By Ken Bredemeier and Michael Bowman

U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledged Monday that not all of the barrier he wants to build along the Mexican border would be a concrete wall he has long called for.

“An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media,” Trump contended in a Twitter remark. He was disputing John Kelly, his outgoing White House chief of staff, who said in an interview over the weekend that the Trump administration discarded the idea of a “solid concrete wall” early in Trump’s two-year tenure as president.

But Trump conceded, “Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!”

Trump won the cheers of his most ardent loyalists in his successful 2016 presidential campaign with his call for a solid concrete wall along the 3,200-kilometer U.S.-Mexican border, claiming Mexico would pay for it.

As president, however, Trump has sought U.S. taxpayer funding, but Congress has balked, leading to the ongoing shutdown of a quarter of U.S. government operations, furloughing 800,000 government workers and forcing another 420,000 to work without pay.

The shutdown is now in its 10th day with no end in sight, and likely extending past Thursday when a new Congress is seated, with opposition Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives from Trump’s Republican Party. Republicans will maintain their majority in the Senate, leaving Washington with a politically divided government in the second two years of Trump’s first term.

Trump wants $5 billion as a down payment on the barrier that could cost more than $20 billion, but Democrats have only agreed to $1.6 billion to improve border security, but no wall money. Trump and Democratic lawmakers have not held any negotiations for days over the wall dispute.

Kelly told the Los Angeles Times, “To be honest, it’s not a wall. The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats.”

Kelly added, “But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”

In a second Twitter remark, Trump said, “I campaigned on Border Security, which you cannot have without a strong and powerful Wall. Our Southern Border has long been an “Open Wound,” where drugs, criminals (including human traffickers) and illegals would pour into our Country. Dems should get back here (and) fix now!”

White House officials said talks to resolve the border barrier funding impasse have broken off.

Trump on Sunday tweeted that Democrats “left town and are not concerned about the safety and security of Americans!”

Democrats scoffed at the accusation.

“This is the same president who repeatedly promised the American people that Mexico would pay for the wall that he plans to build,” New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said on ABC’s This Week program. “Now he’s trying to extract $5 billion from the American taxpayer to pay for something that clearly would be ineffective.”

“President Trump has taken hundreds of thousands of federal employees’ pay hostage in a last ditch effort to fulfill a campaign promise,” the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, tweeted. “Building a wall from sea to shining sea won’t make us safer or stop drugs from coming into our country.”

In a series of tweets on Friday, Trump again threatened to close the entire U.S.-Mexico border and cut aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador if Congress failed to give him money to fund the wall. He also asked for changes in what he said was the United States’ “ridiculous immigration laws.” SEE ALSO:

Trump Once Again Threatens to Shut US-Mexico Border

Closing the U.S.-Mexican border would mean disrupting a $1.68 billion-a-day trade relationship between the two countries. In addition, immigrant advocates have called any move to seal the border “disgraceful.”

In a tweet Saturday, Trump linked Democrats’ “pathetic immigration policies” with the deaths of two Guatemalan children while in U.S. custody.

His comments, the first to reference the children’s deaths, came the same day Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was finishing a two-day visit to the southern U.S. border, where she said in a statement, “The system is clearly overwhelmed and we must work together to address this humanitarian crisis.”

Trump has declined to comment on whether he might accept less than $5 billion for wall funding. When asked how long he thought the shutdown would last, Trump told reporters, “Whatever it takes.”

Democrats have blamed Trump for “plunging the country into chaos” and have noted that Trump, before the partial work stoppage took effect, said he would be “proud” to “own” a shutdown over border wall funding.

A Swiss-Spanish dual national has been arrested in Morocco on suspicion of aiding terrorists who beheaded a Danish and Norwegian hiker in the Atlas mountains.

The Swiss foreign ministry said it was in contact with the authorities in Morocco, Spain, Denmark and Norway to help in the case and exchange information. 

The Federal Police Office (Fedpol) said on Monday that the suspect had a criminal record for a number of offenses committed in Geneva between 2007 and 2013.

Convicted of several crimes, including drug use, robbery and domestic violence, the suspect emigrated to Morocco in 2015, according to a police spokeswoman.

According to a statement by Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation, the accused was “steeped in extremist ideology” and is “suspected of having taught some of the people involved communication tools stemming from new technologies and of having trained them to shoot”. 

He was allegedly part of an operation to recruit people to commit terrorist acts in Morocco. 

A 24-year-old Danish student and her friend, a 28-year-old Norwegian woman, were killed on the night of December 16 in southern Morocco, where they were on holiday. Their bodies were discovered in an isolated area in the High Atlas, in an area popular with hikers. Both victims were beheaded. 

18 arrests

The Moroccan authorities have already arrested 18 people for their alleged links with this double homicide designated as a “terrorist incident”. 

The four main alleged perpetrators, arrested in Marrakech in the days following the double murder, belonged to a cell inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State group but “without contact” with representatives in Syria or Iraq, Moroccan counter-terrorism chief Abdelhak Khiam was quoted as saying. 

One of them, a 25-year-old street vendor, is suspected by investigators of being the head of this “terrorist cell”. He is seen speaking in a video shot a week before the murder, in which the four main suspects pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State. 

So far Morocco has been spared Islamic State-related terror attacks. However, it is no stranger to terrorism with major attacks in Casablanca (33 deaths in 2003) and Marrakech (17 deaths in 2011).

The Bahrain Court of Cassation, the country’s court of last resort, on December 31, 2018 upheld a five-year sentence for Nabeel Rajab, a prominent human rights defender, Human Rights Watch said.

The sentence arose from comments criticizing torture in a Bahrain prison and the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. Rajab has already served  two-years on other charges related to peaceful expression. The date of the hearing, scheduled for New Year’s Eve, raised concerns that the authorities intended to uphold Rajab’s conviction at a moment when it would attract minimal media scrutiny.

“Nabeel Rajab’s conviction for his refusal to stay silent on the government’s rights abuses is further proof of the Bahrain authorities’ flagrant disregard for human rights,” said Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Nabeel Rajab should not have been arrested in the first place, and upholding his sentence is a grave miscarriage of justice.”

Rajab is one of dozens of human rights defenders, political activists, opposition leaders, and journalists unjustly imprisoned since the government quelled antigovernment protests in 2011.

Rajab is the head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), deputy secretary general of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH), and a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East and North Africa Advisory Committee.

Authorities first arrested Rajab on April 2, 2015 because of his tweets alleging torture in Bahrain’s Jaw Prison. He was released provisionally on humanitarian grounds on July 13, 2015, but re-arrested on July 13, 2016, for criticizing the Bahraini authorities’ refusal to allow journalists and rights groups into the country. A court sentenced him in July 2017 to two years for this criticism, which the Court of Cassation upheld on January 15, 2018. Rajab completed this sentence in July.

On February 21, Bahrain’s criminal court sentenced Rajab to five years in prison for tweeting in 2015 about torture in the Jaw Prison and criticizing the Saudi-led military campaign on Yemen. Public prosecution documents Human Rights Watch reviewed cite three criminal code provisions for the charges against him. The documents cite Article 133 for “deliberately disseminating in wartime false or malicious news, statements, or rumors […] so as to cause damage to military preparations.” They also cite Article 215 for “publicly offending a foreign country” and Article 216 for “insulting a statutory body.”

The Manama Appeals Court upheld Rajab’s five-year sentence on June 5. He appealed this decision on July 5.

Rajab’s conviction and sentence violates Bahrain’s obligations under international law.

On August 13, 2018, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) published an opinion regarding the legality of Rajab’s detention. The WGAD concluded that the detention was not only arbitrary, as it resulted from his exercise of his right to free speech, but also discriminatory, based on his political opinions and status as a human rights defender. The WGAD therefore stated that Rajab’s detention violated the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Bahrain ratified in 2006. The WGAD requested the Bahraini government to “release Mr. Rajab immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law.”

Rajab, who also spent eight months in pre-trial detention, appears at times to have been subjected to treatment that may amount to arbitrary punishment. He was held in solitary confinement for more than two weeks after his arrest in June 2016. His family said that Rajab is held in a cramped, dirty, and insect-infested cell at Jaw Prison, where he remains locked in his cell for 23 hours a day. During his detention, Rajab’s health deteriorated. He has had several surgical procedures, suffered heart palpitations that led to hospitalization, and developed other medical conditions, including a low white blood cell count, his family said. Bahrain should undertake a prompt, impartial, and independent investigation into his allegations of ill-treatment in detention.

“Bahrain has chosen to mark the new year by entrenching it attacks on human rights defenders and undermining free expression,” said Fakih. “But Bahrain cannot hide its abuses from public critique by jailing dissidents. Bahraini rights defenders are not backing down.” 

By Scott Moore*

(FPRI) — Xinjiang, in northwest China, seems in many ways like the far edge of the modern world. Spanning a vast desert ringed by high mountains, the region was remote enough to have been chosen as the site of China’s nuclear testing in the 1960s. But in ancient times, Xinjiang marked a key stage of the overland trade routes linking the Eastern and Western worlds, and the contemporary visitor will find giant superhighways snaking across the steppe—one of the more dramatic symbols of China’s intention to resurrect the ancient Silk Road.

Announced in 2013, this vision, which has become known as the “Belt and Road Initiative,” has become a global sensation, with nearly a trillion dollars in proposed Chinese investment poised to build roads, railways, ports, and oil pipelines from Beijing to Berlin. Indeed, the concept is so expansive that it has become a kind of shorthand for virtually every China-funded development project worldwide. Unsurprisingly, given this catch-all quality, the Belt and Road has given rise to breathless commentary about the eclipse of the West, and especially America, by a rising China. But there are growing signs that China’s grand strategic vision is off track, with worrying implications for both East and West.

Much about the Belt and Road is either confusing or unclear. In policy terms, the Belt and Road Initiative actually incorporates a sprawling array of regional and country-specific partnerships, programs, and projects stretching across much of the developing world and into Europe. But one aspect of the Belt and Road is unambiguous: its scale and ambition. Its pride of place in China’s foreign policy was cemented with its inclusion in the Chinese Communist Party constitution this past fall. And while Beijing has been careful to cast the Belt and Road as an apolitical development strategy calculated to deliver “mutual benefit” and “global partnership,” these bromides mask increasing economic, political, and environmental risks.

Perhaps the biggest challenge stems from the headwinds facing China’s financial sector. Most of the money for projects is set to come from Chinese state-owned banks, which sit on a mound of foreign exchange reserves and benefit from high consumer savings rates. But pressures on these institutions are growing thanks to Washington’s trade war, with Beijing taking steps to prop up domestic growth with increased lending at home. This pressure is likely to squeeze balance sheets abroad, with Chinese banks having already issued hundreds of billions of dollars in questionable loans to fragile countries like Afghanistan and Syria. Concerns are also growing that a lack of discipline and robust risk assessment on the part of Chinese lenders may plunge already-indebted countries like Pakistan and Laos deeper into financial distress. U.S. officials, seeking to capitalize on such concerns, have meanwhile begun touting alternatives to this kind of “debt diplomacy.”

Just as worrying as these economic woes is a mounting political backlash to Belt and Road investments in some countries, as well as within China itself. Despite Beijing’s best efforts to suppress discontent among Xinjiang’s ethnic minorities, the region remains restive, and its enthusiastic deployment of surveillance technology and internment camps to stifle “separatism” has provoked widespread condemnation abroad. The threat of political instability is at least as great in neighboring countries. Malaysia’s new government has blamed Chinese investment for making housing unaffordable, and even in Pakistan, one of Beijing’s closest development partners, the chairman of the country’s Water and Power Development Authority bluntly stated that China’s financial terms for a proposed hydropower dam were “not doable and against our interests.” In some cases, the backlash has been violent. In late August, a suicide bomber wounded three Chinese engineers in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province in an attack that separatists claimed was intended “to warn China to vacate Baluchistan and stop plundering its resources.”

But as this warning suggests, in the long run, the highest costs of the Belt and Road will likely be borne by the planet. Despite Beijing’s pledges that the Belt and Road will support sustainable development, the vast majority of projects have supported environmentally harmful infrastructure like coal-fired power plants, oil pipelines, and large dams. A 2017 study warned that the Belt and Road would “create new environmental risks across the entire Eurasian continent.” In some places, meanwhile, projects are exacerbating pressure on already-scarce local resources, in turn hindering investment. During a December conference, for example, a Chinese diplomat in the Pakistani city of Karachi reportedly complained that the country’s chronic water shortages were holding up the massive Gwadar port project, a posterchild for the entire Belt and Road.

Of course, none of this means that China’s grand strategic vision is doomed to failure. But it does signal that China’s Belt and Road is riddled with potholes, and a course correction is needed to ensure it stays on track. In particular, weak financial, social, and environmental safeguards have left projects vulnerable to economic, political, and ecological risks. If Beijing’s strategic vision is to stay on track, it must work closely with other nations and multilateral institutions to ensure robust rules to protect people and the planet are applied to all its development projects overseas. Other countries, including the United States, should meanwhile hold China to its pledges to make the Belt and Road both sustainable and mutually beneficial—and keep it from running off the road.

*About the author: Scott Moore is a political scientist who studies environmental issues, and the author of Subnational Hydropolitics: Conflict, Cooperation, and Institution-Building in Shared River Basins.

Source: This article was published by FPRI

By Conn Hallinan*

In what seems a replay of recent German and Italian elections, an openly authoritarian and racist party made major electoral gains in Spain’s most populous province, Andalusia, helping to dethrone the Socialist Party that had dominated the southern region for 36 years.

Vox, or “Voice” — a party that stands for “Spain First,” restrictions on women’s rights, ending abortion, stopping immigration, and dismantling the country’s regional governments — won almost 11 percent of the vote. The party is in negotiations to be part of a ruling right-wing coalition, while left parties are calling for an “anti-fascist front.”

It’s as if the old Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had arisen from his tomb in the “Valley of the Fallen” and was again marching on Madrid.

Actually, the results weren’t so much “stunning” — the British Independent’s headline on the election — as a case of chickens coming home to roost, and a sobering lesson for center-left and left forces in Europe.

The Dec. 2 vote saw the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) lose 14 seats in the regional parliament and the leftist alliance, Adelante Andalucía, drop three. The conservative Popular Party (PP) also lost seven seats — but, allied with Vox and the right-wing Ciudadanos (Citizens) Party, the right now has enough seats to take power.

It was the worst showing in PSOE’s history, and, while it is still the largest party in Andalucía, it will have to go into opposition.

A Collapse of the Center

On one level the Andalucian elections look like Germany, where the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfG) took 94 seats in the Bundestag. And they resemble Italy, where the right-wing, xenophobic Northern League is sharing power with the center-right Five Star Movement.

There are certainly parallels to both countries, but there are also major differences that are uniquely Spanish.

What’s similar is the anger at the conventional center-right and center-left parties that have enforced a decade of misery on their populations. Center-left parties like the Democratic Party in Italy and the Social Democratic Party in Germany bought into the failed strategy of neo-liberalism that called for austerity, regressive taxes, privatization of public resources, and painful cutbacks in social services as a strategy for getting out of debt.

Not only was it hard for most people to see a difference between the center-left and the center-right, many times the parties governed jointly, as they did in Germany. Andalucía’s Socialists were in an alliance with Ciudadanos.

