By Andrew Hammond*

A new poll suggests that 75 percent of French people are unhappy with the way President Emmanuel Macron is running the country. This underlines the fact that he has been weakened by the so-called “yellow vest” demonstrations, and the key question in 2019 will be whether he can recover some of his formerly sky-high political popularity.

The answer matters not only to France but also Europe and the world at large, given that Macron has emerged as perhaps the most authoritative defender of the liberal international order during his short period in office. Indeed, the French president and his US counterpart Donald Trump currently embody, more than any other democratic leaders, the present “battle” in international relations between an apparently rising populist tide and the liberal center ground. It is a conflict that will continue to play out in 2019.

Macron’s victory in 2017 against Trump’s preferred far-right National Front candidate Marine Le Pen was so striking because it defied the march of populism in numerous countries that had caused parties of the left and center ground sometimes to take a political battering. Macron’s win appeared to represent at least a partial turnaround in fortunes — in Europe at least — for center-ground politics.

From the perspective of French domestic politics, a critical question for Macron in 2019 will be whether the yellow vest protests have extinguished his program of economic reforms. These changes were thrown into doubt after the president announced in December that he had backtracked on a fuel tax hike and gave billions of pounds in aid in an attempt to end several weeks of protests.

In his New Year address, Macron said that the reforms will continue, while admitting that his government “can do better” at improving the lives of citizens across the nation. Yet, many yellow vest protesters are still angry and continue to call for him to leave office.

Last week’s poll compares bleakly for Macron with one from April 2018 when “only” 59 percent of those surveyed were unhappy with the government. The most recent poll also found that the top priority for the French populace is finding ways to boost consumer purchasing power.

The poll, and the continuing protests, underline the volatility of the political mood in France which, ironically, helped propel Macron’s meteoric rise to power in 2017. It was this similar anti-establishment political sentiment that moved the country into uncharted territory by ensuring his En Marche! party — which was only founded in April 2016 — not only won the presidency, but also handsomely won the legislative ballots with one of the biggest majorities since former president Charles de Gaulle’s 1968 landslide victory.

In this continuing volatile context, the outlook is highly uncertain for the remainder of Macron’s presidency. Although a majority of voters decided to favor hope (Macron) over anger (Le Pen) in 2017, the tide could potentially now turn decisively against him if he fails to address the anti-establishment anger, fueled by economic pain caused by the country suffering years of double-digit unemployment and also low growth, which pre-dates his presidency.

Part of the challenge here for Macron, the youngest president in the six-decade history of the French Fifth Republic, has been the very high initial expectations surrounding his presidency. He will be acutely aware how early optimism during the preceding presidencies of Nicholas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande fizzled out, with both ultimately becoming unpopular, single-term heads of state. Indeed, Hollande — who became the least popular president since records began — decided not even to seek re-election, the first incumbent not to try for a second term in the Fifth Republic.

The stakes in play are so high because given voter discontent with the Republicans and the Socialists, if Macron fails with his political program the primary beneficiaries of popular discontent about him might well be extreme, anti-establishment figures such as Le Pen. Although comprehensively beaten by Macron in 2016, she nonetheless secured more than 40 percent of the vote and is young enough to run, potentially, in several more presidential elections.

To regain the political initiative in this context, and become a powerful contender for a second term of office, Macron needs to rebuild public confidence in his policy agenda. During his election campaign, he showed that politicians of the liberal center ground often benefit from having an optimistic, forward-looking vision for tackling complex, long-term policy challenges such as stagnant living standards, and re-engaging people with the political process, to help build public confidence around solutions to them.

Tackling such tough-to-solve, first-order challenges in this context is a significant hurdle that centrist politicians across much of the world are widely perceived to have failed on, which has helped to give rise to perceptions of a broken political process.

To get back on the front foot, Macron will need to skillfully show again how fair, tolerant, inclusive democratic politics can help overcome or ameliorate the challenges that many people are experiencing in a world that is changing fast in the face of globalization.

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

(RFE/RL) — The Iranian Navy will send warships to the Atlantic Ocean after March, a top commander said.

Iran is looking to increase the operating range of its naval forces in the Atlantic, close to the waters of the United States, its arch enemy.

Tehran sees the presence of U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, along Iran’s coast, as a security concern and its navy has looked to counter that by showing its naval presence near U.S. waters.

“The Atlantic Ocean is far and the operation of the Iranian naval flotilla might take five months,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Rear-Admiral Touraj Hassani, Iran’s naval deputy commander, as saying.

Hassani said the move was intended to “thwart Iranophobia plots” and “secure shipping routes.”

He said Sahand, a newly-built destroyer, would be one of the warships deployed.

Sahand has a flight deck for helicopters and Iran says it is equipped with antiaircraft and anti-ship guns, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, and also has electronic warfare capabilities.

The vessels are expected to dock in a friendly South American country such as Venezuela, Iran’s Fars news agency reported.

Hassani said in December that Iran would soon send two to three vessels on a mission to Venezuela, an ally.

Iran’s navy has extended its reach in recent years, launching vessels in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden to protect Iranian ships from Somali pirates.

Historians are often rightly accused of carrying contemporary ideas and values back into the past and using them inappropriately to evaluate actors and institutions of bygone days. The presumption in this accusation is that historians know a lot about their own times and relatively little about former times. But such need not be the case.

I remember reading long ago a collection of essays by the distinguished political and intellectual historian of 16th and 17th century Britain J. H. Hexter. In the book’s introduction, Hexter notes how much he is at home in those remote times and how relatively ignorant and unaware he is of the times in which he was living. He simply had devoted much more time and effort to the long ago and far away than he had to informing himself about his own times and circumstances.

I often feel the same way, especially in regard to popular culture. When I hear people refer to contemporary actors, entertainers, and athletes, I often say to myself, Who are these people? Even more so for “celebrities,” people who have done nothing, but are famous for being famous. I’m pretty sure I know more about Grover Cleveland and his presidential administrations than I know about Donald Trump and his. And I have no doubt that I know more about the U.S. economy of the period 1865-1950 than I know about the current U.S. economy.

One really can live in the past. Indeed, it’s what historians are supposed to do.

This article was published by The Beacon.

By Dr Subhash Kapila

Russia-India relationship beyond 2018 in terms of perspectives does not offer the same optimism and generate the same fizz as it did till before the disintegration of the Former Soviet Union. Geopolitically and in terms of strategic embrace, Russia at turn of Millennium swung towards China and India moved strategically closer to the United States. The reverse swing by both Russia and China was both geopolitical and geostrategic.

In 2018 despite the Sochi Summit between Russian President Putin and Indian PM Modi in mid-2018 and the flying visit of President Putin to New Delhi in October 2018, notwithstanding, the elevation of the Russia-India Strategic Partnership to one of “Special Strategic Partnership”, the perspectives have not acquired any special or privileded contours or hues suggesting that Russia and India are moving closer to reclaim the earlier fervour of the Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty. That is history now.

The crucial question that needs analysis is that whether it was Russia or India that made the opening moves in moving away strategically from each other in opposite directions?

Contextually, the reversal in Russia-India relations needs to be viewed in relation to the major events of the 1990s.The Former Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 and consequently stood displaced from its Superpower status in a bipolar world. Russia confronted by United States as the unipolar Superpower with Cold War mindsets continuing and geopolitically and economically weakened turned towards China which offered multi-billion dollars energy contracts and arms supplies.

The period 2001-2010 witnessed the solidifying of the Russia-China Strategic nexus brought about major strategic convergences developing in relation to the United States. Russia need economic resuscitation and China needed additional existential power of the former Superpower albeit diminished.

The growing strategic nexus of Russia with India’s prime military threat, that is China, seemed to have woken up the Indian policy establishment in its quest for an alternative countervailing power. Fortunately for India at this stage it had a non-Dynasty Congress Prime Minister, PM Narasimha Rao who initiated a complete reversal of India’s foreign policy and economic liberalisation directions.

United States and India were drawn together at his juncture by strong strategic convergences in relation to China’s militaristic rise. The first decade of 21^st Century witnessed the first steps in the evolution of strategic proximity between United Sates and India.

