relaxed breathing, simply feeling the life and energy Allah gave you throughout your body. Feel a deep sense of gratitude to Allah for your breath, your living and being in this moment.
• As you settle into stillness within your inner space, begin to perceive the feeling of muraqabah with Allah. Know and feel that He is watching you, “He is with you wherever you are.” [Sūrat al-Ḥadīd 57:4] He knows everything going on inside you right now and at all times. Focus on the feeling of muraqabah in this state of inner silence (samt al-sirr). Try to stop talking to yourself (hadith al-nafs) or pursuing trains of thought. Silence your inner dialogue as much as you can and simply focus on being present with Allah in the moment.
• When your mind starts to wander off—and it surely will—you want to bring your awareness back to the center of your being, and to your presence in this moment before Allah, by quietly reciting remembrances of Allah. “Two words are beloved to the Most Merciful, light on the tongue but heavy on the scale: Glory and praise to Allah (subhan Allahi wa bi hamdih), and glory to Allah Almighty (subhan Allahi al-‘Athim).” [Bukhari] And again, “The best remembrance is to declare there is no God but Allah (la ilhaha illa Allah), and the best supplication is to declare all praise is due to Allah (al-hamdulillah).” [Sunan al-Tirmizi] Seeking the forgiveness of Allah (al-istighfar) was one of the Prophet’s (S) anchors, so nothing could be better. Your anchor could also be just one of the beautiful names of Allah that elicit remembrance and awareness in your heart, or you could use all of the above in combination.
• The best mindfulness exercise session is the one you completed, period. No matter how long your mind spent in unmindfulness, every time you brought it back to muraqabah it became stronger and stronger.

Fruits of Mindfulness Exercise

If you make this simple practice a regular habit, you will see positive results that accumulate over time. You will notice that having presence in prayer becomes easier and more natural than before. You will be able to better relieve stress and attain calming relaxation, better focus your attention when needed, have an easier time dealing with life’s difficult moments, and experience more compassion with others. Your anchor (remembrance or supplication) in the exercise can be used at any time to bring you back into a state of muraqabah, wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

One of the most important results of the practice will be in the way we gain a measure of control over our thoughts and emotions. As we become more aware of our feelings, we become more aware of our negative triggers in order to avoid them, as well as putting a buffer zone between us and our feelings that gives us time to react in the right manner, such as remembering to seek refuge in Allah when angry instead of reflexively shouting at others or doing something rash that we will regret later.

Furthermore, we will inevitably experience desires and urges to commit sins. But the more mindful we become of our inner states, the better we will become at disassociating ourselves from our lower desires and instead acting upon our virtuous, higher desires. The habit of referring back to our anchor (remembrance or supplication) gives us just enough breathing room to confidently say “no” to the self’s or the devil’s evil suggestions.
Conclusion

Mindfulness in Islam (al-muraqabah) is a conscious state of comprehensive awareness of Allah and our inner states in relation to Him. In its complete form, it is the highest spiritual state attainable—the perfect realization of excellence in faith (al-ihsan). Modern science has demonstrated the efficacy of mindfulness exercises in procuring a number of health and wellness benefits, even in a non-religious context.

By Jp Cortez*

The destruction of sound money over the past century stems from actions at the federal level, but there are steps which states can take —and even have already taken —to move toward real, sound, constitutional money.

As state legislatures reconvene in the next few weeks, let’s take a look at the current state of play…

Since 2016, sound money has made a splash on the state level. According to the 2018 Sound Money Index, a new ranking of all 50 states on the extent to which they have implemented the pro-sound money policies, there are currently 38 states with an exemption of sales and use tax on the purchase of gold and silver.

Since 2016, legislators in 10 different states have introduced bills, seven of which were signed into law, to restore sound money by eliminating taxes on gold and silver within their borders.

In 2017, a quarter of all states without a sales tax exemption on gold and silver introduced new measures to eliminate the tax against the monetary metals. As states continue to make inroads on the sales tax issue, Tennessee and West Virginia are expected to introduce bills to remove sales and use taxes on sound money in 2019.

Wyoming has recently emerged as a leader on the sound money front. The state legislature overwhelmingly passed the 2018 Wyoming Legal Tender Act and thereby eliminated all tax liability against the purchase, use, and exchange of gold and silver inside the state.

Wyoming joined Arizona and Utah as the three states that have also eliminated income taxation on the nominal “gains” or “losses” experienced when selling metals, and Wyoming became the 22^nd state to completely remove all sales and use taxes on the purchases of any kind of gold and silver.

Rising to a number two ranking in the Sound Money Index, Wyoming hopes to overtake Utah as the top state for sound money in the country with new legislation for 2019 that would begin to secure the state’s finances with an allocation to physical precious metals.

Wyoming’s state pension and reserve funds are among the most well-funded accounts in the nation, but because of their exposure to dollar-based investments, these funds – like almost all other pension and reserve funds across America — are nevertheless subject to significant risks. Securities, bonds, stocks, and other dollar-denominated assets carry high counter-party, inflation, and interest-rate risks.