However, the rise of parties like Vox and the AfG has less to do with a surge from the right than as a collapse of the center. The Spanish Socialists did badly, but so did the right-wing Popular Party. In Germany, both the center-right and the center-left took a beating.

In the aftermath of the Andalucian debacle, Susana Diaz, leader of the PSOE in Andalucía, called for a “firewall” against the right. But Diaz helped blow a hole in that “firewall” in the first place with politics that alienated much of the Socialists’ long-time constituency. In 2016 Diaz led a rightist coup in the PSOE that dethroned General Secretary Pedro Sanchez because he was trying to cobble together a coalition with the Leftist Podemos Party, the Basques, and Catalan separatists.

After ousting Sanchez, Diaz allowed the conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to form a government and pass an austerity budget. Making common cause with the PP was apparently too much for the SPOE’s rank and file, and they returned Sanchez to his old post seven months later. The Socialist rank and file also seems to have sat on their hands in the Andalucian election. Only 58.6 percent of the electorate turned out, and there were a considerable number of abstentions and blank ballots in traditionally Socialist strongholds.

Confronting the Separatists

The leftist AA took a hit as well, but that was in part due to some infighting in Podemos, and because the party didn’t mobilize significant forces on the ground. And because Podemos kept its distance from the crisis in Catalonia, it ceded the issue of separatism to the right, particularly Ciudadanos, which wrapped itself in the Spanish flag.

Podemos actually has a principled position on Catalan independence: It opposes it, but thinks the matter should be up to the Catalans. It also supports greater cultural and economic autonomy for Spain’s richest province. But when Rajoy unleashed the police on the October 2017 independence referendum, beating voters and arresting Catalan leaders, Podemos merely condemned the violence. The Socialists supported Rajoy, although they too expressed discomfort with the actions of the police.

Ciudadanos, on the other hand, enthusiastically supported the violent response, even provoking it. According to Thomas Harrington — a professor of Iberian Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, and an expert on Catalonia — Ciudadano members systematically removed yellow ribbons that Catalans had put up to protest the imprisonment of Catalan leaders.

Harrington quotes Eduardo Llorens, a prominent member of the Ciudadano-supported unionist movement: “Violent reactions by the independentists must be forced. We’ve done a good job of constructing the narrative of social division, but violent acts on their part are still needed to consolidate it. In the end they will react. It’s just a matter of our being persistent.”

Ambiguity on the progressive side left a clear field for Ciudadanos, which hammered away at the Catalan separatists. Ciudadanos ended up getting 18.3 percent of the vote, more than double what it got in the last election (though the PSOE and PP are still the two largest parties in the province).

Franco’s Ghost

As for Vox, it is surely disturbing that such an antediluvian party could get 10.5 percent of the vote, but it would be a mistake to think that Franco is back. In fact, he never went away. When the dictator died in 1975, the Spaniards buried the horrors of the 1936-39 civil war and the ensuing repression, rather than trying to come to terms with them: some 200,000 political dissidents executed, 500,000 exiled, and 400,000 sent to concentration camps.

Vox tapped into that section of the population that opposes the “Historical Memory Law” condemning the Franco regime, and still gathers at Valley of the Fallen or in town squares to chant fascist slogans and give the stiff-arm salute. But the party is small, around 7,000, and part of the reason it did well was because of extensive media coverage. Most the party’s votes came from PP strongholds in wealthy neighborhoods.

Following the election, thousands of people poured into the streets of Seville, Granada and Malaga to chant “fascists out.”

Certainly the European right is scary — particularly in Spain, Italy, Germany, Greece, Austria, and France. It’s absconded with some of the left’s programs, like ending austerity, a guaranteed wage, and resisting the coercive power of the European Union.

Once elected, of course, it will jettison those issues, just as the Nazis and fascists did in pre-war Germany and Italy. And removing them won’t be easy, since their only commitment to democracy is as a tool to chisel their way into power.

The center-left and the left are still formidable forces in Europe, and their programs do address the crises of unemployment, growing economic disparity, and weakening social safety nets.

But the path to success will requiring re-thinking the strategy of the past 30 years and fighting for programs like those the British Labour Party adopted under Jeremy Corbyn: rolling back the privatization of public resources, a graduated tax scale based on wealth, investments in education, health, housing, and infrastructure, raising the minimum wage, encouraging unions, and seriously tackling the existential issue of climate change.

*Foreign Policy In Focus columnist Conn Hallinan can be read at dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com and middleempireseries.wordpress.com.

Unlike income inequality, wealth inequality along racial lines in the US has received relatively little attention. This column presents new evidence on the changing landscape of relative wealth among whites, blacks, and Hispanics between 1983 and 2016. Using an augmented measure of wealth, it highlights how cuts to social security will disproportionately affect minorities.

By Edward Wolff*

While many studies have documented the wide disparity in income between whites on the one hand and African-Americans and Hispanics on the other, the gap in wealth is even greater. In seminal work on the subject, Oliver and Shapiro (1995) document and analyse the sources of the wealth differences between blacks and whites and discuss some of the deleterious effects of low wealth on the wellbeing of black families – including access to decent housing and education, poor health, lower longevity, and the like.

The racial disparity in standard wealth holdings in the US, after fluctuating over the years 1983 to 2007, was almost exactly the same in 2007 as in 1983 – with a ratio of mean wealth between the two groups of 0.19 (see Wolff 2017 and 2018 for more details). Median net worth among black as well as Hispanic households was close to zero over the whole time period, as were the ratios of median wealth between minority and white households. However, the Great Recession from 2007 to 2010 hit African-American households much harder than whites, and the ratio of mean wealth between the two groups plunged from 0.19 in 2007 to 0.14 in 2010 (see Figure 1). Indeed, the mean wealth of black households suffered a 33% decline in real terms (see Figure 2). White wealth, in contrast, declined by 12%. The relative (and absolute) losses suffered by black households from 2007 to 2010 are to a large extent ascribable to the fact that blacks had a higher share of homes in their portfolio than did whites and a much higher debt-net worth ratio (0.55 versus 0.15). These factors led to a wide disparity in annual real rates of return on their respective portfolios (-9.92 versus -7.07%). Between 2010 and 2016 there was no change in the racial wealth gap.

Figure 1 Ratio of mean net worth by race and ethnicity, 1983-2016

Figure 2 Mean net worth by race and ethnicity, 1983-2016 (1000s of 2016 dollars)

Hispanic households made sizeable gains on whites from 1983 to 2007. The ratio of standard mean net worth grew from 0.16 to 0.26, the Hispanic homeownership rate climbed from 33 to 49%, and the ratio of homeownership rates with white households advanced from 48 to 66%. However, in a reversal of fortunes, Hispanic households got hammered in the years 2007 to 2010, with their mean net worth plunging in half, the wealth ratio falling from 0.26 to 0.15, their homeownership rate down by 1.9%, and their net home equity plummeting by 47%. The relative (and absolute) losses suffered by Hispanic households over these three years were also mainly due to the much larger share of homes in their wealth portfolio and their much higher leverage (a debt-net worth ratio of 0.51 versus 0.15). These factors led to a large difference in real returns over the years 2007 to 2010 (-10.76 versus -7.07% per year).  Unlike black households, there was a rebound in Hispanic wealth from 2010 to 2016 and the ethnic wealth ratio went up from 0.15 to 0.19, though still well below its 2007 peak.  

Differential leverage and the resulting differences in rates of return on net worth played major roles in accounting for the relative collapse of the wealth of minorities over the Great Recession. The high positive rate of return among black households explained about three quarters of the advance of their wealth from 2001 to 2007, while the negative return accounted for 78% of the ensuing collapse from 2007 to 2010. Among Hispanics, it accounted for 59% of the gain in the first period and 57% of the drop in the second. Racial differentials in returns accounted for 43% of the relative wealth gain of black households from 2001 to 2007 and 39% of decline from 2007 to 2010. Disparities in returns played a somewhat smaller role in explaining changes in the ratio of mean wealth between Hispanics and whites. Over the years 2001 to 2007, they accounted for 33% of the relative wealth gain and over the years 2007 to 2010 for 28% of the relative drop-off.    

The standard definition of wealth (net worth) includes marketable assets such as housing and other real estate, bank deposits and money market accounts, securities, corporate stock and mutual funds, defined contribution (DC) pension plans, including IRAs and 401(k)s, and unincorporated businesses. What if we now include Social Security wealth and defined benefit (DB) pension wealth to obtain a broader measure of wealth? Augmented wealth is defined as the sum of conventional net worth, DB pension wealth, and Social Security wealth. DB pension wealth is defined as the present value of the discounted stream of future DB pension benefits and Social Security wealth in analogous fashion is the present value of the discounted stream of future Social Security pension benefits. When the definition of wealth is so expanded, the wealth gap markedly shrinks. 

There was a profound alteration of the private pension system after 1989, with a dramatic rise in DC pensions and a corresponding decline in DB pensions. However, the take-up rate in DC coverage was much greater for whites than the two minorities, with the share of households with DC plans climbing from 26% in 1989 to 60% in 2016 among whites, from 16 to 34% among blacks, and from 13 to 31% among Hispanics. The percentage with DB pensions declined for all three groups. All in all, the proportion holding any pension wealth went up from 62 to 72% among whites, from 40 to 50% among blacks, and from 31 to 40% among Hispanics.  

In 2016, there still remained sizeable gaps in retirement wealth (the sum of pension and Social Security wealth) and augmented wealth between minorities and whites, though these gaps were considerably smaller than those in standard net worth. The ratio of pension wealth (the sum of DC and DB pension wealth) of African-Americans to whites was 0.3 (see Table 1). This difference largely reflects disparities in pension holdings. The gap in Social Security wealth was much smaller – a ratio of 0.6. Overall the retirement wealth of the former was 45% that of the latter.  Over time, the black-white ratio of pension wealth went more or less steadily downhill, from 0.45 in 1989 to 0.3 in 2016, while the ratio of Social Security wealth went uphill, from 0.44 to 0.6. As a result, the racial gap in retirement wealth was about the same in 2016 as in 1989. The ratio of pension wealth between Hispanics and whites was 0.22 in 2016. The ethnic discrepancy in Social Security wealth was about the same as the racial difference, as was the gap in retirement wealth. Almost in parallel to the racial discrepancies, the Hispanic-white differential in pension wealth enlarged, that in Social Security wealth narrowed, and the ratio in retirement wealth was about equal in 2016 and 1989. 

Table 1 Ratio of mean retirement and augmented wealth, by race and ethnicity, 1989-2016

Source: Author’s computations from the 1989, 2001, 2007, and 2016 SCF. 

The most notable finding is the ratio of augmented wealth between blacks and whites was 0.27 in 2016, about double the ratio in standard net worth.  While the black-white ratio of mean net worth declined between 1989 and 2016, the ratio of augmented wealth was about the same in the two years. Social Security made the difference, since the ratio of mean net worth plus DB pensions between the two fell from 0.22 to 0.18. Likewise, the ratio of augmented wealth between Hispanics and whites was greater than that of net worth – 0.28 versus 0.19 in 2016. The ethnic ratio of augmented wealth was a bit higher in 2016 than in 1989, as was the ratio of net worth. 

The main reason for the lower wealth gap in augmented wealth than net worth between minorities and whites is that the portfolio composition of augmented wealth was much more heavily tilted toward Social Security among the former. In 2016, Social Security wealth comprised 46% of the augmented wealth of blacks and 44% among Hispanics, compared to 20% among whites (see Table 2). Pension wealth made up 23% among African-Americans, compared to 21% among whites and 16% among Hispanics. Correspondingly, net worth (excluding DC pensions) was more important for whites, accounting for 59% of their total wealth, compared to 31% among blacks and 40% among Hispanics.  Over time, pension wealth (particularly DC wealth) rose in importance for whites but remained more or less constant for blacks and Hispanics. Social Security wealth, in contrast, rose as a share of total wealth for blacks, remained constant among Hispanics, but fell among whites. 

Table 2 Portfolio composition by race and ethnicity, 1989-2016 (percentage of augmented wealth)

Source: Author’s computations from the 1989, 2001, 2007, and 2016 SCF. 

This study highlights the importance of Social Security in the minority community. In 2016, Social Security made up a much greater share of total (augmented) wealth of minorities than of whites. On a policy note, efforts to curtail Social Security payouts will have a much more deleterious effect on the finances of the two minority groups than among whites. 

*About the author: Edward Wolff, Professor of Economics, New York University

References

Oliver, M L, and T M Shapiro (1995), Black Wealth/White Wealth:  A New Perspective on Racial Inequality, Routledge.

Wolff, E N (2017), A Century of Wealth in America, Harvard University Press. 

Wolff, E N (2018), “The Decline of African-American and Hispanic Wealth since the Great Recession,” NBER Working Paper No. 25198.

With new regional and international tensions, internal political quarrels, stagnating economies and worsening public services, many people in the Balkans will probably want to forget the past year as 12 wasted months.

From deepening political divisions and tensions over the general elections in Bosnia, to worsened relations between Kosovo and Serbia, and from mass protests in Serbia and Romania to the arrests of so-called “Gulenists”, sought by Turkey, the Balkans saw a good deal of turmoil and political and economic instability in 2018.

In addition to country reports looking at each country’s perspectives in 2019, which promises to be at least as interesting as this year, BIRN is offering this brief overview of the key developments in the Balkan countries in 2018.

Bosnia in 2018: Politics overshadowed by elections

One of the defining events in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the general election held on October 7. As in previous years, the election year was dominated by radical rhetoric, populist moves and statements as well as by blocked reforms. Before, during and after the ballot, there were allegations of election fraud, none of which were upheld by the local courts, however. 

Another election-related controversy concerned the fact that the vote took place under a part-annulled election law, which Bosnia’s state parliament had failed to amend. 

The law was missing the section regulating elections in Bosnia’s Federation entity to the House of Peoples. The state-level Constitutional Court struck it down two years ago.

Reform of this and other parts of the election law was a hotly disputed issue throughout the year. 

Bosnian Croat parties complained that, under the current rules, far more numerous Bosniaks used their superior numbers to outvote Croats and in effect elect nominally Croat candidates. 

This issue also triggered tensions between Bosnia and Croatia, which also called for legislative and constitutional changes in Bosnia to bolster Croats rights with other two ethnic groups.

However, some local and international experts insisted that the ruling Croatian party in Bosnia, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and its leader, Dragan Covic, did not truly want to resolve this issue so much as to use it to block the formation of new governments and push for the re-creation of an autonomous Croat entity. 

The elections, meanwhile, saw another victory of the three main national parties, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats SNSD, of Milorad Dodik, Covic’s HDZ and the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action, SDA. 

The SNSD and SDA candidates, Milorad Dodik and Sefik Dzaferovic, won seats on the state’s tripartite presidency. 

However, in another controversy, the third, Croat, seat went to Zeljko Komsic who clearly won thanks mainly to Bosniak votes. The result, while fully legal, created more tension with the Bosnian Croat community and with Croatia.  

The elections results also showed that the HDZ and SNSD could not be left out in the formation of state and entity governments, while their most likely coalition partner from the Bosniak parties would be the SDA. 