In 2018, geopolitically, India is on an ascendant power trajectory, both strategically and economically. India is now an active partner of the United States in terms of the putting together of the US-led Indo Pacific Security Template. India along with Japan is viewed as one of the two pillars of Asian Security, and as an existential counterweight to China’s rising power.

So how does one describe Russia-India relationship in 2018? How does one describe Russia’s change in its South Asian policies by gravitating towards Pakistan? Can Russia in terms of future perspectives be expected to de-link itself from its Strategic Nexus with China?

Russia-India relationship in 2018 does not suggest that it has evolved into a ‘Special Strategic Partnership’ going by Russia’s stances on global and Asian security issues. In my assessment Russia-India relationship today is basically confined to an arms supplier relationship which is more of a limited commercial relationship. Russia gets good Indian money for Russian arms supplies to India and India gets some advanced technology weapon systems which other sources cannot supply.

Presently, to me, it seems that Russia and India geopolitically have adopted ‘hedging strategies’ catering for eventualities where China may swing once again towards the United States and India caters for some unpredictability in US geopolitical stances.

Russia further widened the fault lines in Russia-India relationship under the influence of Russian Presidential Adviser Zamir Kabulov in gravitating towards Pakistan in terms of South Asian policy formulations especially on Afghanistan. Russia may have intended it to be only political signalling to India peeved by growing US-India strategic ties. But a damaging dent was inflicted by Russia on Indian public opinion, if not on Indian policy establishment.

Russia’s above misperceived political signalling to India worsens further when Indians perceive it to be coincident with China’s strategic moves to reinforce Pakistan as a counterweight to India in South Asia.

Can Russia in terms of future perspectives be expected to de-link itself from China and the Russia-China Strategic Nexus? This is a complex question as it brings into play not only Russia-India equations but also Russia-US equations and China-US equations.

Geopolitical compulsions currently in play and likely to persist, offer no indicators that Russia would be inclined or even seriously consider resetting its China policy or jettisoning its commitment to the continuance of the Russia-China Strategic Nexus. Russia has persisted in sticking to this Nexus in the years when strategic analysts were designating that Russia had accepted a junior partnership with China.  In 2018, Russia despite its resurgence and reclaiming its Great Power status still persists with this geopolitically expedient relationship with China.

The above perspective cannot be ignored by India in terms of its foreign policy formulations right upto a mid-term time frame. This perspective in terms of geopolitical power-play places Russia firmly allied with China—-a country in an adversarial confrontation with India. Russia has not made even a semblance of an attempt to soften China’s covert and overt strategies adversely affecting Indian national security interests. Worse, China has managed to inveigle Russia into changing its decades old South Asian policies  to now cavort with India’s other ‘enemy state’ that is Pakistan.

Even that would have been understandable in India but how should India read Russia’s intentions when it has commenced arms sales to Pakistan which in any case China was already doing massively. Russia fully well knows that all offensive armaments supplies to Pakistan enhance Pakistan’s war-waging capabilities against India. Today’s press reports are more disconcerting where Russia is discussing a massive sale of T-90 tanks to Pakistan with Pakistani requirements being quoted as 400 tanks.

Surely, none of the above actions of Russia qualifies it to be eligible for a Special Privileged Strategic Partnership with India? When Russia still continues to look at India with prospects of arms sales to India concurrently only goes to prove my contention that the Russia-India relationship stands reduced to a commercial relationship defined by arms sales and surely with no strategic or geopolitical underpinnings. It further reinforces my contention that Russia’s current relationship with India is just a mere Russian ‘Hedging Strategy’ more impelled by India’s growing geopolitical stature.

In light of the above discussion, what are India’s options?  Can India tear itself away from its existing but frayed relationship with Russia? What will be the strategic costs of India tearing itself away from its decade’s old relationship with Russia?  What can induce Russia to devalue its Strategic Nexus with China?

India cannot tear itself away fully from its defence supplies relationship with Russia simply because of the fact that Indian military inventories though not predominantly of Russian origin, there is still a dependency of about sixty percent. Presumably, it will take a decade or so before this dependency figures change. Till then, in the absence of any strategic underpinnings or of any ‘special friendship prices’ Russia-India relationship would continue as a purely commercial arms/arms spares supplies.

Strategic costs can only accrue if in 2018 if the Russia-India Special Privileged Strategic Partnership was weighted heavily with great strategic gains for India in the Asian power-play or Russia giving unstinted strategic support to India on global issues. That sort of strategic fizz of yore is absent. The benefit of doubt could have been given by India as it was being done till about a couple of years back when Russia commenced its flirtation with Pakistan. 

Russia’s confirmed high-technology armaments sale to Pakistan implicitly coveys an unambiguous message to India that Russia has no qualms in building-up the war waging capacities of Pakistan intended for use against India. Russia joining the China-Pakistan-Russia Trilateral on Afghanistan also severely impinges on India’s national security stakes in Afghanistan.

India is in no position to induce Russia to move away from its Strategic Nexus with China. Even if India reverses gears to move back fully to the Russian orbit, even then, Russia would not dispense with its commitments to the Russia-China Nexus.

The major inducement for Russia to move away from the Russia-China Strategic Nexus has to originate from the United States. If the United States resets its Russia-policy formulations by giving up Cold War mindsets predominating Washington policy processes and United States concedes to endow the earlier geopolitical equivalence of Russia’s power status wrongly endowed on China, then there is hope that Russia may be induced to dispense wish its Strategic Nexus with China.

While on the subject of Russia-India relationship in terms of post-2018 perspectives, one cannot escape not analysing that in the decade to come would a restored original flavour of Russia-India Friendship Treaty strategically outweigh the burgeoning US-India Strategic Partnership? In my considered assessment the proximity that stands accrued both in terms of geopolitical value and strategic and military content, the future perspectives suggest that India would be wise in building additional high-value blocks in the US-India Strategic Partnership. This is realities that will persist despite any passing ambiguities that may occur.

The evidence of the above assertion is borne out when the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act was passed both by the US senate and the House if Representatives. It endows a US bipartisan recognition of India’s Major Power role in Asian Security and Indo Pacific Security while castigating China for its demonstrated aggressive record.

Concluding, it needs to be observed that while Russia cannot be completely taken off from India’s geopolitical radar, it cannot be invested with grandly exaggerated contours of strategic gains for India where none exist. Nor can India extend the excuse that it would be unwise in placing all its strategic eggs in one basket.  It would also be unwise for India to exploit the faded Russia-India relationship for political signalling to the United States in moments of US ambiguities.

Diabetes is caused by damaged or non-existing insulin cells inability to produce insulin, a hormone that is necessary in regulating blood sugar levels. Many diabetes patients take insulin supplements to regulate these levels.

In collaboration with other international researchers, researchers at the University of Bergen have, discovered that glucagon.producing cells in the pancreas, can change identity and adapt so that they do the job for their neighbouring damaged or missing insulin cells.

“We are possibly facing the start of a totally new form of treatment for diabetes, where the body can produce its own insulin, with some start-up help,” says Researcher Luiza Ghila at the Raeder Research Lab, Department of Clinical Science, University of Bergen (UiB).

Cells can change identity

The researchers discovered that only about 2 per cent the neighbouring cells in the pancreas could change identity. However, event that amount makes the researchers are optimistic about potential new treatment approaches.

For the first time in history, researchers were able to describe the mechanisms behind the process of cell identity. It turns out that this is not at passive process, but is a result of signals from the surrounding cells. In the study, researchers were able to increase the number of insulin producing cells to 5 per cent, by using a drug that influenced the inter-cell signalling process. Thus far, the results have only been shown in animal models.

“If we gain more knowledge about the mechanisms behind this cell flexibility, then we could possibly be able to control the process and change more cells’ identities so that more insulin can be produced, ” Ghila explains.

Possible new treatment against cell death

According to the researchers, the new discoveries is not only good news for diabetes treatment.

“The cells´ ability to change identity and function, may be a decisive discovery in treating other diseases caused by cell death, such as Alzheimer´s disease and cellular damage due to heart attacks”, says Luiza Ghila.