To hedge against these risks, a group of Wyoming legislators want the state treasurer to allocate 10 percent of these funds in physical gold and silver. Arizona and Idaho may consider similar measures in the coming months as well.

Meanwhile, on the federal level, new efforts have emerged in Congress.

Representative Alex Mooney (R-WV) introduced the Monetary Metals Tax Neutrality Act of 2018 to remove the federal income tax from the monetary metals. Mooney’s bill is necessary because the IRS has erroneously and unilaterally characterized gold and silver as collectibles and subject them to high taxes as though they were akin to artwork, baseball cards, and beanie babies. Subjecting constitutional money to a discriminatorily high long-term capital gains rate of 28 percent is unconscionable.

While there is still plenty of work to be done, the sound money movement continues to gain strength. More state and federal legislators are joining the battle to legalize sound money and reinstall it as the foundation of our monetary system.

*About the author: Jp Cortez is the assistant director of the Sound Money Defense League, an organization which is working to bring back gold and silver as America’s constitutional money.

Source: This article was published by the MISES Institute

Every month or two, a massive pulse of clouds, rainfall and wind moves eastward around the Earth near the equator, providing the tropics their famous thunderstorms.

This band of recurring weather, first described by scientists in 1971, is called the Madden-Julian Oscillation. It has profound effects on weather in distant places, including the United States. Atmospheric scientists have long studied how the Madden-Julian Oscillation modulates extreme weather events across the globe, from hurricanes to floods to droughts.

As human activities cause the Earth’s temperature to increase, reliable, well-studied weather patterns like the Madden-Julian Oscillation will change too, say researchers at Colorado State University.

Eric Maloney, professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science, has led a new study published in Nature Climate Change that attributes future changes in the behavior of the Madden-Julian Oscillation to anthropogenic global warming. Maloney and co-authors used data from six existing climate models to synthesize current views of such changes projected for the years 2080-2100.

Their analysis reveals that while the Madden-Julian Oscillation’s precipitation variations are likely to increase in intensity under a warmer climate, wind variations are likely to increase at a slower rate, or even decrease. That’s in contrast to the conventional wisdom of a warming climate producing a more intense Madden-Julian Oscillation, and thus an across-the-board increase in extreme weather.

“In just looking at precipitation changes, the Madden-Julian Oscillation is supposed to increase in strength in a future climate,” Maloney said. “But one of the interesting things from our study is that we don’t think this can be generalized to wind as well.”

Atmospheric science relies on weather patterns like the Madden-Julian Oscillation to inform weather prediction in other areas of Earth. For example, atmospheric rivers, which are plumes of high atmospheric water vapor that can cause severe flooding on the U.S. west coast, are strongly modulated by certain phases of the Madden-Julian Oscillation.

According to Maloney’s work, the Madden-Julian Oscillation’s impact on remote areas may gradually decrease. Degradation in the oscillation’s wind signal may thus diminish meteorologists’ ability to predict extreme weather events. In particular, preferential warming of the upper troposphere in a future, warmer climate is expected to reduce the strength of the Madden-Julian Oscillation circulation.

Maloney and colleagues hope to continue studying the Madden-Julian Oscillation using a broader set of climate models to be used in the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment.

While Congress and the president fight over funding a border wall, they continue to ignore the coming economic tsunami caused by the approximately 22 trillion dollars (and rapidly increasing) federal debt. President Trump may not be troubled by the debt’s effect on the economy because he believes he will be out of office before it becomes a major problem. However, the crisis may come sooner than he, or most people in DC, expects.

The constituency for limited government, while growing, is still far outnumbered by those wanting government to provide economic and personal security. From lower-income Americans who rely on food stamps, public housing, and other government programs, to middle-class Americans who live in homes they could not afford without assistance from federal agencies like Fannies Mae and Freddie Mac, to college students reliant on government-subsidized student loans, to senior citizens reliant on Social Security and Medicare, to billionaire CEOs whose companies rely on bailouts, subsidies, laws and regulations written to benefit politically-powerful businesses, and government contracts, most Americans are reliant on at least one federal program. Many programs are designed to force individuals to accept government aid. For example, it is almost impossible for a senior citizen to obtain health insurance outside of Medicare.

The welfare state is fueled by the Federal Reserve’s easy money policies, which are also responsible for the boom-and-bust cycle that plagues our economy. The Federal Reserve’s policies do not just distort our economy, they also distort our values, as the Fed’s dollar depreciation causes individuals to forgo savings and hard work in favor of immediate gratification. This has helped create an explosion of business and individual debt. There has been a proliferation of bubbles, including in credit card debt, auto loans, and student loans. There is even a new housing bubble.

An economy built on fiat currency and public and private debt is unsustainable. Eventually the bubbles will burst. The most likely outcome will be the rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status due to government debt and the Federal Reserve’s monetization of debt. When the bubbles pop, the result will be an economic crisis that will likely dwarf the Great Depression.