Late in December, Bosnia’s much-criticised Central Election Commission finally fixed the broken election law, to allow the lawful formation of a Federation government, but its decision was likely to end up before the Constitutional Court, after Bosniak leaders said they would challenge it. 

Because of this and other political quarrels, formation of new governments and progress on key reforms remained uncertain. 

Bulgaria in 2018: Euro-presidency success marred by scandals at home

Bulgaria showed two distinct faces in 2018. On one hand, it was the European Commission’s darling, hosting the Council of the European Union Presidency for the first time during the first six months of the year, and organizing two international summits at which the EU first met Turkey and then the Western Balkan states. 

Despite the modest results of both events, Bulgaria showed good organizational skills and seemingly pushed forward its agenda of joining the passport-free Schengen area, at least partially, and the European Banking Union in 2019. 

But Bulgaria also showed another face during 2018 as Bulgarian nationalists in government and MEPs backed Hungary’s nationalist leader Victor Orban, when the EU decided to penalise him for undermining the rule of law and the freedom of expression in Hungary. 

A seemingly never-ending wave of public discontent against controversial decisions or, in other instances, lack of adequate measures, meanwhile shook the country and forced the government to replace four ministers including one deputy prime minister in only a few months. 

Two other ministers, of Energy and Social Welfare, almost resigned, but Prime Minister Boyko Borissov did not let them quit.

The year started with the Save Pirin protests against the decision of the government to allow some construction in the Pirin National Park and UNESCO site, which activists fear could pave the way towards the widespread destruction of the precious mountainous area. 

The government’s troubles continued with the controversial attempted sale of CEZ, the country’s largest energy supplier, to a small, family-controlled company with connections to Energy Minister Temenuzhka Petkova. 

This was followed by an announcement that Bulgaria was re-starting two large energy projects that looked likely to tighten Russia’s grip over the country. 

After a quiet summer, a new wave of discontent sprung up – first after a badly communicated mass cull of sheep and goats in the Strandzha region in August, and then after a deadly bus crash near Svoge, close to Sofia.

This led to three ministerial resignations and half-hearted admissions that corruption in the road infrastructure sector might have contributed to the deaths of 20 people. 

The topic of corruption in the field of public procurements was heightened by the arrests of investigative journalists, Attila Biro from Rise Project Romania, and Dimitar Stoyanov from Bivol-Bulgaria.

They were detained after they tried to stop the destruction of evidence of public procurement fraud involving one of the largest winners of public tenders for road repairs and construction, GP Group. 

This was followed by the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov for offending protesting mothers of children with disabilities, and by a 77-million-euros fine for not complying with EU competition rules.

While the ruling GERB-United Patriots coalition continued to claim it offered the country “stability”, the picture was, clearly, a lot less rosy. 

Kosovo in 2018: Raising the stakes with Serbia

In March, the Kosovo parliament finally ratified the long delayed border agreement with Montenegro, a controversial deal that since 2015 had sparked violent clashes between the opposition and the ruling coalition. 

After three years of leading opposition to the border agreement with Montenegro, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj accepted the deal, with a new annex that left open the possibility of “correcting” the exact borders later on. 

The European Union had insisted on the deal as one of the criteria for granting Kosovo visa-free access to the passport-free Schengen area – which had not happened by the time 2018 ended, however.

Meanwhile, that same month, tensions were sparked with Serbia following the arrest of Marko Djuric, the head of the Serbian government’s Kosovo office. Despite being banned from entering Kosovo by the authorities, Djuric visited the Serbian stronghold of North Mitrovica to participate in a debate with Kosovo Serb leaders.

After the arrest, Djuric was taken to Pristina in handcuffs with his head held down before numerous journalists, photographers and TV crews. Djuric later described the treatment as an attempt to humiliate him, and Serbia, saying that he was “walked liked a dog”. 

Further tensions with Serbia erupted in November when Kosovo imposed a 10-per-cent tax on Serbian and Bosnian imports. 

Despite international pressure to withdraw the decision, the government did the opposite and sharply increased the tax from 10 to 100 per cent, one day after Kosovo failed to join the international police organisation Interpol at its general assembly in Dubai. 

This setback was credited to strong Serbian lobbying. Haradinaj stressed that Kosovo would not revoke the tax until Serbia recognised Kosovo’s independence.

In December, the Kosovo parliament adopted another controversial decision, a package of three draft laws expanding the competences of the Kosovo Security Force, KSF, and creating a legal base for its transformation into a regular army. 

By adopting laws on merely changing the KSF’s remit, parliament bypassed the need to adopt the regular constitutional changes required to change the KSF into an official army – which Serbia and Kosovo Serbs bitterly oppose.

Representatives of the main Kosovo Serb party, Srpska Lista, said the new de-facto army would have no mandate to operate in mainly Serbian north Kosovo – and it would challenge the vote before the Constitutional Court.

Macedonia in 2018: Breakthrough marred by ex-PM’s escape 

Macedonia in 2018 witnessed a major breakthrough, with the signing of the historic “name” agreement with Greece.

But this achievement was undermined by events at home, when the scandalous escape of the former autocratic Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, who had been sent to prison, caused major ripples. 

After spending much of the first half of the year in hard UN-sponsored “name” talks with Greece, on June 17, the two countries finally signed an agreement on ending the decades-long dispute over Macedonia’s name, under which the country would be renamed Republic of North Macedonia.

The signing of the agreement won international praise and was regarded as the most positive political development in the Balkans that year. 

However, it also stirred tensions as far-right nationalists in both countries staged sometimes violent protests. 

At the consultative referendum that followed in September 30, the majority of Macedonian voters supported the agreement. But the turnout failed to meet the required 50 per cent threshold, which emptied the result of any real force.

Despite this setback, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev narrowly steered the agreement through parliament and the process is expected to end by late January. In return, Greece agreed to stop blocking Macedonia’s accession to NATO and the EU.

Amidst renewed optimism over this breakthrough, Macedonia was shocked in November when former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who was ousted in May 2017, mysteriously fled the country, so avoiding serving a jail sentence. 

This was a major blow to Zaev’s government, which took power on a promise to deliver justice for the past regime’s crimes. 

While some critics attributed the escape to government incompetence, many suspected that Gruevski had been allowed to escape as part of an elusive deal with the government.

Gruevski was supposed to report to start serving his two-year jail term on November 9, but failed to do so. 

On November 13, a post on his Facebook account announced that he was in Hungary, where he was seeking political asylum, having supposedly received numerous threats to his life.

Hungary soon granted Gruevski asylum, a move attributed to Gruevski’s long political friendship with Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban. Albania, Montenegro and Serbia meanwhile confirmed that Gruevski had used their territory to flee to Hungary, and that Hungarian diplomats had aided his escape.

Moldova in 2018: Populism puts EU path in danger

Throughout 2018, Moldova witnessed growing political tensions and quarrels, which posed a threat to the EU-Moldova Association Agreement signed in 2014.

The worst political unrest occurred in June, after an allegedly politically influenced court ruling cancelled the results of the mayoral elections in Chisinau, which an opposition leader Andrei Nastase, had won – fairly in the view of most observers.  

Soon after, the European Commission suspended 100 million euros in macro-financial, accusing Moldova of backsliding on democratic standards. 

As a counter-measure, aimed at getting more money into the budget, all the main three institutions in Moldova – parliament, government and the presidency – gave the green light to a highly controversial fiscal reform.

Critics said the new law would enable people to clean “dirty” money as it allows any Moldovan citizen to register and keep any illegally gained financial gains or assets, as long as he or she pays a 3-per-cent fee to the state. 

Moldova also offered 5,000 passports to anyone wanting to purchase Moldovan citizenship for a 100,000-euro donation to the government, or a 250,000-euro investment in any business in Moldova. 

The name of the “new” citizens will also remain secret. The changes disturbed many in the country, and abroad. 

Besides these and other decisions, which clearly went against Brussels’ advice and demands, the ruling Democratic Party hardened its nationalist rhetoric ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, due in February 2019. 

By the end of 2018, relations between Moldova and EU had turned distinctly frosty. 

Romania in 2018: Political turmoil and social uprisings

Romania experienced continuous political turmoil in 2018, with politicians entrenched in a battle against prosecutors over the policies of the National Anti-Corruption Directorate, DNA. 

Street protests against the government intensified throughout the year, some ending up in violence.

Under the management of Laura Codruta Kovesi, the youngest and first woman prosecutor to lead the DNA, the agency had in recent years indicted hundreds of politicians and former dignitaries, many of them Social Democrats. The Social Democrat-led government in Bucharest duly fired  her in July.

The battered anti-graft agency lacks a new chief in 2019 as President Klaus Iohannis has refused to appoint the government’s nominee, Adina Florea, citing her cooperation with the intelligence services.  

Kovesi’s dismissal came too late for Social Democrat strongman Liviu Dragnea, however. 

He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail in a second corruption trial, although the June 21 verdict was not final and he is now appealing the sentence.

Following a rally organized by the ruling party to show its large support base on June 9, and following Kovesi’s dismissal, several anti-government groups, including some based in Romania’s large diaspora, announced a large protest of their own on August 10.

The rally drew tens of thousands of people from across Romania, but ended in a violent clash with the riot police, which used tear gas to disperse demonstrators around the government building in Bucharest. 

The incidents on August 10 left hundreds wounded and police, as well as the Interior Minister, faced harsh criticism for using disproportionate force against peaceful protesters, including elderly people and children. 

Prosecutors started an investigation into the allegations of violence, which the government dismissed, saying the use of force had been “justified”. 

The violent crackdown on August 10, as well as the push by the Social Democrats to change the criminal codes and several laws on the organization of courts and prosecutor’s offices – all designed to relax the fight against corruption – resulted in the European Commission slamming the government in November with the harshest report on the country since it joined the EU. 

Moreover, the fact that neighbouring Bulgaria simultaneously received praise from the EU for its progress, and various politicians in Brussels called for its speedy admission to the Schengen area, caused further discontent in Romania.  

The year ended with Romania still mired in controversies and rumours that the cabinet was still mulling a decree on amnestying and pardoning corruption convicts similar, to the one that triggered the January-February 2017 protests – the biggest the country has seen since 1989.

Serbia in 2018: Worsening tension with Kosovo

Unresolved relation with Kosovo remained the main political issue in Serbia. While EU increased pressure on both sides to resolve their decade-long dispute over Kosovo’s independence, proclaimed in 2008, their relations were dogged by arrests, cancelled meetings, exchanges of strong words and import taxes. 

Tensions in Serbia increased in March, after Kosovo police arrested the head of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo, Marko Djuric, for entering Kosovo despite a ban on his presence. 

In September, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic scrapped a planned meeting with his Kosovo counterpart, Hashim Thaci, in Brussels.  

He then paid a visit to the Serbian community in Kosovo instead. 

After Kosovo war veterans blocked roads leading to the village of Banje, south of the Ibar River, the Kosovo government cancelled Vucic’s planned visit to the Serbian village, though it caused no problems about him holding a rally in the Serbian stronghold of North Mitrovica. 

In his speech, the Serbian President praised Serbia’s late president Slobodan Milosevic, a hate figure in Kosovo, sparking strong reactions also from Kosovo officials. 

Two months later, Kosovo imposed taxes on imports from Serbia and Bosnia. The decision caused four mayors in Serb-majority municipalities in North Kosovo to resign and to end their communications with Kosovo institutions. 

Another row erupted between two countries in December. On December 18, at a UN Security Council session, called by Belgrade, when Kosovo’s President Thaci defended the controversial decision to transform the country’s lightly armed security force, the KSF, into a de facto army, which Serbia claimed would jeopardise peace in the region. 

Besides rockier than ever relations with Kosovo, another key development in 2018 in Serbia was the series of anti-government protests, which started in early December, following the brutal beating of the leader of opposition Serbian Left party, Borko Stefanovic. He was assaulted late in November.

Thousands of people gathered weekend after weekend in the Serbian capital, condemning the attack, the widespread corruption and political violence in the country, and demanding that the public broadcaster give them fairer treatment in its reports. 

The calls for a fairer media were strengthened following an incident on December 12 when the home of a journalist for the website Zig Info, Milan Jovanovic, was shot at and then set on fire by unknown individuals, apparently because of his reporting on local corruption. 

On December 23, the Interior Minister, Nebojsa Stefanovic, said three persons had been arrested for this crime. 

The latest BIRN report on the state of the media in Serbia notes abuses of funding, lack of pluralism in terms of content, an unclear legislative framework and administrative pressure on independent media as some of the most concerning issues. 

While the street protests came relatively late in the year, the number of people attending them grew steadily. 

The protests are expected to continue in 2019, and their impact on the country’s political scene, and on the regime of President Vucic, has yet to be tested. 

Croatia in 2018: Sporting triumph – and shame, too

The event that Croats will surely remember most from last year is winning the silver medal in the 2018 World Cup. After the national football team took the silver, the country threw itself a massive party, with hundreds of thousands of people pouring onto the streets to welcome the players back from Moscow. 

Marketing experts said it could be another great way to promote Croatian tourism. 

However, another sector of the Croatian sporting world aroused less national pride. 

On June 6 in a first-degree ruling, controversial football mogul Zdravko Mamic was found guilty of siphoning money off from football clubs and damaging the state budget. 

This verdict was major news, but Mamic – who also holds Bosnian citizenship – fled there to avoid imprisonment at home. 

Many commentators remained unsure whether this would mark an end to the endemic culture of corruption in Croatian football.

The key event for the Croatian economy was the much trumpeted rescue of the indebted food giant Agrokor, Croatia’s biggest private company, which found itself in major financial trouble from the beginning of 2017.

The firm was taken under state-appointed management in early 2017 under a special law dubbed the “Lex Agrokor” to avert its collapse and the loss of more than 50,000 jobs across the Balkan region.

In October, a debt restructuring deal was confirmed by Zagreb’s High Commercial Court. But many questions were left hanging in the air. Experts noted that Agrokor’s new shareholders, the biggest of which is Sberbank of Russia, with 39.2 per cent, have little interest in food production.

While Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic claimed that the process of saving Agrokor was a great success, and tried to close this topic, many media and commentators said the country will not forget it so quickly.

A former member of his government, Martina Dalic, resigned in May as Economy Minister and Deputy Prime Minister after leaked emails suggested that she had used her position to help her friends and business associates during the process of passing the law imposing state management on Agrokor.

In December, the Conflict of Interest Commission decided that Dalic, and the current Finance Minister, Zdravko Maric, violated the principle of holding public office in connection with the Agrokor food and retail conglomerate. However, the violation does not carry any penalties.

The fate of Ivica Todoric, Agrokor’s former owner, was also uncertain. After spending a year in London, escaping pre-trial detention, he was extradited to Croatia in November. 

After only 13 days of pre-trial detention, he was released on paying a million euros in bail. He is now on conditional release until the end of the investigation process and the eventual filing of an indictment. Interestingly, he has announced that he intends to run for elections.

Some “worldview” battles also erupted in 2018 in Croatia, as in other countries, between conservatives and liberals.

One of the main disputes was about so-called Istanbul convention, the Council of Europe’s convention on preventing and combating violence against woman and domestic violence. Conservatives noisily argued that ratification of the convention would undermine family values and promote a so-called gender ideology.