Facts: Pancreas

• There are three different types of cells in the pancreas: alpha-cells, beta-cells and delta-cells. These produce different kinds of hormones for blood sugar regulation.
• The cells make clusters. Alpha-cells produce glucagon, which increases the blood sugar levels. Beta-cells produce insulin, which decreases glucagon levels. Delta-cells produce somatostatin, which controls the regulation of the Alpha and Beta Cells.
• Persons with diabetes have a damaged beta-cell function, and therefore have constant high blood sugar levels.

Up to 15 million hectares of tropical rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon could lose protection and be clear-cut because of an article in the country’s new Forest Code.

The warning comes from Brazilian researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP) and Swedish researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. They recently published a paper on the subject in Nature Sustainability. The study was derived from a project supported by São Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP.São Paulo Research Foundation.

“The 15 million hectares that could become deprotected as a result of this rule in the new Forest Code are roughly equivalent to the entire legal reserve deficit that needs to be offset or restored in Brazil, and they consist mainly of tropical rainforest,” Gerd Sparovek , a professor at ESALQ-USP and a coauthor of the paper, told.

“Loss of these areas to agriculture could nullify the effort to regularize legal reserves in Brazil and result in huge losses of biodiversity, impair ecosystem services of great value to society, such as water supply, and increase greenhouse gas emissions.”

Sparovek explained that until 2012, the Forest Code required private landowners in the Amazon region to set aside 80% of their property with native vegetation intact in what the law terms a “legal reserve”.

Now, however, under Article 12 (5), added at Amapá State’s request when the Forest Code was amended and updated in 2012, any state in the Amazon region is allowed to reduce the legal reserve requirement from 80% to 50% if conservation units and indigenous reservations account for more than 65% of its territory.

If the article is implemented, between 7 million and 15 million hectares of forest will be deprotected and could be legally cut down, according to the researchers. This computation accounts for the fact that states such as Amazonas, Roraima, Acre, and Amapá consist mostly of primary forest and have some 80 million hectares of undesignated public land.

If conservation units and indigenous reservations are created on this public land, the law will allow private landowners in these states to reduce their legal reserves, opening up large areas for legal logging and agricultural expansion.

“The removal of legal protection doesn’t automatically mean these forest areas will be clear-cut, but it’s important to pay attention to this in the current political context, which suggests a weakening of deforestation prevention mechanisms,” said Flávio Luiz Mazzaro de Freitas, a PhD researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and first author of the paper.

Scenario modeling

To assess the possible impact of a reduction in the legal reserve requirement to protect forest areas equivalent to 50% instead of 80% of public and private lands in the Amazon, the researchers used a georeferenced database for the entire country with land tenure datasets including official statistics for national and state conservation units, indigenous reservations and military land, as well as rural property and settlement databases maintained by the National Land Reform Institute (INCRA) and the Rural Environmental Register (CAR).

Using this georeferenced database, housed in the Euler computer cluster at the Center for Mathematical Sciences Applied to Industry – CeMEAI, one of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers – RIDCs supported by FAPESP, the researchers modeled the implementation of Article 12 (5) of the new Forest Code under two different scenarios for the use of undesignated land in the Amazon.

They termed the first land use scenario conservative in the sense that it assumed a high priority for nature conservation. The second scenario assumed full implementation of the new legal provision and was termed a worst-case scenario from the standpoint of protecting nature.

The researchers quantified the potential reduction in forest protection under these two scenarios. They also assessed the risk of legal conversion of deprotected forest areas into agricultural land using measures of land suitability and market access, as well as the potential impact of such land conversion on carbon emissions and biodiversity.

The results of their analysis suggest that Amapá, Roraima and Amazonas States would qualify for a reduction in private property legal reserves as per Article 12 (5) under both scenarios.

Under the conservative scenario, conservation units or indigenous reservations would be created on 97% of the undesignated land in Amazonas and Amapá. Under this scenario, the new article of the Forest Code would remove protection from 6.5?million hectares (ha) of preserved forest – 4.6?m ha in Amazonas, 1.4?m ha in Roraima and 0.5?m ha in Amapá.

The authors note that the more land is allocated to conservation units and indigenous reservations, the greater the aggregate protected area, but when the 65% threshold is reached and article 12 (5) is triggered, the aggregate deprotected area more than doubles.

The researchers also estimated that under the conservative scenario, approximately half the area deprived of forest protection, or 3.14?m ha, would be in registered private properties, while approximately 1.9?m ha would be in land reform settlements and 0.6?m ha in untitled properties that would probably qualify for the ongoing land regularization program.

Under the worst-case scenario, most of the reduction would take place in currently undesignated areas, where newly titled properties would be allowed to reduce legal reserves by more than 8?m ha.

“The creation of conservation units and/or indigenous reservations in these states may have the side effect of increasing the likelihood of more deforestation. That’s schizophrenic,” Sparovek said.

The researchers suggested that legal measures taken by state governments in the context of the Environmental Regularization Program (PRA) could mitigate the risk of extensive deforestation.

Economic incentives may also help, given the strong global tendency to urge consumers not to buy products that originate in deforestation zones. Brazil’s agricultural exports could be severely affected if deforestation increases in the Amazon region, they stressed.

“By drawing attention to the possibility of an increase in legal deforestation in the Amazon, we hope our research findings will contribute to the development of public and private actions and strategies designed to mitigate potential environmental and social damage from this process,” Freitas said.

By Sanket Sudhir Kulkarni

In his latest press briefing, US President Donald Trump belittled India’s assistance to help build a library in Afghanistan. Media reports have already indicated that this assertion is inaccurate and reeks of Mr. Trump’s ignorance. For many in the Indian strategic community, the comment by President Trump comes as a shock, given the fact that India has contributed immensely and meaningfully in the developmental efforts for Afghanistan. President Trump, at least on this occasion, seems to have suffered aneurysm, as he had himself, while addressing his troops at Fort Myer in August 2017, appreciated India’s efforts in Afghanistan and stated that the US wants “India to help us more with Afghanistan in the area of economic assistance and development”. It needs to be realised by President Trump that India has always preferred to remain modest about its role.

However, it comes as no surprise that India’s contribution for nation-building in Afghanistan is perceived by President Trump as miniscule when compared to United States’ efforts, which has largely been confined to bombing towns and villages in the name of providing security. The US President seems to be towing the line of previous US administrations, which in the last 17 years, went overboard in safeguarding Pakistan’s sensitivities about Indian involvement in Afghan affairs. In his book titled Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016 , author Steve Coll narrates how just prior to the US intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, the then Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf had strongly insisted on omitting India from the American security strategy. The Bush and Obama administrations readily honoured these commitments and ensured that India was kept at an arm’s length in the US’ Afghan strategy throughout their tenures.

These misplaced sensitivities of the United States towards India kept the latter from gaining a larger developmental footprint and an expanded mandate in the region. And look at the results today. After 17 years of maintaining its presence in Afghanistan, the ground situation for the United States and its allies hasn’t changed much. Violence in Afghanistan continues to increase, attacks in Kabul refuse to cease, Taliban has bounced back and is negotiating from a position of strength and the operational capabilities of Afghan National Army remains questionable. President Trump’s decision to pullout American troops at this juncture also hints of lack of prudence and sincerity. While the troop withdrawal decision seems like Mr. Trump simply pandering to his election promise, it also gives rise to numerous risks – which, besides opening up Afghanistan to Pakistan and the US’ strategic rivals Russia and China – also seems like the US conceding to Afghan Taliban’s demands, if not a full admission of defeat.

Therefore, at this critical phase of the Afghan conflict, it would make better sense for the US to recognise the salience of India’s non-military approach towards conflict resolution in Afghanistan. India has made the most of the limited space that was granted to it, and that too, in an extremely difficult environment. India focused on small developmental projects and community-development programmes covering wide-ranging sectors. With each development project, India has gained a foothold of credibility and goodwill in the minds of the Afghan people and strengthened the domestic dispensation in the war-ravaged country. The strength of India’s developmental initiatives in Afghanistan lies in their sustainability and grass-root penetration.