The fall of the dollar and the accompanying economic downturn will make it impossible for the government to continue running up huge debts to finance a massive welfare-warfare state. Thus, Congress will be forced to raise taxes and cut benefits. Cowardly politicians will likely outsource the job of raising taxes and cutting benefits to the Federal Reserve. This will cause a dramatic increase in the most insidious of taxes: the inflation tax.

As the Federal Reserve erodes the value of the dollar, thus reducing the value of both earned paychecks and government-provided welfare benefits, a large number of Americans who believe they are entitled to economic security will react by engaging in acts of violence. Politicians will use this violence to further crack down on civil liberties. The resulting economic and civil unrest will further the growth of authoritarian political movements.

Fortunately, the liberty movement continues to grow. This movement counters the authoritarian lies with the truths of Austrian economics and the non-aggression principle. While the years ahead may be tough, if those of us who know the truth work hard to educate others, the cause of liberty can prevail.

This article was published by RonPaul Institute.

A recent study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) found that when it comes to making financial decisions under risk, older adults will regard the financial outcomes of others’ as their own and make choices that they would have selected for themselves.

“Citizens in approximately one third of the countries around the world rely heavily on decisions made by older adults who may be government, business or community leaders. It is important to not only understand how these elderly people make decisions for themselves, but also how they make decisions on behalf of others, as their decisions can lead to significant gains or losses,” said team leader Assistant Professor Yu Rongjun, who is from the Department of Psychology at the NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

The results of this study were reported in the journal Psychology and Aging in September 2018.

Closing the knowledge gap in financial decision-making

People often need to make financial choices for themselves, and sometimes, on behalf of others. Studies have shown that younger adults take more risks when making financial decisions for others. However, there is a lack of understanding about the decision-making behaviour of the elderly.

To address this knowledge gap, Asst Prof Yu and his team conducted studies to compare how younger adults and older adults make financial decisions, both for themselves and for others.

The NUS study was conducted from 2016 and 2017, and involved 191 Singaporean participants. Among them, 93 were older adults with an average age of 70, while 98 were young adults averaging 23 years old.

The participants were asked to complete a series of computerised decision-making tests in which they were assessed based on the choices they made under uncertainties. The research team used computational modelling to analyse two aspects of the participants’ financial decision-making: loss aversion, which is a tendency to weight potential losses more strongly than potential gains; risk-aversion asymmetry, which looks at the tendency to be risk-averse for potential gains and risk-seeking for potential losses.

Financial decisions vary with age

The results show that when younger adults are making financial decisions on behalf of others, they take more risks even when the decisions put the person they are acting for at a disadvantage. For the seniors, they make similar choices for themselves and when they act for others. Hence, the findings suggest that older adults care more about strangers’ welfare.

“Our results demonstrate that decision-makers of different age groups have different motivational goals. The young adults may treat the finances of others’ differently from their own, perhaps regarding them as being less important. On the other hand, the older generation may care more about social harmony and emotional experience, and have less emphasis on material gains,” explained Asst Prof Yu.

He further elaborated, “Although we did not manipulate decision-making power and participants simply made choices for strangers in our study, we speculate that similar age-dependent decision-making patterns may also apply to real-life workplace. For instance, a young boss may choose one insurance plan for his employees and another plan for himself. The plan that he picks for others may be more risky and potentially disadvantageous compared to the plan he chooses for himself. On the other hand, an older boss is likely to select the same plan for his staff and himself. The findings of this study resonate with our earlier research which showed older adults are more generous towards strangers.”

To deepen their understanding on the financial decision-making process of people from different age groups, Asst Prof Yu and his team will be conducting neuroimaging studies to examine the underlying neural basis of their observations.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei praised the Palestinian nation’s “great victories” against the Israeli regime in recent years, saying Palestinians could establish a government in Tel Aviv.

“The Palestinian people’s victory in recent years has not had the meaning of capability to establish a government in Tel Aviv, but this will also materialize by God’s grace,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with Secretary General of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement Ziad al-Nakhala in Tehran on Monday.

The Leader said Palestine’s true victory is the fact that while the Arab armies have been unable to defeat the Zionist regime, the Palestinian people and the resistance groups have brought Israel to its knees.

“You will win even greater victories by God’s grace,” Ayatollah Khamenei told Nakhala.

The Leader explained that a clear principle in Palestine’s encounter with Israel is that resistance leads to victory.

During the previous wars against the Palestinian resistance groups, the Zionist regime called for a ceasefire after 22 days and another time after 8 days, but in the latest conflict, Tel Aviv called for ceasefire after just 48 hours, Ayatollah Khamenei noted, saying it means that “the occupying Zionist regime has been brought to its knees.”

“Fortitude and resistance have been the reason for the constant victories of the Palestinian nation in recent years, and in future, as long as the resistance exists, the process of decline of the Zionist regime will continue,” the Leader underlined.

Ayatollah Khamenei also stressed that the heavy pressures from the arrogant powers will never discourage Iran from supporting Palestine on the basis of its divine, religious and rational duty.