As in some other Balkan countries, Croatia also saw a great split over the UN’s non-binding Global Pact on Migration, signed in Morocco, which conservatives also denounced, insisting it would only encourage more migration.

Turkey in 2018: Economic fears and rows with West

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the presidential election for the second time by a tight margin, thanks mainly to the alliance between his ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, and nationalist parties. 

Erdogan maintained his majority in parliament but was obliged to draw on the support of nationalist allies to pass laws. 

After the elections, the new executive presidential system, which was endorsed in a highly controversial referendum in 2017, took force. 

The new system gives the President almost unchecked power and makes him the only real decision maker in domestic and foreign politics.

Erdogan’s authoritarian rule continued to undermine Turkey’s once warm relations with the West. 

Kati Piri, the EU rapporteur on Turkey, even said the EU should formally suspend membership negotiations with Turkey. The EU also reduced “pre-ascension funds” for Turkey by 105 million euros and froze an additional 70 million euros of previously announced spending because of “the deteriorating situation in relation to democracy, rule of law and human rights worrying”.

The US was also displeased, imposing new sanctions on Turkey on August 1, including not delivering F-35 fighter jets to Turkey as had been agreed.

In response, Turkey tried to get closer with Russia, especially on the issues of Syria, the defence industry, energy and the economy. Turkey took steps in 2018 to get Russian S-400 missile systems and the offshore section of Turkish Stream pipeline project was opened November 19.

Amid internal political quarrels and worsening relations with the US, the EU and NATO, the Turkish currency, the lira, plummeted by more than 50 per cent between January and December 2018. 

The drop in the value of the lira was followed by other alarming indices in the economy and the government had to increase taxes and the price of main commodities, including gas, electricity and petroleum. This all also affected Turkey’s GDP growth, which shrank to a puny 1.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2018.

Besides strengthening his powers at home, Erdogan increased his hunt for supporters of the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for a failed coup attempt in 2016 and describes as the leader of the “Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation”, or FETO. 

Erdogan and his government pushed Balkan countries on every occasion to shut Gulen-linked institutions and arrest his followers and deport them to Turkey.

Turkey’s intelligence agency, the MIT, conducted two such operations. One was in Kosovo on March 29. 

The other one was in Moldova on September 6. The abduction of these alleged “Gulenists” to Turkey caused consternation in both countries, with Kosovo leaders claiming not to have been informed.

Several other court cases in which Turkey demanded the extradition of alleged Gulenists to Turkey continued in several Balkan countries. 

After his first bizarre year, his apologists told us he was growing into the job and that in his second year he’d be more restrained and respectful of democratic institutions.

Wrong. He’s been worse.

Exhibit one: the “Wall.” After torpedoing Mitch McConnell’s temporary spending deal to avert a shutdown, he’s holding hostage over 800,000 government employees (“mostly Democrats,” he calls them, disparagingly) while subjecting the rest of America to untoward dangers.

On-site inspections at power plants have been halted. Hazardous waste cleanup efforts at Superfund sites are on hold. Reviews of toxic substances and pesticides have been stopped. Justice Department cases are in limbo.

Meanwhile, now working without pay are thousands of air traffic controllers and aviation and railroad safety inspectors, nearly 54,000 Customs and Border Protection agents, 42,000 Coast Guard employees, 53,000 TSA agents, 17,000 correctional officers, 14,000 FBI agents, 4,000 Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and some 5,000 firefighters with the U.S. Forest Service.

Having run the Department of Labor during the 1995 and 1996 shutdowns, I’m confident most of these public servants will continue to report for duty because they care about the missions they’re upholding. But going without pay will strain their family budgets to the point that some will not be able to.

Shame on him for jeopardizing America this way in order to fund his wall – which is nothing but a trumped-up solution to a trumped-up problem designed only to fuel his base.

In his second year he’s also done even more damage to the nation’s judicial-criminal system than he did before.

At least twice in the past month he’s reportedly raged against his acting attorney general for allowing federal prosecutors to reference him in the crimes his former bagman Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to committing.

This is potentially the most direct obstruction of justice yet. He’s now pressuring an official whom he hand-picked and whose entire future depends on him, to take actions that would impair the independence of federal prosecutors.

Last month he blasted Judge Jon Tigar as an “Obama judge” after Tigar blocked the Administration’s limits on asylum eligibility to ports of entry, a decision summarily upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and sustained by the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice Roberts issued a rare rebuke. “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges,” he wrote, adding that an “independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”

Which prompted his rejoinder: “Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’” followed by his baseless and incendiary claim that “they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” and their “rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”

In his second year he’s displayed even less commitment to keeping the military nonpartisan than he did initially. 

During last month’s teleconference with U.S. troops and coast guard members he continued his rampage against the judiciary, calling the ninth circuit “a big thorn in our side” and “a disgrace.”

Then he turned last week’s surprise visit to American troops in Iraq and Germany into a political rally – praising troops wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps, signing a “Trump 2020” patch, and accusing Representative Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats of being weak on border security.

Some Americans are becoming so accustomed to these antics that they no longer see them for what they are – escalating attacks on America’s core democratic institutions.

Where would we be if a president could simply shut down the government when he doesn’t get his way? If he could stop federal prosecutions he doesn’t like and order those he wants? If he could whip up public anger against court decisions he disapproves of? If he could mobilize the military to support him, against Congress and the judiciary?

We would no longer live in a democracy. Like his increasing attacks on critics in the press, these are all aspects of his growing authoritarianism. We normalize them at our peril.  

Our institutions remain strong, but I’m not sure they can endure two more years of this. He must be removed from office through impeachment, or his own decision to resign in the face of impeachment, as did Richard Nixon.

Republican members of Congress must join with Democrats to get this task done as quickly as possible. Nothing is more urgent. It must be, in effect, America’s New Year’s resolution.

Dear America:

Costly complexity is baked into Obamacare. No health insurance system is without problems but Canadian-style single-payer— full Medicare for all— is simple, affordable, comprehensive and universal.

In the early 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson enrolled 20 million elderly Americans into Medicare in six months. There were no websites. They did it with index cards!

Below please find 25 ways the Canadian health care system is better than the chaotic U.S. system.

Replace it with the much more efficient Medicare-for-all: everybody in, nobody out, free choice of doctor and hospital. It will produce far less anxiety, dread, and fear.

Love, Canada

Number 25:

In Canada, everyone is covered automatically at birth – everybody in, nobody out.

In the United States, under Obamacare, 28 million Americans (9 percent) are still uninsured and 85 million Americans (26 percent) are underinsured.

Number 24:

In Canada, the health system is designed to put people, not profits, first.

In the United States, Obamacare has done little to curb insurance industry profits and in fact has increased the concentrated insurance industry’s massive profits.

Number 23:

In Canada, coverage is not tied to a job or dependent on your income – rich and poor are in the same system, the best guaranty of quality.

In the United States, under Obamacare, much still depends on your job or income. Lose your job or lose your income, and you might lose your existing health insurance or have to settle for lesser coverage.

Number 22:

In Canada, health care coverage stays with you for your entire life.

In the United States, under Obamacare, for tens of millions of Americans, health care coverage stays with you for as long as you can afford your insurance.

Number 21:

In Canada, you can freely choose your doctors and hospitals and keep them. There are no lists of “in-network” vendors and no extra hidden charges for going “out of network.”

In the United States, under Obamacare, the in-network list of places where you can get treated is shrinking – thus restricting freedom of choice – and if you want to go out of network, you pay dearly for it.

Number 20:

In Canada, the health care system is funded by income, sales and corporate taxes that, combined, are much lower than what Americans pay in insurance premiums directly and indirectly per employer.

In the United States, under Obamacare, for thousands of Americans, it’s pay or die – if you can’t pay, you die. That’s why many thousands will still die every year under Obamacare from lack of health insurance to get diagnosed and treated in time.

Number 19:

In Canada, there are no complex hospital or doctor bills. In fact, usually you don’t even see a bill.

In the United States, under Obamacare, hospital and doctor bills are terribly complex, making it very difficult to discover the many costly overcharges or massive billing fraud.

Number 18:

In Canada, costs are controlled. Canada pays 10 percent of its GDP for its health care system, covering everyone.

In the United States, under Obamacare, costs continue to skyrocket. The U.S. currently pays 17.9 percent of its GDP and still doesn’t cover tens of millions of people.

Number 17:                                       

In Canada, it is unheard of for anyone to go bankrupt due to health care costs.

In the United States, health-care-driven bankruptcy will continue to plague Americans.

Number 16:

In Canada, simplicity leads to major savings in administrative costs and overhead.

In the United States, under Obamacare, often staggering complexity leads to ratcheting up huge administrative costs and overhead.

Number 15:

In Canada, when you go to a doctor or hospital the first thing they ask you is: “What’s wrong?”

In the United States, the first thing they ask you is: “What kind of insurance do you have?”

Number 14:

In Canada, the government negotiates drug prices so they are more affordable.

In the United States, under Obamacare, Congress made it specifically illegal for the government to negotiate drug prices for volume purchases, so they remain unaffordable and skyrocketing.

Number 13:

In Canada, the government health care funds are not profitably diverted to the top one percent.

In the United States, under Obamacare, health care funds will continue to flow to the top. In 2017, the CEO of Aetna alone made a whopping $59 million.

Number 12:

In Canada, there are no required co-pays or deductibles in inscrutable contracts.

In the United States, under Obamacare, the deductibles and co-pays will continue to be unaffordable for many millions of Americans.

Number 11:

In Canada, the health care system contributes to social solidarity and national pride.

In the United States, Obamacare is divisive, with rich and poor in different systems and tens of millions left out or with sorely limited benefits.

Number 10:

In Canada, delays in health care are not due to the cost of insurance.

In the United States, under Obamacare, patients without health insurance or who are underinsured will continue to delay or forgo care and put their lives at risk.

Number 9:

In Canada, nobody dies due to lack of health insurance.

In the United States, tens of thousands of Americans will continue to die every year due to lack of health insurance and much higher prices for drugs, medical devices, and health care itself.

Number 8:

In Canada, health care on average costs half as much, per person, as in the United States. And in Canada, everyone is covered.

In the United States, a majority support Medicare-for-all.

Number 7:

In Canada, the tax payments to fund the health care system are modestly progressive – the lowest 20 percent pays 6 percent of income into the system while the highest 20 percent pays 8 percent.

In the United States, under Obamacare, the poor pay a larger share of their income for health care than the affluent.

Number 6:

In Canada, people use GoFundMe to start new businesses.

In the United States, fully one in three GoFundMe fundraisers are now to raise money to pay medical bills. Recently, one American was rejected for a heart transplant because she couldn’t afford the follow-up care. Her insurance company suggested she raise the money through GoFundMe.

Number 5: 

In Canada, people avoid prison at all costs.

In the United States, some Americans commit minor crimes so that they can get to prison and get free health care.

Number 4: 

In Canada, people look forward to the benefits of early retirement.

In the United States, people delay retirement to 65 to avoid being uninsured.

Number 3:

In Canada, Nobel Prize winners hold on to their medal and pass it down to their children and grandchildren.

In the United States, Nobel Prize winners sell their medals to pay for their medical bills.

Leon Lederman won a Nobel Prize in 1988 for his pioneering physics research. But in 2015, the physicist, who passed away in November 2018, sold his Nobel Prize medal for $765,000 to pay his mounting medical bills. According to a report in Vox, the University of Chicago professor began to suffer from memory loss in 2011, and died in an Idaho nursing home.

Number 2: 

In Canada, the system is simple. You get a health care card when you are born. And you swipe it when you go to a doctor or hospital. End of story.

In the United States, Obamacare’s 2,500 pages plus regulations (the Canadian Medicare Bill was 13 pages) is so complex that then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said before passage “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”

Number 1: 

In Canada, the majority of citizens love their health care system.

In the United States, a growing majority of citizens, physicians, and nurses prefer the Canadian type system – Medicare-for-all, free choice of doctor and hospital , everybody in, nobody out and far less expensive.

For more information, see Single Payer Action.

In many ways it is painful to reflect on the year 2018; a year of vital opportunities lost when so much is at stake.

Whether politically, militarily, socially, economically, financially or ecologically, humanity took some giant strides backwards while passing up endless opportunities to make a positive difference in our world.

Let me, very briefly, identify some of the more crucial backward steps, starting with the recognition by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January that the year had already started badly when they moved the Doomsday Clock to two minutes to midnight, the closest it has ever been to ‘doomsday’ (and equal to 1953 when the Soviet Union first exploded a thermonuclear weapon matching the US capacity). See ‘It is now two minutes to midnight’.

This change reflected the perilous state of our world, particularly given the renewed threat of nuclear war and the ongoing climate catastrophe. It didn’t even mention the massive and unrelenting assault on the biosphere (apart from the climate) nor, of course, the ongoing monumental atrocities against fellow human beings.

Some Lowlights of 2018

1. The global elite, using key elite fora such as the Group of 30, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum, continued to plan, generate and exacerbate the many ongoing wars, deepening exploitation within the global economy, climate and environmental destruction, and the refugee crisis, among many other violent impacts, in pursuit of greater elite power, profit and privilege.
2. International organizations (such as the United Nations, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and national governments used military forces, legal systems, police forces and prison systems around the world to serve the global elite by defending its interests against the bulk of the human population, including those individuals and organizations audacious enough to challenge elite power, profit and privilege.
3. $US1.7 trillion was officially spent worldwide on military weapons to kill fellow human beings and other life forms, and to destroy the biosphere. See ‘Global military spending remains high at $1.7 trillion’.

However, so out-of-control is this spending that the United States has now spent $US21trillion on its military in the past 20 years for which it cannot even account! That’s right, $US1trillion each year, including 2018, above the official US national budget for killing is ‘lost’. See Army General Fund Adjustments Not Adequately Documented or Supported, ‘Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us?’ and ‘The Pentagon Can’t Account for $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)’.

1. War and other military violence continued to rage across the planet wreaking devastation on many countries and regions, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. If you missed this, read what is happening to Yemen, described as ‘ the world’s worst [humanitarian] crisis in decades’ with ‘three quarters of the entire Yemeni population – 22 million women, children and men – dependent on some form of humanitarian assistance to survive.’ See ‘Yemen: UN chief hails “signs of hope” in world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster’.
2. Not content with the nature and extent of the military violence they are inflicting already, during 2018 elites continued to plan how to do it more effectively in future with research and development of artificial intelligence just one manifestation of this: ‘an “arms race in AI” is now underway, with the U.S., China, Russia, and other nations (including Britain, Israel, and South Korea) seeking to gain a critical advantage in the weaponization of artificial intelligence and robotics’ so that ‘artificial intelligence will be applied to every aspect of warfare, from logistics and surveillance to target identification and battle management’. See ‘“Alexa, Launch Our Nukes!” Artificial Intelligence and the Future of War’.
3. The United States government unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (which limits the deployment of intermediate range nuclear weapons).
4. Another significant proportion of global private financial wealth – conservatively estimated by the Tax Justice Network in 2010 to already total between $US21 and $US32 trillion – has been invested virtually tax-free through the world’s still-expanding black hole of more than 80 ‘offshore’ tax havens (such as the City of London Corporation, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Nauru, St. Kitts, Antigua, Tortola, Switzerland, the Channel Islands, Monaco, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Liechtenstein). This is just financial wealth. ‘A big share of the real estate, yachts, racehorses, gold bricks – and many other things that count as non-financial wealth – are also owned via offshore structures where it is impossible to identify the owners.’ See Tax Justice Network.