Perusal of Kallol Bhattacherjee’s book The Great Game in Afghanistan Rajiv Gandhi, General Zia and the Unending War presents an interesting phase in Indo-US relations, wherein the US leadership in the 1980s sought India’s assistance to discuss Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. It would also be interesting to recall an article by renowned journalist Shekhar Gupta, wherein he reveals how the then Prime Minister of India Narasimha Rao was so well-conversant with the intricacies and challenges of domestic affairs of Afghanistan. It is precisely this rich heritage of knowledge and experience, which India has, that a succession of American administrations have denied themselves.

But the Afghans know this aspect of India. And they appreciate the quiet and positive approach of India in their country. Which is why, the Afghan National Security Adviser is expected to hold talks on security issues with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval this week. Instead of ranting about India’s contribution to the cause in Afghanistan, it would perhaps be wise for the US administration to pressurise Islamabad to open a channel of communication with New Delhi and adopt a more realistic approach towards Afghanistan. It is baffling to see how Pakistan recently dispatched Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on a four-nation tour that included Afghanistan, China, Iran and Russia. In fact, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan is visiting Turkey wherein Afghanistan would figure as an important agenda of discussion. It is disappointing to see how the Pakistanis are ready to talk to regional and extra-regional powers, but have denied themselves the opportunity of talking to India on any resolution to the Afghan problem.

Bottom-line remains that India is critical for any evolving security architecture in Afghanistan post the American withdrawal. It would perhaps serve President Trump well to facilitate a greater role for India than ridiculing its efforts.

Young people who self-harm are three times more likely to commit violent crime than those who do not, according to new research from the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University.

The study also found young people who harm themselves and commit violent crime — “dual harmers” — are more likely to have a history of childhood maltreatment and lower self-control than those who only self-harm. Thus, programs aimed at preventing childhood maltreatment or improving self-control among self-harmers could help prevent violent crime, the authors state.

Rates of self-harm — deliberately harming oneself, often by cutting or burning — have increased substantially among adolescents in recent years both in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the U.S., roughly one in four teenage girls try to harm themselves and one in 10 teenage boys. In the U.K., the yearly incidence of self-injury among teenage girls has risen by nearly 70 percent in three years.

“We know that some individuals who self-harm also inflict harm on others,” said Leah Richmond-Rakerd, lead author of the study. “What has not been clear is whether there are early-life characteristics or experiences that increase the risk of violent offending among individuals who self-harm. Identifying these risk factors could guide interventions that prevent and reduce interpersonal violence.”

In the study, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, Richmond-Rakerd and researchers from Duke and King’s College London compared young people who engage in “dual-harm” behavior with those who only self-harm.

Participants were from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally representative U.K. cohort of 2,232 twins born in 1994 and 1995 who have been followed across the first two decades of life. Self-harm in adolescence was assessed through interviews at age 18. Violent offenses were assessed using a computer questionnaire at age 18 and police records through age 22.

“By comparing twins who grew up in the same family, we were able to test whether self-harm and violent crime go together merely because they come from the same genetic or family risk factors,” said Terrie E. Moffitt of Duke University, founder of the E-Risk Study. “They did not. This means that young people who self-harm may see violence as a way of solving problems and begin to use it against others as well as themselves.”

Researchers also found that those who committed violence against both themselves and others were more likely to have experienced victimization in adolescence. They also had higher rates of psychotic symptoms and substance dependence.

“Our study suggests that dual-harming adolescents have experienced self-control difficulties and been victims of violence from a young age,” said Richmond-Rakerd. “A treatment-oriented rather than punishment-oriented approach is indicated to meet these individuals’ needs.”

New research led by astrophysicists at Durham University, UK, predicts that the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) could hit the Milky Way in two billion years’ time.

The collision could occur much earlier than the predicted impact between the Milky Way and another neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, which scientists say will hit our galaxy in eight billion years.

The catastrophic coming together with the Large Magellanic Cloud could wake up our galaxy’s dormant black hole, which would begin devouring surrounding gas and increase in size by up to ten times.

As it feeds, the now-active black hole would throw out high-energy radiation and while these cosmic fireworks are unlikely to affect life on Earth, the scientists say there is a small chance that the initial collision could send our Solar System hurtling into space.

The findings are published today (Friday, 4 January) in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Galaxies like our own Milky Way are surrounded by a group of smaller satellite galaxies that orbit around them, in a similar way to how bees move around a hive.

Typically, these satellite galaxies have a quiet life and orbit around their hosts for many billions of years. However, from time to time, they sink to the centre, collide and are devoured by their host galaxy.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is the brightest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and only entered our neighbourhood about 1.5 billion years ago. It sits about 163,000 light years from the Milky Way.

Until recently astronomers thought that it would either orbit the Milky Way for many billions of years, or, since it moves so fast, escape from our galaxy’s gravitational pull.

However, recent measurements indicate that the Large Magellanic Cloud has nearly twice as much dark matter than previously thought. The researchers say that since it has a larger than expected mass, the Large Magellanic Cloud is rapidly losing energy and is doomed to collide with our galaxy.

The research team, led by scientists at Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology working with the University of Helsinki, in Finland, used the EAGLE galaxy formation supercomputer simulation to predict the collision.

Lead author Dr Marius Cautun, a postdoctoral fellow in Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: “While two billion years is an extremely long time compared to a human lifetime, it is a very short time on cosmic timescales.

“The destruction of the Large Magellanic Cloud, as it is devoured by the Milky Way, will wreak havoc with our galaxy, waking up the black hole that lives at its centre and turning our galaxy into an ‘active galactic nucleus’ or quasar.

“This phenomenon will generate powerful jets of high energy radiation emanating from just outside the black hole. While this will not affect our Solar System, there is a small chance that we might not escape unscathed from the collision between the two galaxies which could knock us out of the Milky Way and into interstellar space.”

The collision between the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way could be spectacular, the researchers say.

Co-author Professor Carlos Frenk, Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University, said: “Beautiful as it is, our Universe is constantly evolving, often through violent events like the forthcoming collision with the Large Magellanic Cloud.

“Barring any disasters, like a major disturbance to the Solar System, our descendants, if any, are in for a treat: a spectacular display of cosmic fireworks as the newly awakened supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy reacts by emitting jets of extremely bright energetic radiation.”

According to the researchers, the merger of the two galaxies could be long overdue in cosmic terms.

Dr Alis Deason, of Durham University’s Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: “We think that up to now our galaxy has had only a few mergers with very low mass galaxies.

“This represents very slim pickings when compared to nearby galaxies of the same size as the Milky Way. For example, our nearest neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, devoured galaxies weighing nearly 30 times more than those consumed by the Milky Way.

“Therefore, the collision with the Large Magellanic Cloud is long overdue and it is needed to make our galaxy typical.”

The worm has gotten into Apple, and is feasting with some consistency. Revenue has fallen. Chief executive Tim Cook is cranky. The celebrated front of Apple’s wealth – the iPhone with its range of glittering models – has not done as well as he would have hoped. Dreams of conquering Cathay (or, in modern terms, the Chinese market) have not quite materialised.

In a letter to Apple’s investors, Cook explained that “our revenue will be lower than our original guidance for the quarter, with other items remaining broadly in line with our guidance.” This somewhat optimistic assessment came with the heavily stressed caveat: “While it will be a number of weeks before we complete and report our final results, we wanted to get some preliminary information to you now. Our final results may differ somewhat from these preliminary estimates.”

The reasons outlined were various, but Cook, in language designed to obfuscate with concealing woods for self-evident trees, suggested that the launches of various iPhone types would “affect our year-to-year compares.” That said, it “played out broadly in line with our expectations.” While Cook gives the impression of omniscience, he is far from convincing. Why go for the “unprecedented number of new products to ramp”, resulting in “supply constraints” which led to limiting “our sales of certain products during Q1 [the first quarter]”? Such is the nature of the credo.

Where matters were not so smooth to predict were those “macroeconomic” matters that do tend to drive CEOs potty with concern. While there was an expectation that the company would struggle for sales in “emerging markets”, the impact was “significantly greater… than we had projected.” China, in fact, remained the hair-tearing problem, singled out as the single biggest factor in revenue fall.

“In fact,” goes Cook’s letter of breezy blame, “most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPhone.” The slowing of China’s economy in the second half of 2018, with a slump in the September quarter being the second lowest in the last 25 years, deemed a significant factor.

The irritating tangle of world politics also features; as ever, Apple can hardly be responsible for errors or misjudgements, and prefers, when convenient, to point the finger to the appropriate catalyst. The United States has not made matters easy for the Apple bottom line in its trade war spat with Beijing. “We believe that the economic environment in China has been further impacted by rising trade tensions with the United States.”

While it is never wise to consult the view of economists without caution (their oracular skills leave much to be desired), the feeling among the analysts is that a further contraction is nigh. “We expect a much worse slowdown in the first half, followed by a more serious and aggressive government easing/stimulus centred on regulating the property market in big cities,” claims chief China economist at Nomura, Ting Lu. But chin up – a rebound is bound to happen in the latter part of 2019.

The Apple vision is, however, dogmatically optimistic, an indispensable quality to any cult. China remains customary dream and object, a frontier to conquer. It is stacked with Apple friendly innovators (“The iOS developer community in China is among the most innovative, creative, and vibrant in the world.”) and loyal customers who have “a very high level of engagement and satisfaction.”

Product fetishism only carries you so far. The iPhone models are not exactly blazing a trail of enthusiasm in other countries either. Users in Brazil, India, Russia and Turkey can count themselves as being more reluctant.

Some of this dampening is due, in no small part, to a certain cheek on the part of the tech giant, one nurtured by years of enthusiastic, entitled arrogance. In late 2017, for instance, the company revealed that it was slowing down iPhones with old batteries in an attempt to prevent undesired shutdowns. But the company did not feel any great desire to inform users of this fiddling, and it took the published findings of an iPhone user to replace his iPhone 6’s battery, thereby restoring performance to accepted levels, to kick the hornets’ nest.

As Chris Smith explains, “The fix was implemented via an update last January [2017], but Apple didn’t accurately inform users of what was going to happen to chemically aged batteries.” Class action suits followed in the United States; Brazilian authorities insisted that the company inform iPhone users on how to have their batteries replaced within 10 days.

The bite on Apple has had its predictable shudder on the markets. Investors ran off some $75 billion on the company’s stocks. The Nasdaq fell by 3 percent; the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.8 percent. An environment of chaos has greeted us in 2019, and fittingly, Apple remains at the centre of it, a company as responsible for modern technological worship as any. As with any central dogma, disappointments are bound to happen, an irrepressible function of misplaced belief.

The speaker of the upper house of the bicameral National Assembly of Afghanistan deplored US President Donald Trump’s praise of the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of the South Asian country, saying he should apologize to the Afghan people for his remarks.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the people of the country fought against the aggressors, Fazl Hadi Muslimyar said in remarks released on Sunday.

 The Afghan people’s fight also had the support of Islamic and non-Islamic countries, even the then US officials, he said, adding that the Afghan people are proud of having defeated the Soviet forces. 

Muslimyar further said Trump should apologize to the people of the country for insulting their fight against the aggressors.

During his freewheeling, 90-minute cabinet meeting Wednesday, Trump briefly argued that the Soviet Union “was right” to invade Afghanistan in 1979 because “terrorists were going into Russia,” a head-scratching aside that was widely criticized as historically inaccurate.

“Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Russia. So you take a look at other countries. Pakistan is there. They should be fighting,” Trump said.

“But Russia should be fighting. The reason Russia was in, in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is it was a tough fight. And literally they went bankrupt. They went into being called Russia again as opposed to the Soviet Union,” he added.

The comments marked a surprising split with US conservatives dating back to President Ronald Reagan, who saw the invasion as an attempt to spread communism and aided insurgent forces fighting Soviet troops.

By Frank Kane*

If, as many predict, the world is in for an economic recession in 2019, we will probably be able to pinpoint its beginning with unusual precision.

At 6 p.m. eastern standard time on Jan. 2, Apple, the iPhone and computer manufacturer, shocked Wall Street with a warning that revenues would be down for the current year. It was the first time in 16 years that Apple had forecast a fall in revenues.

Apple shares crashed 10 percent on opening the following day, prompting a similar fall in US equity indices that reverberated around the world over the next 24 hours. The malaise that had afflicted global stock markets in the final quarter of 2018 seems destined to continue into 2019.

The mini-crash showed what an icon Apple has become in the global economy. Forget Hollywood, McDonalds and Starbucks — the real symbol of American “soft power” in the 21st century is the manufacturer of the iPhone and other computer devices that everybody, it seems, must own.

Except they do not want to own them as much as they did before, especially in China. The main factor behind the revenue decline was falling sales of new iPhones in China, which has been both a major market and manufacturing center for the company.

Tim Cook, Apple chief executive, blamed the fall on slowing economic growth in China for iPhones, Mac computers and iPads, which was a neat way of passing the blame to the anonymous world of macro factors beyond his control.

There was a suggestion too that sales in China had been affected by the simmering trade war with the US, but no real hard evidence to back that up. So far, tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump have largely affected commodity materials such as steel and aluminum coming into the US, while the Chinese retaliation has been against a symbolic variety of items such as soya beans and some beverages deemed to be quintessentially American.

It is probably true that Chinese consumer appetite for a product such as Apple would be marginally affected by anti-American sentiment, but on the other hand the cachet of the iPhone is so powerful that you would expect Chinese shoppers to mostly resist the patriotic urgings of their leaders, much as Soviet consumers did with “yankee” products such as Levis jeans in the communist era.

Tech analysts, however, thought there were other reasons for the fall in demand for iPhone and Macs in China. Apple — used to charging a premium for their American-designed product — was simply pricing itself out of the market.

Raising prices has been a standard feature of the Apple marketing strategy for years, as customers were keen to pay what it took to get their hands on the newest device. This culminated in the first $1,000 phone, the iPhone X, which was regarded as a quantum leap in technological standards and worth the extra cash.

But nobody can really see why the XS is worth an extra premium, and the whole strategy behind the XR — a more affordable version of the X — seems flawed. When Apple has been criticized for asking people to pay more and get less, it is very confusing to introduce another version that actually promises less.

In the UAE, the price differential between Apple and other products is alarming. It can be as much as 2,000 dirhams ($540) in comparison with similar mobile models from Asian manufacturers. Even within the Apple range, there can be as much as 1,000 dirhams’ difference on an iPhone X bought from an authorized Apple dealer — one of the big stores in the mega-malls — and the same device, certified and guaranteed, bought from an independent retailer.

This suggests that Apple has fallen victim to the failings of others in American “Big Data,” such as Facebook, of arrogantly assuming consumer demand for its products is forever constant, regardless of geopolitical factors or pricing considerations.

So there you have Apple at the beginning of 2019: A vital component of the American business and financial scene, but beset by problems in its marketing strategy exacerbated by other issues largely brought about by Trump’s actions. It could be a metaphor for the global economy.

• Frank Kane is an award-winning business journalist based in Dubai. Twitter: @frankkanedubai

Just one day before Orthodox Christmas, an official decree marking the independence of Ukraine’s new church was granted by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to the head of the Kiev-established entity.

Bartholomew I of Constantinople has handed over the so-called tomos – a Patriarch’s decree proclaiming the newly formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine formally independent of the Russian Orthodox Church – to Metropolitan Epifaniy, the self-styled head of the new entity.

It has been brought back to Ukraine on Orthodox Christmas Eve. On January 7, Christmas Day, a celebration and rally will take place in Kiev.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, who is considered ‘first among equals’ in the Orthodox world, said the Ukrainians “have awaited this blessed day for seven entire centuries.” He claimed they could now enjoy “the sacred gift of emancipation, independence and self-governance, becoming free from every external reliance and intervention,” as cited by AP.