Controlled by the global elite, Wall Street and other major banks manage this monstrous diversion of wealth under Government protection. ‘Their business is fraud and grand theft.’ Tax haven locations offer more than tax avoidance. ‘Almost anything goes on.’ It includes ‘bribery, illegal gambling, money laundering, human and sex trafficking, arms dealing, toxic waste dumping, conflict diamonds and endangered species trafficking, bootlegged software, and endless other lawless practices.’ See ‘Trillions Stashed in Offshore Tax Havens’.

1. The world’s major corporations continued to inflict enormous ongoing violence (in a myriad of ways) in their pursuit of endless profit at the expense of living beings (human and otherwise) and Earth’s biosphere by producing and marketing a wide range of life-destroying products ranging from nuclear weapons and nuclear power to junk food, pharmaceutical drugs, synthetic poisons and genetically mutilated organisms (GMOs). These corporations include those involved in the following industries: weapons manufacturers, major banks and their ‘industry groups’ like the International Monetary Conference, asset management firms, investment companies, financial services companies, fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas) corporations, technology corporations, media corporations, major marketing and public relations corporations, agrochemical (pesticides, seeds, fertilizers) giants, pharmaceutical corporations, biotechnology (genetic mutilation) corporations, mining corporations, nuclear power corporations, food multinationals and water corporations. You can see a list of the major corporations in this article: ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.
2. More than a billion people continued to live under occupation, dictatorship or threat of genocidal assault. See, for example, ‘500 Years is Long Enough! Human Depravity in the Congo’.
3. 36,500,000 human beings (mainly in Africa, Asia and Central/South America) were starved to death.
4. 18,250,000 children were killed by adults in wars, by starving them to death, and in a large variety of other ways.
5. 8,000,000 children were trafficked into sexual slavery; executed in sacrificial killings after being kidnapped; bred to be sold as a ‘cash crop’ for sexual violation, to produce child pornography (‘kiddie porn’) and ‘snuff’ movies (in which children are killed during the filming); ritually tortured and murdered as well as raped by dogs trained for the purpose. See ‘Humanity’s “Dirty Little Secret”: Starving, Enslaving, Raping, Torturing and Killing our Children’.
6. Hundreds of thousands of individuals were kidnapped or tricked into slavery, which now denies 46,000,000 human beings the right to live the life of their choice, condemning many individuals – especially women and children – to lives of sexual slavery, forced labor or as child soldiers. See ‘The Global Slavery Index’ and ‘46 million people living as slaves, latest global index reveals’.
7. Well over 100,000 people (particularly Falun Gong practitioners) in China, where an extensive state-controlled program is conducted, were subjected to forced organ removal for the trade in human organs. See Bloody Harvest and The Slaughter.
8. 15,750,000 people were displaced by war, persecution or famine. There are now 68,500,000 people, more that half of whom are children and 10,000,000 of whom are stateless, who have been forcibly displaced worldwide and remain precariously unsettled, usually in adverse circumstances. One person in the world is forcibly displaced every two seconds. See ‘Figures at a Glance’.
9. Millions of people were made homeless in their own country as a result of war, persecution, ‘natural’ disasters, internal conflict, poverty or as a result of elite-driven national economic policy. The last time a global survey was attempted – by the United Nations back in 2005 – an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide. As many as 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing (living in slums, for example). See ‘Global Homelessness Statistics’.
10. 73,000 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects and reptiles) on Earth were driven to extinction with the worldwide loss of insects, including vital pollinators such as bees, now between 75% and 90%, depending on the species. See ‘Insect Decimation Upstages Global Warming’. Have you seen a butterfly recently?
11. Separately from global species extinctions, Earth continued to experience ‘a huge episode of population declines and extirpations, which will have negative cascading consequences on ecosystem functioning and services vital to sustaining civilization. We describe this as a “biological annihilation” to highlight the current magnitude of Earth’s ongoing sixth major extinction event.’ Moreover, local population extinctions ‘are orders of magnitude more frequent than species extinctions. Population extinctions, however, are a prelude to species extinctions, so Earth’s sixth mass extinction episode has proceeded further than most assume.’ See ‘Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines’ and ‘Biological Annihilation on Earth Accelerating’.
12. Wildlife trafficking, worth up to $20 billion in 2018, is pushing many endangered species to the brink of extinction. Illegal wildlife products include jewelry, traditional medicine, clothing, furniture, and souvenirs, as well as some exotic pets, most of which are sold to unaware/unconcerned consumers in the West. See, for example, Stop Wildlife Trafficking.
13. 16,000,000 acres of pristine rainforest were destroyed (with more than 40,000 tropical tree species now threatened with extinction). See ‘Measuring the Daily Destruction of the World’s Rainforests’, ‘Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species’ and ‘Half of Amazon Tree Species Face Extinction’.
14. Vast quantities of soil were washed away as we destroyed the rainforests, and enormous quantities of both inorganic constituents (such as heavy metals like cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, nickel and zinc) and organic pollutants (particularly synthetic chemicals in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides) were dumped into the soil as well, thus reducing its nutrients and killing the microbes within it. We also contaminated enormous quantities of soil with radioactive waste. See Soil-net, ‘Glyphosate effects on soil rhizosphere-associated bacterial communities’ and ‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’.
15. The TEPCO nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan discharged 109,000 tons of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean killing an incalculable number of fish and other marine organisms and indefinitely contaminating expanding areas of that ocean. See ‘Fukushima: A Nuclear War without a War: The Unspoken Crisis of Worldwide Nuclear Radiation’.
16. Human use of fossil fuels to power aircraft, shipping and vehicles (among other purposes) released 10 billion metric tons (gigatons) of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere, a 2.7% increase over 2017. See ‘Global Carbon Budget 2018’ and ‘Carbon dioxide emissions will hit a record high globally in 2018’. As a measure of their concern elite-controlled governments and corporations around the world are currently planning or have under construction 1,380 new coal plants? That’s right. 1,380 new coal plants. In 59 countries. See ‘NGOs Release List of World’s Top Coal Plant Developers’ and ‘2018 Coal Plant Developers List’.
17. 90 billion land animals and 60 billion marine animals were killed for human consumption, more than 100 million animals were killed for laboratory purposes in the United States alone and there were other animal deaths in shelters, zoos and in blood sports. See ‘How Many Animals Are Killed Each Year?’

In addition, 40 million animals were killed for their fur. Approximately 30 million of these animals were raised on fur farms and killed, about 10 million wild animals were trapped and killed, and hundreds of thousands of seals were killed for their fur. See ‘How Many Animals are Killed Each Year?’

1. Farming of animals for human consumption released 7,100,000,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent into Earth’s atmosphere. About 44% of livestock emissions were in the form of methane (which was 44% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions), 29% as Nitrous Oxide (which was 53% of anthropogenic N2O emissions) and 27% as Carbon Dioxide (which was 5% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions). See ‘GHG Emissions by Livestock’.
2. Human use of fossil fuels and farming of animals released 3.2 million metric tons of (CO2 equivalent) nitrous oxide (N2O) into Earth’s atmosphere. See ‘Nitrous oxide emissions’.
3. As a result of previous greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the consequent rise of about one degree celsius in the global temperature, causing the melting of Arctic permafrost and undersea methane ice clathrates, an incalculable quantity of methane was uncontrollably released into the atmosphere during 2018 (with the quantity being released getting ever closer to ‘exploding’). See ‘7,000 underground gas bubbles poised to “explode” in Arctic’ and ‘Release of Arctic Methane “May Be Apocalyptic,” Study Warns’.
4. Ice in the Antarctic is melting at a record-breaking rate, losing 219 billion tonnes of ice in 2018 at a rate that has accelerated threefold in the last five years. See ‘Antarctic ice melting faster than ever, studies show’.
5. An incalculable amount of agricultural poisons, fossil fuels and other wastes was discharged into the ocean, adversely impacting life at all ocean depths – see ‘Staggering level of toxic chemicals found in creatures at the bottom of the sea, scientists say’ – and generating ocean ‘dead zones’: regions that have too little oxygen to support marine organisms. See ‘Our Planet Is Exploding With Marine “Dead Zones”’.
6. At least 8 million metric tons of plastic, of which 236,000 tons were microplastics, was discharged into the ocean. See ‘Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean’ and ‘Plastics in the Ocean’.
7. Earth’s fresh water and ground water was further depleted and contaminated. These contaminants included bacteria, viruses and household chemicals from faulty septic systems; hazardous wastes from abandoned and uncontrolled hazardous waste sites (of which there are over 20,000 in the USA alone); leaks from landfill items such as car battery acid, paint and household cleaners; the pesticides, herbicides and other poisons used on farms and home gardens; radioactive waste from nuclear tests; and the chemical contamination caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in search of shale gas, for which about 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene, have been used. See ‘Groundwater contamination’, ‘Groundwater drunk by BILLIONS of people may be contaminated by radioactive material spread across the world by nuclear testing in the 1950s’ and ‘Fracking chemicals’.
8. The longstanding covert military use of geoengineering – spraying tens of millions of tons of highly toxic metals (including aluminium, barium and strontium) and toxic coal fly ash nanoparticulates (containing arsenic, chromium, thallium, chlorine, bromine, fluorine, iodine, mercury and radioactive elements) into the atmosphere from jet aircraft to weaponize the atmosphere and weather – in order to enhance elite control of human populations, continued unchecked. Geoengneering is systematically destroying Earth’s ozone layer – which blocks the deadly portion of solar radiation, UV-C and most UV-B, from reaching Earth’s surface – as well as adversely altering Earth’s weather patterns and polluting its air, water and soil at incredible cost to the health and well-being of living organisms and the biosphere. See ‘Geoengineering Watch’.
9. As one outcome of our dysfunctional parenting model and political systems, fascism continued to rise around the world. See ‘The Psychology of Fascism’.
10. Despite the belief that we have ‘the right to privacy’, privacy (in any sense of the word) was ongoingly eroded in 2018 and is now effectively non-existent, particularly thanks to Alphabet (owner of Google). Taken together, ‘Uber, Amazon, Facebook, eBay, Tinder, Apple, Lyft, Foursquare, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, Angry Birds… have turned our computers and phones into bugs that are plugged in to a vast corporate-owned surveillance network. Where we go, what we do, what we talk about, who we talk to, and who we see – everything is recorded and, at some point, leveraged for value.’ Moreover, given Google’s integrated relationship with the US government, the US military, the CIA, and major US weapons manufacturers, there isn’t really anything you can do that isn’t known by those who want to know it. In essence, Google is ‘a powerful global corporation with its own political agenda and a mission to maximise profits for shareholders’ and it partly achieves this by expanding the surveillance programs of the national security state at the direction of the global elite. See ‘Google’s Earth: How the Tech Giant Is Helping the State Spy on Us’ and the documentary ‘The Modern Surveillance State’.
11. The right to free speech was ongoingly eroded in 2018. For just a couple of examples in the United States alone, see ‘Marc Lamont Hill On Getting Fired From CNN, His Remarks On Palestine + More’ and ‘A Texas Elementary School Speech Pathologist Refused to Sign a Pro-Israel Oath, Now Mandatory in Many States – so She Lost Her Job’.
12. Believing that we know better than evolution, humans created the first gene-edited baby in 2018. See ‘Why we are not ready for genetically designed babies’ and ‘China’s Golem Babies: There is Another Agenda’.
13. An incalculable amount of junk was added to the 100 trillion items of junk already in Space. See ‘Space Junk: Tracking & Removing Orbital Debris’.
14. Incalculable amounts of antibiotic waste, nuclear waste, nanowaste and genetically engineered organisms were released into Earth’s biosphere. See ‘Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe?’
15. Ongoing violence against children – see ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – ensured that more people will grow up accepting (and quite powerless to challenge) our dysfunctional and violent world, as described above.
16. The corporate media, education and entertainment industries continued to distract us from reality ensuring that most people remain oblivious to our predicament and their own role in it, let alone what they can do to respond powerfully.

While the above list of the setbacks humanity and the Earth suffered in 2018 is very incomplete, it still provides clear evidence that humanity is rapidly entering a dystopian future far more horrific than the worst novel or film in the genre. The good news is that, at the current rate, this dystopian world will be shortlived as humans drive themselves over the edge of extinction. See ‘Human Extinction by 2026? A Last Ditch Strategy to Fight for Human Survival’.

But so that the picture is clear and ‘balanced’: were there any gains made against this onslaught?

Of course, it goes without saying that the global elite, international organizations (such as the United Nations), governments, corporations and other elite agents continued to live in delusion/denial endlessly blocking any initiative requiring serious action that would cut into corporate profits, or arguing over tangential issues of insignificant consequence to humanity’s future.

In short, I could find no record of official efforts during the year to plan for the development and implementation of a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace, but perhaps I missed it.

Separately from this, there have been some minor activist gains: for example, some western banks and insurance companies are no longer financially supporting the expansion of the western weapons industry and the western coal industry, some rainforest groups have managed to save portions of Earth’s rainforest heritage, and activist groups continue to work on a variety of issues sometimes making modest gains.

In essence however, as you probably realize, many of the issues above are not even being tackled and, even when they are, activist efforts have been hampered by inadequate analysis of the forces driving conflicts and problems, limited vision (particularly unambitious aims such as those in relation to ending war and the climate catastrophe), unsophisticated strategy (necessary to have profound impact against a deeply entrenched, highly organized and well-resourced opponent, with the endless lobbying of elite institutions, such as governments and corporations, despite this effort simply absorbing and dissipating our dissent, as is intended – as Mark Twain once noted: ‘If voting made a difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.’) and failure to make the difficult decisions to promote necessary solutions that are ‘unpopular’.

Fundamentally, these ‘difficult decisions’ include the vital need to campaign for the human population, particularly in the West, to substantially reduce their consumption – by 80% – involving both energy and resources of every kind as the central feature of any strategy to curtail destruction of the environment and climate, to undermine capitalism and to eliminate the primary driver of war: violent resource acquisition from Middle Eastern and developing nations for the production of consumer goods and services for western consumers.

While we live in the delusion that we can simply substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels and nuclear power (or believe such delusions that a 1.5 degrees Celsius increase above the preindustrial temperature is acceptable or that we have an ‘end of century’ timeframe to solve the climate crisis), we ignore the fundamental reality that Earth’s biosphere is under siege on many fronts as a result of our endless extraction of its natural resources – such as fresh water, minerals, timber and, again, fossil fuels – for consumer production and the provision of services that go well beyond energy.

In short, for example, we will not save the world’s rainforests because we switch to renewable energy. We must reduce demand for the consumer products that require rainforest inputs. We must stop mining the Earth for minerals that end up in our mobile phones, computers, vehicles, ships and aircraft by not using the products and services these minerals make possible. We must stop eating meat and other animal products. And so the list goes on.

Forecasting 2019

In many ways it is painful to forecast what will happen in 2019 mainly because of the absurd simplicity of doing so: It will be another year when vital opportunities will be lost when so much is at stake.