The tomos was signed in the presence of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who traveled to Istanbul specifically for the occasion. He was joined by the 39-year-old Epiphanius, the self-styled Patriarch of the new Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Poroshenko, who came to power following the Western-backed 2014 coup, began to push for the Ukrainian Church’s independence from the Moscow Patriarchy several months before the 2019 presidential elections. Now, nurturing the Orthodox Church of Ukraine remains part of his electoral campaign.

The Russian Orthodox Church vehemently opposed the creation of Ukraine’s new entity, calling it unlawful under canonic law and devastating for the centuries-old spiritual bond between Moscow and Kiev. Russian Patriarch Kirill has recently accused Ukraine of “blatant interference in church affairs” that would lead to a “civilizational catastrophe.” 

The decision may the be beginning of a lasting schism in the global Orthodoxy and risks triggering conflicts among Ukraine’s Orthodox believers, observers say. “What happened due to the help of Patriarch Bartholomew is a legitimized split that existed during the last 30 years,” said Archbishop Kliment, spokesperson of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“Instead of healing the schism, instead of uniting Orthodoxy, we’ve got an even bigger rift that exists exclusively for political reasons,” he maintained.

Constantinople’s decision was met with criticism not only from the Moscow Patriarchate but by some other Orthodox churches as well. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East John X said it is “unreasonable to mend the schism [in Ukraine] at the cost of the unity of the Orthodox world.”

The whole issue should first have been assessed and discussed with all other Orthodox churches to avoid “dangers that would lead to peace and unity neither in Ukraine, nor in the Orthodox world,” John X said in a letter addressed to Bartholomew I.

What Kiev is doing is “very dangerous because if, let’s just say, a number of autocephalous churches do not accept the Ukrainian new church, then we will have a schism, a break,” Fr Mark Tyson, an American Orthodox priest and rector of a West Virginia-based church, explained to RT. “This is the most serious question we’ve faced in close to a thousand years,” he added.

Many Ukrainian Orthodox believers belong to the Moscow church and “show no sign” of desire to stick with the newly created Orthodox Church of Ukraine, said Alexander Dvorkin, professor of Church History at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University. Meanwhile, the new church will not be completely independent as it is likely to be “[tightly] controlled by Constantinople.”

(RFE/RL) — The U.S. military has killed one of the architects of the deadly attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, President Donald Trump has said.

“Our great military has delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole,” Trump tweeted on January 6.

“We will never stop in our fight against Radical Islamic Terrorism!” he added.

Al-Qaeda operative Jamal al-Badawi was killed in an air strike in Marib Province on January 1, U.S. Central Command later tweeted, two days after saying U.S. forces had targeted the militant in the strike.

Seventeen American servicemen were killed and at least 40 people were wounded in the suicide attack that happened as USS Cole was refueling in the port of Aden on October 12, 2000.

In 2003, a U.S. grand jury indicted Badawi for his role in the bombing, and the FBI offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his arrest.

By Hadi Azmi and Noah Lee

Malaysian King Sultan Muhammad V stepped down from the throne on Sunday, royal palace officials announced but without stating a reason for the first abdication by one of the country’s monarchs in its 61-year history.

The resignation of the 49-year-old monarch, Malaysia’s 15^th king who is the sultan or ruler of Kelantan state, took immediate effect, the palace said in a statement. It gave no details about who would succeed Sultan Muhammad V, who had only ascended to the throne in December 2016 under Malaysia’s rotating system of monarchs.

“The palace would like to inform that Seri Paduka Baginda Tuanku has resigned as the 15th Yang di-Pertuan Agong or the Supreme Ruler of the federation effective January 6 in accordance with Article 32(3) of the Federal Constitution,” said Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz, the comptroller of the Royal Household, referring to the king by his full title in Malay.

The abdication took place following days of reports in regional media speculating that the king might be stepping down after marrying a Russian woman abroad in late November.

The king sent a letter to the secretary of the Conference of Rulers notifying them about his decision to resign from the throne, Wan Ahmad Dahlan said. The conference is Malaysia’s council of nine traditional rulers and four governors. They represent the 13 states in the Malaysian federation, elect a king to a five-year term, and take turns on the throne.

“During his tenure as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, His Majesty had worked to fulfill his responsibilities and the trust placed in him as the head of state, serving as the pillar of stability, the source of justice and as an umbrella of the solidarity and unity of the people,” the royal comptroller said, adding that Sultan Muhammad V was preparing to return to his home state to “safeguard its people” and work for their betterment.

“His Majesty also hopes that all Malaysians will continue to stay united, tolerant and in agreement in shouldering the responsibility to safeguard the country’s sovereignty so that Malaysia will remain in peace and harmony,” Wan Ahmad Dahlan said.

Deputy PM: ‘I feel sad’

Sultan Muhammad V was officially installed as king of Malaysia, a multi-ethnic though predominantly Malay Muslim nation of nearly 32 million people, in a ceremony on April 24, 2017, four months after ascending to the throne.

In early November 2018, the king went on a two-month leave of absence for “medical treatment,” during which the Sultan of Perak, Nazrin Shah, took over the throne as acting king, the palace said at the time.

During Sultan Muhammad V’s absence foreign media outlets reported that he married a Russian beauty queen who had converted to Islam, Oksana Voevodina, in a wedding near Moscow on Nov. 22. The king was single before taking the throne.

On Nov. 29, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said he did not know about the reported marriage and had not received any official confirmation about it, reports said. Mahathir later confirmed to the media that the ruler had returned and resumed his duties as the country’s king. On Dec. 31, Sultan Nazrin Shah formally ended his duties as acting king.

There was no comment from the prime minister late on Sunday night (local time). A spokesman for Mahathir did not respond immediately to an inquiry from BenarNews.

However, Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail told reporters on Sunday evening that the cabinet was “just being informed” about the abdication through the official statement from the royal palace.

“However, I feel sad as he was the king when we came into power. He was the king who swore-in the new prime minister during the historical change of government,” said Wan Azizah, the country’s first woman to hold the post of deputy PM, adding that she respected the sultan’s decision.

She was alluding to last year’s general election in which the opposition Pakatan Harapan alliance swept the Barisan Nasional coalition out of power for the first time in the country’s history.

“The Yang Dipertuan Agong was also the one who pardoned my husband [Anwar Ibrahim],” the deputy prime minister added, while speaking to media on the sidelines of an event at the International Islamic University Malaysia campus in Gombak, Selangor state.

Under the Malaysian constitution, the king is the supreme head of the federation and supreme commander of the armed forces. He also acts as the head of Islam in his home state, and in the states of Malacca, Penang, Sabah, Sarawak and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.

Under Article 153 of the constitution, the king must also safeguard the special position of ethnic Malays and the natives of Sabah and Sarawak, as well as the legitimate interests of other communities, according to information posted on websites belonging to the government and Conference of Rulers.

In addition, the monarch presides over the opening of parliamentary sessions and has the power to swear in members of the cabinet and grant royal pardons.

After a ruler has served as king, he cannot stand for re-election until all rulers of the other states have also stood for election under the rotational system.

The king may resign his office by writing to the Conference of Rulers, and may also be removed from office by his fellow rulers.

Sultan Muhammad V was on the throne when he granted a pardon that allowed Anwar Ibrahim, a senior opposition leader who was imprisoned by the previous government on a sodomy charge to be freed from custody and re-enter politics. Anwar, the husband of Wan Azizah, is next in line to become prime minister.

By Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan

On December 31, U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), which promises to bring back fresh focus to American priorities in the Indo-Pacific. The Act assumes particular importance in the context of China’s expanding and aggressive footprint across Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania and the responses by the United States as well as its allies, partners, and friends in the region.

India for one has three specific areas of concern that it would want the United States to address. Within South Asia, there are two: India is worried about the prospect of American withdrawal from Afghanistan as well as about the inroads that China is making in India’s neighborhood. A third concern is more broadly the challenge that China poses to India, both militarily and politically. So, New Delhi is likely to judge this Act on how it will address these three challenges.

India will be happy to have been accorded special importance under the Act, which reiterates India’s significance in the U.S. strategy in the region. The Act notes India as a Major Defense Partner, a “unique” status for India, which would ease defense trade and sharing of technology, including “license-free access to a wide range of dual-use technologies” as well as promote greater coordination on security policies and strategies and increased military-to-military engagements. Of course, in practical terms, this doesn’t change very much. Nevertheless, the symbolic element is always important while dealing with New Delhi.

Of course, the congressional action comes immediately after Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Whether the congressional action will slow down or alter American withdrawal remains to be seen. Trump is reportedly considering changes to his approach to Syria, including slowing down a reduced presence. On the other hand, he also dismissed the Indian contribution to Afghanistan as nothing more than a library. Given India’s sensitivity to developments in Afghanistan, New Delhi will be very interested in whether the U.S. Congress can moderate Trump’s instinct to withdraw.

A second regional issue is China’s expansion in India’s neighborhood. China’s enormous wealth and its remarkable capacity for infrastructure building has made it an attractive partner for India’s neighbors, despite the threat of being sucked into a Chinese debt trap. Beyond this, the comfort of having an extraregional great power as a counter to the regional hegemon was probably an equally important factor. India’s limited capacity to provide an alternative has been an issue. The Act does talk about countering China’s coercive economic policies, but New Delhi would be interested in seeing whether this will provide any help to India’s neighbors in escaping China’s debt grasp.

A third issue is whether this Act will reassure India in its direct confrontation with China. Like other powers in Asia, India has also sought a more accommodative policy toward China over the last year. Change of leadership in the Indian foreign ministry was one factor, with Vijay Gokhale replacing S. Jaishankar in January 2018. Jaishankar was known to be an advocate of closer U.S.-India relations while Gokhale appears to be a much more traditional Indian Foreign Service officer who prefers equidistance from both the United States and China.

But more than personality factors were at play in India’s pursuit of closer ties with China. Though the Indian military stood fast in the 2017 Doklam crisis, the Indian military’s overall preparedness is rather poor. Indian military budgets are lower than they have been in decades and corruption scandals and bureaucratic incompetence have delayed necessary acquisitions. Another issue is domestic politics. India is set to hold national elections in 2019, and there are suspicions that the Modi government did not want to be diverted by a confrontation in the Himalayas.

Though these factors were important, underlying all these is a certain lack of confidence in America’s commitment to India and Asia. In that sense, this congressional action is potentially positive in providing greater reassurance, even though a lot will also depend on whether the Trump administration follows up on it or not.

India, like other American partners in Asia, has had concerns about Washington’s commitment to the region. This Act is not likely to remove those concerns. But to the extent that it endorses a consensus opinion within the U.S. Congress and also expresses the broad bipartisan consensus in Washington, it is likely to be welcomed in New Delhi.

This article originally appeared in The Diplomat.

Asian players are proving to be conceptually and bureaucratically better positioned in the 21^st century’s Great Game that involves tectonic geopolitical shifts with the emergence of what former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes terms the fusion of Europe and Asia into a “supercontinent.”

Yet, in contrast to the United States, Asian players despite approaching Europe and Asia as one political, albeit polarized and disorganized entity populated by widely differing and competing visions, may find that their historic legacies work against them.

Writing in The National Interest, US Naval College national security scholar Nikolas K. Gvosdev argued that the United States, for example, was blinded to the shifts by the State Department’s classification of Russia as part of Europe, its lumping of Central Asia together with Pakistan and India and the Pentagon’s association of the region with the Arab world and Iran.

“The (State Department’s) continued inclusion of Russia within the diplomatic confines of a larger European bureau has intellectually limited assessments about Russia’s position in the world by framing Russian action primarily through a European lens. Not only does this undercount Russia’s ability to be a major player in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, it has also, in my view, tended to overweight the importance of the Baltic littoral to Russian policy,” Mr. Gvosdev said.

He warned that the US government’s geographical classification of Central Asia, Eurasia’s heartland has “relegated it to second-tier status in terms of U.S. attention and priorities.”

US failure to get ahead of the tectonic shifts in global geopolitics contrasts starkly with the understanding of Central Asian nations that they increasingly exist in an integrated, interconnected region that cannot isolate itself from changes enveloping it.

That understanding is reflected in a report by the Astana Club that brings together prominent political figures, diplomats, and experts from the Great Game’s various players under the auspices of Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Entitled, ‘Toward a Greater Eurasia: How to Build a Common Future?,‘ the report warns that the Eurasian supercontinent needs to anticipate the Great Game’s risks that include mounting tensions between the United States and China; global trade wars; arms races; escalating conflict in the greater Middle East; deteriorating relations between Russia and the West; a heating up of contained European conflicts such as former Yugoslavia; rising chances of separatism and ethnic/religious conflict; and environmental degradation as well as technological advances.

The report suggested that the risks were enhanced by the fragility of the global system with the weakening of multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and NATO.

Messrs. Nazarbayev, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan may be better positioned to understand the shifts given that they govern territories at the heart of the emerging Eurasian supercontinent and see it as an integral development rooted in their countries’ histories.

Then Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu made as much clear in 2013. “The last century was only a parenthesis for us. We will close that parenthesis. We will do so without going to war, or calling anyone an enemy, without being disrespectful to any border; we will again tie Sarajevo to Damascus, Benghazi to Erzurum to Batumi. This is the core of our power. These may look like different countries to you, but Yemen and Skopje were part of the same country a hundred and ten years ago as were Erzurum and Benghazi,” Mr.Davutoglu said drawing a picture of a modern day revival of the Ottoman empire.

Mr. Erdogan has taken that ambition a step further by increasingly expanding it to the Turkic and Muslim world.

At its core, Erdogan’s vision, according to Eurasia scholar Igor Torbakov, is built on the notion that the world is divided into distinct civilizations. And upon that foundation rise three pillars: 1) a just world order can only be a multipolar one; 2) no civilization has the right to claim a hegemonic position in the international system; and 3) non-Western civilizations (including those in Turkey and Russia) are in the ascendant. In addition, anti-Western sentiment and self-assertiveness are crucial elements of this outlook.

Expressing that sentiment, Turkish bestselling author and Erdogan supporter Alev Alati quipped: “We are the ones who have adopted Islam as an identity but have become so competent in playing chess with Westerners that we can beat them. We made this country that lacked oil, gold and gas what it is now. It was not easy, and we won’t give it up so quickly.”

The Achilles Heel, however, of Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan’s Eurasianism is the fact that its geographies are populated by former empires like the Ottomans and Russia whose post-imperial notions of national identity remain contested and drive its leaders to define national unity as state unity, control the flow of information, and repress alternative views expressions of dissent.

Turkey and Russia still “see themselves as empires, and, as a general rule, an empire’s political philosophy is one of universalism and exceptionalism. In other words, empires don’t have friends – they have either enemies or dependencies,” said Mr. Torbakov, the Eurasia scholar, or exist in what Russian strategists term “imperial or geopolitical solitude.”

Mr. Erdogan’s vision of a modern-day Ottoman empire encompasses the Turkic and Muslim world. Different groups of Russian strategists promote concepts of Russia as a state that has to continuously act as an empire or as a unique “state civilization” devoid of expansionist ambition despite its premise of a Russian World that embraces the primacy of Russian culture as well as tolerance for non-Russian cultures. Both notions highlight the pitfalls of their nations’ history and Eurasianism.

Both Mr. Erdogan and Russia’s vision remain controversial. In Mr. Erdogan’s case it is the Muslim more than the Turkic world that is unwilling to accept Turkish leadership unchallenged with Saudi Arabia leading the charge and Turkish-Iranian relations defined by immediate common interests rather than shared strategic thinking.

Similarly, post-Soviet states take issue with Russia’s notion of the primacy of its culture. Beyond the Russian-Ukrainian conflict over the annexation of Crimea and Moscow’s support for Russian-speaking rebels in the east of the country, Ukraine emphasized its rejection of Russian cultural primacy with this month’s creation of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent of its Russian counterpart.

Earlier, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law in September 2017 establishing Ukrainian rather than Russian as the language of instruction in schools and colleges. The law stipulated that educational institutions could teach courses in a second language, provided it was an official language of the European Union. National minorities were guaranteed the right to study in Ukrainian as well as their minority language.