Given the insanity of the global elite – see ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ – which will continue to drive the dynamics producing the lowlights mentioned above with the active complicity of their agents in governments and corporations coupled with a human population that is largely terrified, self-hating and powerless to resist – see ‘In Defense of the Human Individual’ – it is a straightforward task to forecast what will happen in 2019.

So let me forecast 40 lowlights for 2019:

1. See list above.

2. See list above.

3. See list above.
.
.

40. See list above.

So unless you play your part, 2019 and the few years thereafter will simply be increasingly worse versions of 2018 and it will all be over by 2026. See https://www.transcend.org/tms/2018/08/human-extinction-by-2026-a-last-ditch-strategy-to-fight-for-human-survival/ which cites a wide range of scientific and other evidence which you are welcome to consider for yourself if this date seems premature.

Responding Powerfully

If you already feel able to act powerfully in response to this multifaceted crisis, in a way that will have strategic impact, you are invited to consider joining those participating in ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’, which outlines a simple plan for you to systematically reduce your consumption, by at least 80%, involving both energy and resources of every kind – water, household energy, transport fuels, metals, meat, paper and plastic – while dramatically expanding your individual and community self-reliance in 16 areas, so that all environmental and climate concerns are effectively addressed.

If you are also interested in conducting or participating in a campaign to systematically address one of the issues identified above, you are welcome to consider acting strategically in the way that Mohandas K. Gandhi did. Whether you are engaged in a peace, climate, environment or social justice campaign, the 12-point strategic framework and principles are the same. See Nonviolent Campaign Strategy. And, for example, you can see a basic list of the strategic goals necessary to end war and halt the climate catastrophe. See ‘Strategic Aims’.

If you want to know how to nonviolently defend against a foreign invading power or a political/military coup, to liberate your country from a dictatorship or a foreign occupation, or to defeat a genocidal assault, you will learn how to do so in ‘Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy’.

If you are interested in nurturing children to live by their conscience and to gain the courage necessary to resist elite violence fearlessly, while living sustainably despite the entreaties of capitalism to over-consume, then you are welcome to make ‘My Promise to Children’.

To reiterate: capitalism, war and destruction of the environment and climate are outcomes of our dysfunctional parenting of children which distorts their intellectual and emotional capacities, destroys their conscience and courage, and actively teaches them to over-consume as compensation for having vital emotional needs denied. See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’.

If your own intellectual and/or emotional functionality is the issue and you have the self-awareness to perceive that, and wish to access the conscience and courage that would enable you to act powerfully, try ‘Putting Feelings First’.

And if you want to be part of the worldwide movement committed to ending all of the violence identified above, consider signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.

In summary: if we do not rapidly, systematically and substantially reduce our consumption in several key areas and radically alter our parenting model, while resisting elite violence strategically on several fronts, home sapiens will enter Earth’s fossil record within a few years. Given the fear, self-hatred and powerlessness that paralyses most humans, your choices in these regards are even more vital than you realize.

No one should be confused by the calendar, Crimean Tatar commentator Ayder Muzhdabayev says. The coming year will be a reprise of the horrors of 1939 because Vladimir Putin will move to absorb Belarus, expand his war against Ukraine, and use terrorist acts to promote a Russian presence in the Baltic region.

“The Anschluss of Belarus is not simply inevitable; for Fuehrer Putin it is a requirement,” he continues. “That is the logic of any Reich, and the Russian one is no exception. There was Austria; here is Belarus. All is clear, explicit and logical. The long ago programmed Anschluss is occurring now before our eyes” (gordonua.com/blogs/muzhdabaev/-anshlyus-belarusi-ne-prosto-neizbezhen-a-dlya-fyurera-putina-obyazatelen-623823.html).

Soon, Muzhdabayev says, “everything will become clear: a common hymn, coat of arms, flag, and president (tsar)” in addition to “the common borders and common security and intelligence institutions which already exist.” For Putin, the Belarusians don’t exist as a separate people just as for Hitler, the Austrians did not.

And those who fail to see the direction Putin is driving toward and who believe that Lukashenka will resist completely fail to see that the Russian “fuehrer needs ‘a reborn Union’ as air; this was always clear; but with the annexation of Crimea, it became a100 percent certainty,” Muzhdabayev says.

Those who are paying attention certainly recognize that the recent release of a Levada Center poll showing 66 percent of Russians as nostalgic for the USSR was “no accident.”  It sent exactly the message that the Kremlin wants sent. 

And there is another compelling reason for assuming that things will continue to deteriorate, the commentator continues.  As close analysts of Russia should know, “always predict the worse and you’ll be right. This rule has never failed me,” Muzhdabayev says. And things aren’t going to end with Belarus.

Putin will seek a Russian military presence in the Baltic Sea to “defend” North Stream 1 and he will expand his military actions against Ukraine.  At the present time, “Ukraine is the only country which is seriously opposing the Reich.” It must continue its build up and not think that it will avoid a major war.

For Ukraine, because of Russia, “war is inevitable and obligatory. If we will resist, the West will be forced to help us and itself. Otherwise it won’t wake up” until it is too late, Muzhdabayev says. Ukraine can’t avoid this war and should focus on building up its strength, sacrificing anything that gets in the way of defeating the invader.

“Martial law should not be dropped but made tougher, elections should be held only if the entire military-political situation is under control. If it isn’t, then elections should be sacrificed. The country and each and every one of us must survive.”  Everything else is secondary in the battle against the Russian Reich.

Ukraine’s “enemy is unprincipled, tactically unpredictable and treacherous,” Muzhdabayev says. “It won’t give us any excuses.  Therefore, we must be prepared for everything, on both the real and hybrid front.” And we must remember that the year ahead will be more like 1939 than any recent one.

Peace treaty between Moscow and Tokyo would bring the countries to the new level of cooperation, Japanese Ambassador to Russia Toyohisa Kozuki told RIA Novosti.

“We are convinced that signing a peace treaty after solving the territorial problem would bring Japanese-Russian relations to a new, higher level. The Japanese government will continue efforts to get to that end goal,” the diplomat said.

According to him, Moscow and Tokyo have agreed to hold the visit of Prime Minister Abe to Russia in early 2019 with an opportunity to hold a meeting between foreign ministers before that as well as the Japanese-Russian top level meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit that will be held in Osaka in June.

Analyzing the potential outcomes of further negotiations on the disputed territories, James Brown, Associate Professor of Political Science, Temple University, Japan Campus, said that negotiations over the disputed islands appear to have entered a new phase.

“This is the result of Japan, under Prime Minister Abe, adopting a more conciliatory stance towards the territorial dispute. Specifically, Abe has agreed to conduct negotiations based on the 1956 Joint Declaration. This is important because the 1956 Joint Declaration only mentions the two smaller of the four disputed islands. This suggests that, unlike his predecessors, Abe is willing to accept […] such a deal. This willingness to accept compromise has helped to promote a more positive atmosphere in bilateral relations,” the expert told PenzaNews.

However, in his opinion, peace treaty seems doubtful in the nearest future.

“Although Abe has given considerable ground, the prospects for a final deal still appear doubtful. This is because the Russian side has made it clear that Japan would need to fulfill certain strict conditions to even achieve a two island deal,” James Brown explained.

“These conditions have not officially been made public, but they are expected to include a requirement that Japan accept Russia’s right to the islands as a consequence of WWII. Furthermore, Russia looks set to demand that the two transferred islands be excluded from the US-Japan Security Treaty, thereby preventing US troops from being stationed on the transferred islands,” the analyst added.

Both the Japanese public and Japan’s US ally are unlikely to approve of these conditions, he said.

“I do not expect the status quo to change. This is because the current arrangement suits Russia well. It is in control of all four of the disputed islands. Furthermore, the existence of the territorial dispute gives the Japanese leadership an incentive to engage with Russia politically and economically. This incentive would disappear if the dispute were actually to be settled,” James Brown noted.

In turn, Grant Newsham, Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo, with experience as a US Diplomat and US Marine Officer, suggested that the question of the prospects for resolving this territorial dispute will remain relevant even in 20 years.

“It seems like the negotiations have entered a new phase a number of times over the years – but that always leads to another ‘new phase.’ I don’t see an agreement being reached that resolves the issues,” he said adding that peace treaty could have a favorable effect on the development of Russian Far East.

“I’ve been watching this issue since the Yeltsin era, and just don’t see the ‘disputed islands’ issue being resolved. There will always be tension in the Russia – Japan relationship given their history of territorial jostling and outright war over the last few centuries,” the analyst explained.

In his opinion, the problem is unlikely to be resolved by the islands returning to Japan.

“The Japanese and Russians will continue meeting and maybe sometime within the next decade they will reach a deal that gives Japan the privilege of paying Russia a lot of money in exchange for some Japanese companies setting up some limited operations in the disputed islands nearest to Japan. It’s hard to imagine actual territory being returned,” Grant Newsham said.

According to Jonathan Berkshire Miller, Senior Fellow at the Asian Forum Japan, the decision to return back to the 1956 Soviet-Japan Joint Declaration as a framework for a peace treaty, makes Russia closer to potentially parting with two of the four disputed isles: Shikotan and Habomai.

“Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin have definitely worked hard to move beyond historical tensions between Tokyo and Moscow. The two leaders have met over 20 times and Abe has been focused on finding a resolution to the territorial dispute before his third and final term concludes in 2021,” the analyst reminded.

“The reality however remains complicated as there are surely strings attached to any potential land reversion – most importantly caveats placed on the role and potential role of Japan’s ally – the US,” Jonathan Berkshire Miller added.

This puts Tokyo in a difficult position to accept a partial deal with large risks and consequences to its relations with Washington, he said.

“Japan should also be concerned that any deal on the Northern Territories that involves alliance concessions could set a destabilizing precedent for future US support over the Senkaku islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by China but administered by Japan. As of now, the US has articulated its support for the Senkaku under Article 5 of the US-Japan Security Treaty, as territory controlled by Japan,” the expert explained.

Meanwhile, Lak Chansok, Researcher at Cambodia Maritime Silk Road Research Center (CMSRRC), the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia and at Democracy Promotion Center, Research Center for Asia Pacific Studies (RCAPS), Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan, reminded that during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised an idea of renegotiating the long-waited peace treaty with Japan without any “precondition” by the end of this year. However, according to the analyst, despite positive political rhetoric of the two leaders, it remains too early to say that any deal on such significant issue will be successfully reached by the end of 2018 for several important reasons.

“First, both countries have different positions to deal with such issue,” he stressed.

According to him, geopolitically speaking, the Kuril Islands serve as a strategic buffer zone and remain significant for Russia’s defense capacity in the Pacific.

“Russia, in addition, is believed to enhance its strategic and political presence in the Asia-Pacific as Japan has recently developed its defense abilities including deployment of US-made F-35B fighter jets and especially aircraft carriers for the first time since WWII. Trump’s regional policy uncertainty and the growing US leverage to pressure Japan to strengthen its military capacities make Russia unlikely to make any potential deals for Japan at this critical juncture,” Lak Chansok said.

Kazuhiko Togo, Former Head of the Department of Europe and Asia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Institute of World Affairs, Kyoto Sangyo University, stressed that the negotiations between the countries entered an important new phase, and the two leaderships are determined to move ahead to a new relationship based on trust and peace.

“The two countries respectively need to have yet unexplored trustworthy partner: for Japan it is Russia, and I believe, for Russia it is Japan. Something much more important than sheer number of islands is at stake. […] But naturally there are many obstacles to succeed in negotiations, such as understandable negative feelings in Russia to change any status–quo on territory, and strong patriotic feeling in Japan of resisting any outcome which does not realize in full their declared objective. There is an absolute need to understand the pain of the other side, and find out a mutually acceptable compromise-solution. I do not know whether the negotiators have reached that point of ‘mutually acceptable solution.’ If they have not reached that point yet, I sincerely hope they would find it in a not too distant future,” the analyst said.

At the same time, according to him, it is very difficult to predict the development of the situation.

“In Japan, it is very clear that Prime Minister Abe is determined to realize a qualitatively new relationship. I cannot imagine a stronger candidate in the foreseeable future so firmly determined in this course. In this sense Russia has now a great window of opportunity. If we fail to grasp this window of opportunity, for the foreseeable future, it would be closed for both countries. I do hope that a full agreement would be made within the Abe-Putin period,” the former Japanese diplomat concluded.

For many years, Russia and Japan have been negotiating a peace treaty, which, after the end of World War II, was never signed.

Tokyo claims the Kuril Islands Kunashir, Shikotan, Iturup and Habomai, referring to the bilateral Russo-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Amity of 1855.

In 1956, the USSR and Japan signed a joint declaration, according to which Moscow agreed to consider the possibility of transferring Habomai and Shikotan after the conclusion of a peace treaty. The fate of Kunashir and Iturup was not discussed. The USSR hoped that the declaration would put an end to the dispute, but Japan considered the document to be only part of the solution to the problem, without giving up claims on all the islands. Subsequent negotiations led nowhere.

Moscow’s position is that following the Second World War, the Southern Kuriles became part of the USSR; then Russia became its successor, and Russian sovereignty over the islands, which has the appropriate international legal framework, is beyond doubt.

Source: https://penzanews.ru/en/analysis/65864-2018

By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi

After remaining an epic leader who is rightly regarded as Margret Thatcher of Germany, Angela Merkel’s withdrawal from her party’s leadership brings new uncertainties not only for the CDU, but also for its coalition partners. Horst Seehofer’s end as the leader of the CSU is near and Andrea Nahles is defending the SPD’s presidency from all sides. On October 29, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she was stepping down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the dominant party in the ruling coalition.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a 56-year-old career politician committed to the status quo, has been chosen to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel as leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Kramp-Karrenbauer — often referred to as “Mini-Merkel” or “Merkel 2.0” because many view her as Merkel’s clone — won by just 35 votes (517 to 482) in a second-round run-off against her main opponent, the conservative businessman Friedrich Merz, at a CDU conference in Hamburg on December 7. Kramp-Karrenbauer’s extremely narrow victory (51.7% to 48.2%) reveals a party split down the middle.

But the post-Merkel era will be grappling with its fair share of challenges, many of which stem from political forces that loom large ahead of the next general elections scheduled for 2021. The rise of the AfD is a potential threat to German democracy, but it would be misleading to suggest that Germany is careening toward a populist abyss. The AfD has benefited in part from voter frustration with the two mainstream parties, the CDU and SPD, which traditionally alternated in government and opposition but have more recently ruled together in “grand coalitions.” This pattern has been especially harmful for the SPD, which ostensibly represents the working class but has lost touch with its ideology and base of support.

As a result, many voters, especially the younger generations, are now looking for different options. The AfD has received the most international media attention amid wider fears about right-wing nationalism, but the Green Party (Die Grünen) has also made tremendous gains and is positioned to become a powerhouse in German politics. The SPD will also need to reckon with its future direction. It has released a five-year plan that identifies pension and child care reforms, action on climate change, protection for tenants, and labor market reform as top priorities. The party wants to be seen as a home for working-class voters of both German and foreign origin. Olaf Scholz, the current vice chancellor and finance minister, is reportedly preparing to run for chancellor; however, to lead, the party must win back its base from the Greens and even from the AfD, which has also absorbed former SPD supporters.

Despite the CDU remaining the largest party, Klaus-Peter Willsch, the CDU’s representative in Hesse, told CNBC that recent regional elections there – which saw both the CDU and SPD bleeding support – were an indictment of the federal government and that no one is satisfied with the result. “This is a true hint that it is not a state policy but a federal policy problem we are facing — everyone could see our government is not performing,” he told CNBC’s Annette Weisbach on Sunday. “I hope that we have a new start. … They (the SPD) won a bit and we won a bit and no one is really happy with it.”

For Berlin, the result is another blow to an already fractious and fragile alliance. A similar election result was recorded in Bavarian state elections a few weeks ago and there is speculation that the SPD might jump ship as it sees voters punishing it for its association with the Merkel government.

Regarding foreign policy, there appears three candidates who are prone to developing different orientations. In the wake of renewed tensions between Russia and Ukraine, all three expressed a resigned antipathy toward Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline in the making that will transport Russian gas through the Baltic Sea (not a good idea, but probably no longer stoppable). All three pledged to strengthen the European Union and work toward a better trans-Atlantic relationship.

Arguably, the other alternative for a swift change of government would be a spontaneous relaunch of the “Jamaica” coalition (between the CDU/CSU, FDP and the Greens). But this could well remain FDP leader Christian Lindner’s pipedream. Following a rift between CDU and SPD, why should the Greens not press for new elections? Incidentally, either way, such elections could easily result in a peculiar irony: the first German government between the CDU/CSU and the Greens – united under Chancellor Merz.

Given that the CDU has held Germany’s chancellorship for 29 of the past 36 years, there is every possibility that Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK) will be the nation’s next elected leader. In combination with the Christian Social Union, its Bavarian sister party, the CDU commands the support of 30 per cent of the electorate, according to an opinion poll this week for the ARD network. According to the argument of political Swedish scientists Carl Dahlström and Anders Sundell, when a mainstream party moves toward a more restrictive immigration policy, this hurts the right-wing populist party. Colloquially, the logic is that the best way to stop the challenger is by stealing their thunder. Alternatively, the hypothesis also holds that when mainstream parties become more restrictive on immigration, it actually benefits the right-wing populist party. The logic here is that such a move increases the salience of the immigration issue and that ownership of the issue is difficult to wrest from the populists.

Sure, the AfD is not the Front National of the elder Le Pen’s era, and Germany is certainly not France, but anyone seeking to argue that Germany deviates from that fundamental logic should seriously consider the example of the recent Bavarian elections. While it was not the only factor in the Christian Social Union’s (CSU) disastrous result, Horst Seehofer’s efforts to appeal to immigration hardliners certainly did not present a promising precedent for campaigning in the rest of Germany. Whoever assumes the party’s leadership today, the road to a successful future for the CDU remains solidly Christian Democratic, not populist-lite.

Whoever is German chancellor, they will face some daunting foreign policy challenges over the long haul, as existing problems between the West and Russia cannot be solved by shooting from the hip. Forget about the idea of creating a common Greater European space from Lisbon to Vladivostok. The relationship can be progressively improved if Germany will stop seeing Russians as nothing but reluctant Europeans holding fast to their own standards and vision of the contemporary world. On the issue of Brexit, Angela Merkel said, “We have no intention of changing the Brexit deal.” That’s the common position of the 27 member states. So there’s no reason to expect any changes to come from the discussions. “Merkel rejected the accusation from the anti-EU far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that the Brexit deal finalized in November “punished” Britain for leaving the EU.

And of course, beyond Europe, Merkel is rightly seen as having been a person who worked reasonably well with Putin, probably because she has had espoused an understanding of Russia’s concerns about an EU and NATO that comes right up to its borders. Nevertheless, while examining Merkel, one finds that internationally, she is seen in both European and global affairs as having been a stable, calming influence in the volatile age of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who in their own ways have approached the global status quo with dissatisfaction. Compared to them, her approach has certainly been cautious, indeed often deliberately reactive. As for the future of the EU leadership in the post Merkel era, it seems obvious that Merkel would pass the EU’s helm to Macron, once seen as the European Obama. But during the year and a half of his presidency, he has shown that his ‘Jupiterian’ presidency is falling well short of expectations.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the authors are theirs alone and don’t reflect the official position of Geopoliticalmonitor.com or any other institution.

By Giriraj Bhattacharjee*

Two school going children, Ritu Raj Moran and Mantu Moran, hailing from Pensheri area of Tinsukia District, who had gone missing since December 4, 2018, are reported to have joined United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I).

In November 2018, a 16-years-old girl, Karishma Mech, hailing from the Lekhapani area in Tinsukia District reportedly joined ULFA-I.

In the same month, 24-years-old Munna Baruah, a nephew of ULFA-I ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Baruah, originally hailing from Dibrugarh District, reportedly joined the insurgent formation. Baruah went missing from the Digboi town of Tinsukia District where he was working as an apprentice at the Digboi Oil Refinery.

In November, 27-year-old Abhijit Gogoi, originally hailing from Tinsukia District, reportedly joined ULFA-I to “save the Assamese community”.

In October 2018, two persons, Chandra Buragohain and Pabitra Gogoi, hailing from Tinsukia District, is believed to have joined ULFA-I. News reports, however, claim that Pabitra Gogoi has returned. 

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least 11 persons have joined ULFA-I in 2018 (data till December 30, 2018). The exact number of such recruits, both in the District and the State, however, remain unknown. Assam Director General of Police (DGP) Kuladhar Saikia stated, in November 2018, “There are various numbers doing the rounds. Some say it is 30, while others claim it is 100. Whom to believe? We have asked our officers and the special branch to conduct an enquiry.” According to a December 10, 2018, report, State Police had identified 18 confirmed recruits from Tinsukia District over the last three years, of which eight had subsequently deserted the outfit. Another eight were arrested in November 2018 before they could leave for the rebel camps in Myanmar to join ULFA-I.

Nevertheless, Tinsukia District Superintendent of Police, Mugdhajyoti Dev Mahanta, observed, in November 2018,

These developments indicate that ULFA-I has gained some traction in recent months in the District, substantially due to the polarizing discourse on the ongoing project to update the National Register for Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016. The ULFA-I has successfully raked up the ‘Assamese nationalist’ sentiment to regain some influence and to mobilize small numbers of youth in upper Assam [the core Assamese speaking areas], comprising the Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Dhemaji, Golaghat, Charaideo, Lakhimpur, Majuli, Sivasagar, and Tinsukia Districts.

Tinsukia covers an area of 3,790 square kilometers in the eastern part of Assam. It shares borders with the last remaining hubs of militancy in the Northeast – five Districts of Arunachal Pradesh (East Siang, Lower Dibang valley, Lohit, Changlang and Tirap) and two Districts of Assam (Dibrugarh and Dhemaji). Two of these – Changlang and Tirap – share borders with Myanmar, which has for long served as a safe haven for major insurgent groups operating in the Northeastern region. The District is important in the insurgents’ schemes of things due to its strategic location.  DGP Kuladhar Saikia, while visiting Tinsukia District on May 5, 2018, had observed, “Militants use Arunachal Pradesh to enter Assam and very often are flushed back into Arunachal Pradesh during the operations here “.

The demography of the District adds to its vulnerabilities. Apart from Assamese and Bengali speakers, Tinsukia is home to around 15,000 Hindi-speaking families spread across 300 of the District’s 1,100 villages, originally hailing from what are now the States of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. About 4,000 Marwari families, principally a business community originally hailing from the Marwar-Shekhawati region of Rajasthan, are also present in the District. There is a perception of these ‘outsiders’ dominate the local economy and marginalize the ‘indigenous’ inhabitants. With ULFA-I’s polarizing efforts and warnings of attacks in the future, the District seems particularly susceptible.

ULFA-I’s ‘commander-in-chief’ Paresh Baruah had warned,

On October 13, 2018, ULFA-I militants detonated a low-intensity bomb in Guwahati in protest against the Union Government’s bid to pass the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, in Parliament. The blast left four persons injured. The proposed Bill is unpopular in the Assamese speaking areas of the State and also with the Tribals, as these groups fear that their political and economic rights will be hugely undermined if this Bill is passed. The Bill is intended to provide citizenship to illegal migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are of Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Parsi or Christian. The groups representing the interests of the indigenous communities claim that the Bill, once passed, would legitimize the present lot of illegal Hindu ‘Bangladeshis’ and also encourage future immigrants. ULFA-I’s uncompromising posture caters to this sentiment in order to increase its presence and regain its support amongst the locals in the State.

According to partial data compiled by SATP, Tinsukia District accounted for seven fatalities (five civilians, one trooper and one militant] in three incidents out of the total 20 fatalities (eight civilians, one trooper, and 11 militants] in 13 incidents recorded in the State in the current year (data till December 30, 2018). All the three incidents in the District were attributed to ULFA-I. The lone major incident (involving three or more killings) in the State, also took place in Tinsukia. On November 1, 2018, five Hindu Bengali daily-wage workers, including three of a family, were killed by suspected ULFA-I militants in Bisonimukh village, in Tinsukia District. ULFA-I was also responsible for two civilian fatalities in Charaideo District, the only other fatality linked to ULFA-I outside Tinsukia.

Much of the violence and threat of violence is tied up to extortion. A much weakened ULFA-I has intensified efforts to raise revenues to sustain the ‘movement’ and abductions have also been on the rise in the District, where ULFA-I retains a relatively stronger presence. On December 15, 2018, three suspected  ULFA-I militants abducted the owner of a cattle farm, Khem Bahadur Chetri (50), from Bagkhuli Chapori under Saikhowaghat Police Station in Tinsukia District. The abductors had demanded a ransom of INR 1.1 million for Chetri’s release. He was, however, rescued by Security Forces (SF) on December 19. Again, on November 19, 2018, ULFA-I cadres had abducted the caretaker of a stone-crushing plant, Apurba Kakoti, from Jagun in Tinsukia District. He was later released on November 27, 2018. On June 8, 2018, ULFA-I militants abducted the supervisor of a private tea estate at Jagun in Tinsukia District. He was subsequently released on June 25, 2018. In 2017, only one abduction incident had been recorded in the District, when a tea estate supervisor, identified as Sailyo Dahotia (40), was abducted by a six-member armed group, suspected to be ULFA-I militants, from Dihingia tea estate in the Kathalguri area in Tinsukia District on September 28, 2017. He was released on October 5, 2017. [Abduction and extortion are grossly under-reported, with individuals and families preferring to comply, often to reduced demands, of the rebel group].

Meanwhile, SFs have continued to crack down through 2018 and have arrested at least 30 militants, including 14 ULFA-I cadre, in the District. SF pressure also led to the surrender of six ULFA-I militants in the District through 2018. One surrender incident had been reported in 2017, in which one ULFA-I militant gave up arms before the Police.

The vulnerabilities of the Assam-Nagaland-Arunachal Pradesh borders and a rising volume of extremist content on social media are two principal areas that need urgent attention in Assam, and particularly in Tinsukia, if the ULFA-I’s efforts to restore a measure of its dominance are to be effectively countered.

*Giriraj Bhattacharjee
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

By Deepak Kumar Nayak*

On December 22, 2018, a Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadre was killed in an encounter between CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Maoists near Kolji Ghat in the Giddheshwar-Bariarpur Forest under the Khaira Police Station limits in Jamui District of Bihar. One AK-47 rifle and one self-loading rifle (SLR), along with a large number of live cartridges, were recovered from the encounter spot. The identity of the slain Maoist is yet to be ascertained.

On September 17, 2018, a Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) trooper, identified as Sikandar Yadav, was shot dead outside his home by the Maoists in Pondeythika village under Barhat Police Station limits in Jamui District. Sikandar was dragged out of his house and shot dead.

On August 13, 2018, CPI-Maoist cadres killed Chhotu Kumar (35), a street vendor by profession, slitting his throat, and threw his body strapped to two live bombs at the Chandra Mandi village under the Chandra Mandi Police Station limits in Jamui District. Chandra Mandi, Station House Officer (SHO), Hemant Kumar, and Sub-Inspector (SI), Narayan Thakur, along with four Policemen, received minor splinter injuries when one of the bombs went off while removing the body. Jamui Superintendent of Police (SP) J. Reddy disclosed, “The bomb-squad reached the site and successfully defused a live bomb wrapped on Chhotu’s body. But a second bomb went off while they were removing Chhotu’s body to send it to Jamui Sadar Hospital for post-mortem.”

According to partial data collated by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), at least eight fatalities, including five civilians, one trooper and two Maoists, were recorded in Jamui District in Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-linked violence in 2018 (data till December 30, 2018). Significantly, out of four Districts across Bihar from where LWE-linked fatalities have been recorded in the current year, Jamui has the dubious distinction of being the front-runner, with Gaya standing second with three fatalities (one civilian and two troopers), while Aurangabad, Lakhisarai and West Champaran recorded one such fatality each. The total number of such fatalities in such violence across Bihar in the current year stands at 14, including nine civilians, three Security Force personnel and two Maoists.

An overview of fatalities since the formation of the CPI-Maoist on September 21, 2004, shows that Jamui District has registered at least 98 Maoist-linked fatalities, including 62 civilians, 22 SF personnel, and 14 Maoists, roughly 14.24 per cent of the total of 688 fatalities, including 309 civilians, 191 SF personnel and 188Maoists, recorded in the State during this period (data till December 30, 2018). It is significant that Bihar, which was at one time the hotbed of Maoist insurgency, contributed just 8.53 per cent of total Maoist-linked fatalities across the country over the period (data till December 30, 2018). Total fatalities across India during this period was 8,062 (3,166 civilians, 1,999 SF personnel and 2,897 Maoists), with Bihar accounting for 688 (309 civilians, 191 SF personnel and 188 Maoists). In the current year, with 14 fatalities (nine civilians, three SF personnel and two Maoists), 3.38 per cent of the total of 413 fatalities (109 civilians, 73 SF personnel and 231 Maoists) across the country in 2018, the State is grappling with the remnants of the insurgency, especially in Jamui.

Out of 45 Districts across eight States from where Maoist-linked fatalities have been recorded in the current year, Jamui was the 11^thworst, with eight fatalities; preceded by Sukma (Chhattisgarh) with 89; Bijapur (Chhattisgarh) with 70; Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) with 58; Dantewada (Chhattisgarh) with 34; Narayanpur and Rajnandgaon (Chhattisgarh) with 15 each; Kanker (Chhattisgarh) and Latehar (Jharkhand) with 11 each; Malkangiri (Odisha) with 10; and Palamu (Jharkhand) with nine fatalities.

Worryingly, civilians have borne the maximum brunt of LWE violence in Jamui. According to SATP data, five civilians have already been killed in the current year [data till December 30], with the August 13 incident (above) the latest such atrocity. The number of civilian fatalities in the District in 2017 totalled seven. Since the formation of CPI-Maoist, 62 civilians have been killed in the Jamui District, 20.06 per cent of the 309 civilian deaths in the State over this period.

Significantly, the District has recorded a lone SF fatality thus far in 2018. There was no SF killing through 2017. The last SF killing was reported on July 4, 2014, when a CRPF official, Hira Kumar Jha, the second-in-command of the CRPF base in Jamui, and a CPI-Maoist cadre, were killed in an exchange of fire around the Lakharia Forest region. Since the formation of the CPI-Maoist, a total of 22 SF personnel have died in Jamui District, 11.51 per cent of the 322 SF fatalities in Bihar over this period.

Since the formation of CPI-Maoist, the overall kill ratio has been favour significantly adverse for the SFs, at 1.57:1 (data till December 30, 2018). However, the ratio favours the SFs in the current year at 1:2.

The Maoists have also orchestrated a range of violent incidents in Jamui, other than killings, to make their presence felt. Since the formation of CPI-Maoist, the Jamui District has recorded at least 13 incidents of attack on railways, resulting in the killing of seven SF personnel (all data till December 30, 2018). The Maoists have also carried out at least 24 incidents of abduction in which at least 90 persons were abducted, of whom 15 were killed and others subsequently released after ‘warnings’; 11 incidents of arson targeting road construction activities; 22 incidents of explosion, which resulted in the killing of two civilians.

Jamui District, carved out from the erstwhile Munger District on February 21, 1991, covers a geographical area of 3,122.80 square kilometres, of which 21.28 per cent, around 664.53square kilometres, is under forest cover. The District shares its borders with Munger and Lakhisarai Districts towards the north, the Giridih District of Jharkhand to the south, Deoghar District of Jharkhand and Banka of Bihar towards the east, and Nawada District of Bihar to the west. All these Districts, with the exception of Deogarh in Jharkhand, are Left Wing Extremism-affected. Jamui is also listed among the 30 worst Naxal (LWE)-affected Districts, along with another three in Bihar (Aurangabad, Gaya, and Lakhisarai), identified by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) in 2018.

According to a December 23, 2018report, Inspector General (Operations) Kundan Krishnan, who heads anti-Maoist operations in Bihar, stated,

There is widespread under-development, poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy in the District. Predictably, Jamui ranks towards the bottom – 587^th among the 599 Districts across India, according to the “District Development and Diversity Index Report for India and Major States,” a joint survey conducted by the US-India Policy Institute (USIPI) and the Centre for Research and Debates in Development Policy (CRDDP), New Delhi. The report of the survey, which took composite development — measured in terms of economic development and the indices of health, education and material well-being – into consideration, was released on January 29, 2015. Further, Parliament was informed on August 2, 2018, that Jamui was among 116 Districts in the country identified by NITI Aayog as ‘Aspirational Districts’, selected on the basis of a composite index which includes published data on deprivation enumerated under the Socio-Economic Caste Census, Health & Nutrition, Education and Basic Infrastructure, with the aim of promoting access, equity and quality, as well as central assistance to States. This includes assistance for the creation of one Model Degree College each in 60 Educationally Backward Districts (EBDs). Earlier, on April 2, 2018, NITI Aayog had released a list of 117 ‘Backward’ Districts across India, which includes Jamui.

In order to boost development in Jamui and other Maoist-affected Districts of the State, according to a June 20, 2018, report, the State Cabinet approved INR 12.29 billion for acquisition of land, utility shifting, environmental clearance and other work related to construction of 865 Kilometers of roads and small bridges in five Maoist hit Districts of Aurangabad, Gaya, Jamui, Banka and Muzaffarpur. Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Upendra Nath Pandey disclosed,

Clearly, the Maoist threat lingers on in Jamui, but has seen a significant waning. Continued SF pressure, combined with sustained development initiatives, particularly in the sphere of improved connectivity, will help address the residual problem.

*Deepak Kumar Nayak
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The mainstream press coverage of President Trump’s announcement that he would be removing US troops from Syria has been unanimously apocalyptic. Journos who until a few days ago couldn’t care less about the Kurds (certainly not when US president after US president has used them as a cat’s paw and then abandoned them to their fate), were all of a sudden up in arms warning about an impending slaughter with the blood dripping squarely onto Trump’s hands.

In fact, US weapons, training, and backing had carved out a de facto super-sized Kurd-controlled section of northern Syria which it does not take a geopolitical expert to understand would incense NATO ally Turkey. Why prop up the Kurds and in the process infuriate Erdogan? The US-led regime-change program simply did not have many other boots on the ground to turn to.

After years of arming jihadists whose masks slipped quickly thereafter to reveal al-Qaeda or ISIS markings, the game was up for the “Assad must go” crowd and the only move left was to pretend that a proxy Kurd militia was something called the “Syrian Democratic Forces.” When in fact it was nothing of the sort. It was simply the Kurds, rented by Washington.

And the bloodbath the media and neocons warned would come about should Trump dare reconsider another US forever war? More lies and bluster. The Kurds are re-considering their foolish refusal to partner more closely with the Syrian government against foreign-sponsored insurgencies. Just last week, they began negotiations with Damascus to reconcile and forestall a massive Turk incursion.

But the Kurds acting in their own best interest is a big problem for the neocons. Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has given himself credit for slowing Trump’s announced withdrawal from Syria, has gone on record claiming  it would be a “major disaster” if the Kurds in Syria aligned themselves with the Syrian (aka their own) government. To Graham and his neocon cohort, the US can never leave any war. Undeclared wars are just fine with them, but declared peace is a “major disaster.”

Which brings us back to public opinion. With the neocons clogging up the airwaves with predictions of gloom and doom if the US ends its illegal occupation of Syria and with the mainstream media in its continuing Pravda-esque lock-step when it comes to the US global military empire, something quite remarkable has happened: the American people are happy that Trump plans to bring the troops home.

According to a recent poll, more than half of Americans surveyed support the removal of US troops from Syria and Afghanistan.

Overseas, support for President Trump’s moves is also significant. The Baroness Caroline Cox of the UK House of Lords, has sent President Trump a letter, with former UK Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford, and on behalf of a network of “concerned parliamentarians, senior clerics, former ambassadors and academics,” congratulating the president on his announced pull-out.

The Baroness writes:

Your courage in doing the right thing, in the face of conflicting advice and an onslaught from ill-informed politicians, a blinkered media and brittle allies, commands respect. We salute you.

The letter continues with a call for the end of US sanctions on Syria, which, she writes “only hobble its economy, hamper refugee return, cause mass unemployment, hinder recovery and create conditions for a re-emergence of ISIS.”

She warns Trump that there’s nothing his critics (like Lindsey Graham) would like more than a resurgence of ISIS in the areas left by US troops so as to make Trump look wrong in withdrawing. An end of sanctions would help strengthen the Syrian government and better enable it to fight against ISIS. 

Let’s hope President Trump heeds the wise counsel of very engaged experts like Baroness Cox. Perhaps next time Sen. Graham demands a meeting to harangue Trump on a troop pull-out he can beg off. Let Graham and Bolton stew in their own juices in some West Wing broom closet. Better yet…maybe Trump should consider some additional personnel changes…

This article was published by RonPaul Institute

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November responded to calls to hold early elections by saying such a move would be a “historic mistake.” A few weeks later, he spoke with exaggerated confidence of the “unanimous” agreement of his right-wing coalition that early elections must be held in April. So why the change of heart?

Netanyahu may not be a good leader, but he is certainly a cunning politician. The fact that he is bidding for a fifth term at the helm of Israel’s fractious political scene speaks volumes of his ability to survive against the odds.

But it is not all about Netanyahu and his clever ways. Israeli politics are truly dismal. The left, if it ever earned such a title, is marginal, if not entirely irrelevant. The center lacks any real political identity or decipherable discourse concerning, for example, foreign policy or a true vision for peace and coexistence. The right, which now defines Israeli society as a whole, has moved further to the right and is saturated in religious zeal and ultranationalism, while some of its parties are flirting with outright fascism.

As strange as this may sound, in the company of Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the recently resigned Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu is not the most extreme.

Indeed, as per Israel’s Orwellian politics, nothing is what it seems.

Netanyahu is now paying the price for his overconfidence. The right-wing creature that he has so diligently created to quash his enemies has grown so powerful and unhinged that even the prime minister himself can no longer control political outcomes. The once-unchallenged Israeli leader has grown too comfortable with power. And his family has become too accustomed to the good life. His wife is now standing trial for corruption and misuse of public funds.

In early December, police recommended for the third time that Netanyahu be charged with fraud, accepting bribes and breach of trust. Between direct involvement in the massive corruption racket that his office has espoused, and the dirty dealings of his own circle of aides and profiteers, the Israeli leader is no longer untouchable.

Netanyahu’s sense of safety has always been buttressed by his good standing in opinion polls. Even now, his numbers are still relatively high. His Likud party would still win an election — claiming 30 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, according to polls — if the vote was held today. In fact, this is precisely why Netanyahu had the change of heart and succumbed to mounting pressure from Bennett, among other dissatisfied right-wingers.

His hands are getting tied in Syria thanks to Russia’s strong rejection of Israel’s incessant bombing of the war-torn country. His movement in Gaza has also become restricted due to the botched attack on the besieged strip in November.

Gaza was a place where Israeli politicians could freely flex their muscles, punishing the trapped population of that tiny region either with a customary war or a routine bombardment. But Netanyahu has failed on that front as well, as the Gaza resistance repelled that recent Israeli commando attack and forced Tel Aviv into an Egyptian-sponsored truce. A mere 48 hours later, Lieberman resigned in protest, further contributing to the growing stigma among Israeli officials from all parties that their leader was “weak” and was “defeated” by Hamas.

Still his coalition survived, but not for much longer. A razor-thin majority of a single Knesset member kept the once-powerful coalition alive in Parliament. Bennett and others suddenly had the key to the Likud-led coalition’s survival and to Netanyahu’s own political fate. Thus, Netanyahu opted for early elections, hoping for an easy victory and yet another right-wing coalition, where he would have greater maneuverability and command greater respect.

Since the centrist and left-wing parties have already proved to be worthless, Netanyahu is now counting on their ongoing failure to appeal to Israeli society.

Elections will be held on April 9 — nearly eight months before they were originally scheduled — as announced on Dec. 24 by Speaker of the Knesset Yuli-Yoel Edelstein. Considering Netanyahu’s increasing misfortunes, eight months would be too long to maintain his electability. In fact, nearly half of Israelis already see him as a corrupt leader.

According to the same calculations, early elections in April will not be long enough for a capable contender to emerge from either the right or the political wreckage of the center and left to finally dethrone the king of Israel. However, this too might prove to be wishful thinking. 

Within days of Edelstein’s announcement, Bennett and Shaked declared the formation of their own new party. The leaders of the Jewish Home are now the leaders of the New Right. While this is seen as a major challenge to Netanyahu within his right-wing constituency, it is also an early sign of the fragmentation of the right itself. 

But that’s not all. Another Benjamin — Benjamin “Benny” Gantz — is hoping to change the Israeli political paradigm entirely. The ex-general has served in several wars against Gaza, on the Israel-Syria front, and was the Israel Defense Forces’ 20th chief of general staff.

With an unclear, thus untainted, political outlook and a bloody war record, it would be tough for Netanyahu to diminish Gantz’s reputation among Israelis. In Israel, “killing Arabs” is always an incentive at the polls. Although the army man-turned-politician is being perceived as a center-leftist, he clearly wants to start anew. Last week, Gantz launched his own political party, Hosen Yisrael (Resilience of Israel).

With little, if any, political campaigning, the new party would be predicted to win 15 seats in the Knesset if elections were held today. This says much about Israelis’ lack of faith in the existing center-left political elites, but also about the serious challenge that the right, with all of its strands, should expect if the pendulum continues to swing.

For now, Netanyahu’s strategy is likely to focus on gaining as much new political capital as possible, while taking as few risks as possible. But, with his enemies gaining momentum, police investigations closing in, the fracturing of the right and the rise of an electable centrist, Netanyahu the survivalist might become a liability to his own party, which could, at last, usher in the end of his political career.

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit that alleged Google’s nonconsensual use of facial recognition technology violated users’ privacy rights, allowing the tech giant to continue to scan and store their biometric data.

The lawsuit, filed in 2016, alleged that Google violated Illinois state law by collecting biometric data – as biologically unique to users as fingerprints – without their consent. The data was harvested from their pictures stored on Google Photos.

The plaintiffs wanted more than $5 million in damages for “hundreds of thousands” of users affected, arguing that the unauthorized scanning of their faces was a violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, which completely outlaws the gathering of biometric information without consent.

Google countered that the plaintiffs were not entitled to any compensation, as they had not been harmed by the data collection. On Saturday, US District Judge Edmond E. Chang sided with the tech giant, ruling that the plaintiffs had not suffered any “concrete harm,” and dismissing the suit.

As well as allowing Google to continue the practice, the ruling could have implications for other cases pending against Facebook and Snapchat. Both companies are currently being sued for violating the Illinois act.

Amid rising alarm from privacy activists, biometric scanning has become ever more ubiquitous in recent years. The technology has been deployed at American airports, Russian subways, and by British police – despite being unreliable and unregulated in most jurisdictions.

Facial recognition can be used to identify faces in crowds from CCTV footage, track the movements of people on public transport networks, and monitor public places for wanted criminals. In Ireland, the technology has found a more quaint and less Orwellian use, where it is used to track and monitor the moo-vements of dairy cows.

The suspect in the stabbing of three people on New Year’s Eve in Manchester was being held under mental health laws, British police said Tuesday.

Manchester police, however, said in a statement they were continuing to investigate the attack because of suspected terrorism links.

A suspect, whose identity has not been disclosed, has been detained on suspicion of attempted murder, police said. He has not been charged.

Police released no other details, but said the suspect’s home was being searched late Tuesday.

“There is nothing to suggest the involvement of other people in this attack, but confirming this remains a main priority for the investigation,” police said in a statement, adding the counterterrorism probe “remains ongoing.”

A witness to the attack, BBC producer Sam Clack, recalled, “I just heard the guy shout, as part of a sentence, ‘Allah.’ “

“I heard the man say, ‘As long as you keep bombing these countries this is going to keep happening,’ ” Clack told BBC 5 Live radio, according to a Reuters report.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said intelligence suggests there is not a wider threat but that additional police would patrol the streets to reassure the public.

Two of the victims were treated at a local hospital for knife wounds. The third victim was a police officer, who was treated in a hospital for a stab wound to the shoulder and released.

Victoria Station is located near Manchester Arena, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

Britain’s threat level is “severe,” the second-highest level, meaning an attack is considered highly likely.

India’s Ambassador to Iran Saurabh Kumar said the two countries are set to begin banking transactions in coming days as New Delhi has agreed to grant tax exemption to banks trading with Tehran.

During a meeting in Tehran on Monday evening, Kumar and Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdonnaser Hemmati exchanged views on the latest situation of banking and trade relations between the two countries. 

Kumar said the financial mechanism between the two countries has been prepared, adding that the two sides will carry out their banking activities in the coming days on the basis of the Indian government’s tax exemption.

At the meeting, the two officials also discussed ways to facilitate banking affairs and Indian investments in Iran’s port city of Chabahar.

In 2016, India entered into a trilateral treaty with Iran and Afghanistan to develop a new transportation corridor connecting the three countries and other Central Asian Countries via the Chabahar Port.

Chabahar provides India with an easier land-sea route to Afghanistan. In November 2017, India sent its first cargo of wheat to Afghanistan through Chabahar in what appeared to be a run dry of a multi-modal connectivity route. The cargo was shipped from India’s western port of Kandla, unloaded at Chabahar and eventually taken to Afghanistan’s Nimroz province by trucks.