Similarly, Kazakhstan, the Eurasian nation par excellence, shifted from Cyrillic to Latin script.

“Russia’s influence (in Central Asia) has been largely mythologized, and its role in both national and regional security has not been properly and honestly discussed. Different fears and phobias still influence the decision-making process, including those over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, its annexation of Crimea, the concept of the ‘Russian World’ as a pillar of its national identity, and its soft power,” said Kazakh Central Asia scholar Anna Gussarova.

Ukraine may put a dent in the Russian World’s attractivity, but it does not amount to a body blow.

Ms. Gussarova cautioned that while Central Asian elites may recognize the risks involved in embracing Russian primacy, the region’s public remains far more aligned with Russian culture, at least linguistically.

“Whereas the expert community, which is supposed to shape public opinion, uses the English-language platforms Facebook and Twitter, the general public relies on Russian-language social media. This dichotomy underscores the limitations of any effort by the government and affiliated experts to shape public perceptions. At the same time, this gap shows greater public support for Russia and its activities, which makes nation building and language issues difficult and sensitive,” Ms. Gussarova said.

By Rajeesh Kumar*

At an intergovernmental conference convened under the auspices of the United Nations in Marrakesh, Morocco, 164 nations adopted a pact on 10 December 2018 to manage the global migration crisis. The ‘Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration’ is the first, intergovernmental agreement that covers all dimensions of global migration. The legally non-binding pact aims to promote efforts to strengthen regular migration pathways and protect the human rights of migrants. Its objectives and commitments provide states and international agencies a means to coordinate migration policies and ensure that migration works for all. However, on the flip side, the non-participation of some important countries raises questions about the future of the pact.

Why a Global Compact

The last few decades have experienced massive population shifts across the globe. The conflicts in West Asia, Africa and South America, and the extreme violence associated with them have forced people to leave their homes and seek a haven in foreign countries. In addition, climate change effects also contributed to the growing number of migrants and refugees. According to the United Nations, approximately 258 million migrants around the world are living outside their country of birth. Out of these, around 68 million are in the “forcibly displaced” category, more than at any time in the recorded history of the modern world. Since 2000, the number of global migrants has grown by 49 per cent, from 2.8 to 3.4 per cent of the global population. The UN data also shows that, since then, more than 60,000 migrants have lost their lives while on the move.

On the other side, resentment against migrants has intensified across the globe, particularly in Europe and the United States. Though the global migrant population constitutes merely 3.4 per cent of the world’s population, burgeoning protests against migrants have created a wider perception that migrants are threats to national economies. The rising tide of resentment in these countries has also produced the impression that most migrants are settled in the developed world whereas the reality is otherwise. Studies show that the developing world hosts more than half of the global migrant population and that migrants have contributed to the development of both sending and hosting countries.

Against this backdrop, recognizing the need for enhanced international cooperation and a comprehensive approach to the issue of migrants, all the 193 members of the UN adopted a resolution called New York Declaration in September 2016. The resolution demanded the protection of the ‘safety, dignity human rights and fundamental freedoms of all migrants, regardless of their migratory status.’ Combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination towards migrants, supporting the host countries, and developing non-binding principles and guidelines for treatment of migrants were the other proposals of the declaration. In addition, the New York declaration recommended two global compacts: a global compact on refugees and a global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration.

Deliberations and Stocktaking

As proposed by the New York Declaration, elaboration of the Global Compact for Migration took place in three phases; consultation, stocktaking, and negotiation. The first phase involving six rounds of informal thematic sessions, which aimed to gather substantive inputs and recommendations for the Global Compact, was held between April and December 2017. The human rights of migrants, drivers of migration, irregular migration, international cooperation, smuggling and trafficking, and contribution of migrants were the main foci of these deliberations. In addition, five UN regional consultations (Africa, Asia and Pacific, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Western Asia), multi-stakeholder hearings, and regional civil society consultations also took place in 2017.

Subsequently, the stocktaking phase reviewed and analysed the information gathered during the consultations. The meeting provided “a platform for delegations and other stakeholders to jointly shape a vision for the Compact and collectively identify actionable commitments as well as respective means of implementation and partnerships the Compact may include.” The outcome was a ‘Zero Draft’ jointly prepared by Mexico and Switzerland, the co-facilitators of the process. Finally, the third phase, intergovernmental negotiations began with the release of the draft in February 2018 and ended with its finalization in July 2018. The final draft, which was agreed to by all 193 members of the UN, has four sections: vision and guiding principles, objectives and commitments, implementation, and follow up.

Objectives and Commitments

The Global Compact aims to ensure that migration ‘works for all’ by setting out a common understanding and shared responsibilities. It strives to foster international cooperation among “all relevant actors on migration, acknowledging that no State can address migration alone, and upholds the sovereignty of States and their obligations under international law.” Its central principles are people-centredness, national sovereignty, international cooperation, rule of law and sustainable development. The 23 objectives of the Compact seek to minimize the factors which force people to leave their country, ensure legal identity and documentation, provide regular pathways, eradicate trafficking, and facilitate return and readmission of all migrants. Moreover, to achieve these objectives, it spelt out 187 actions and many commitments.

Source: refugeesmigrants.un.org

One of the positive aspects of the Global Compact is the framing of migration in the logic of development. The significant case against migration has been the perceived negative economic impact on host countries. However, migrants spend 85 per cent of their earnings in their host communities. Similarly, migrants across the globe sent approximately USD 600 billion in remittances in 2017, which is three times higher than the global Overseas Development Assistance (ODA). In this way, migrants contribute to the development of both the country of origin and host states. By accepting this known but concealed fact and developing policies to utilize the potential of migrants, the Global Compact aims to minimize the global resentments against migration. The Compact also states that it is rooted in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In addition, the Global Compact puts the rights of migrant women and children at its heart by mainstreaming a gender perspective. Among the 258 million migrants around the world, more than 50 per cent are women and girls. Moreover, women constitute 74 per cent of international migrant domestic workers. The Compact has two guiding principles that articulate the need for ‘gender-responsive’ and ‘child-sensitive’ migration policies. Moreover, many of its objectives and commitments argue for ‘gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.’ Terms such as ‘gender-responsive’/’gender-equality’ or ‘gender-based violence’ appear 29 times in the 34-page document. Similarly, the Compact aims to enhance global cooperation to reduce migration-related deaths, and in combating smuggling and trafficking, all of which are priorities for any government.

Climate change is another global problem contributing to the migration crisis The Global Compact recognizes climate change as a driver for migration and lays out a framework for dealing with it. According to the World Bank, around 143 million people, especially in the developing world, could be forced to relocate within their countries by 2050. Another study shows that about 2 billion people may become climate change refugees by 2100. The Compact proposes building a Platform on Disaster Displacement” and developing an ‘Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change’ to address the issue.

Prospects and Challenges

With its comprehensive approach to migrants and their problems, the Global Compact for Migration provides both opportunities and challenges. First, it puts forth a balanced approach by framing goals that correspond to the interests of different stakeholders. For instance, while Objective 20, promoting the transfer of remittances, serves the interest of states of origin, Objective 21, facilitating return and readmission, satisfies the receiving countries. While respecting national sovereignty and international law, the Compact acknowledges the prerogative of States to decide who they allow onto their territory. It, therefore, provides for enhanced cooperation among states to manage global migration.

Second, migration, provided it can be monitored appropriately, can positively contribute to the development of both the countries of origin and the host. However, fear of the outsider has created massive popular sentiments against migrants in host nations. s. The Global Compact helps to dispel these fears by giving preference to evidence-based policies through data collection and accurate information about migrants. This approach will be helpful in dispelling misguided and xenophobic policies, particularly in Europe and the United States. Proper implementation of the objectives of the Compact will ensure that migration works for all and contribute to solving the global migration crisis. The adoption of the Compact by New Zealand just a few days after the Marrakech Conference shows that the Compact is finding resonance and acceptability and is a step in the right direction.

Third, many see the non-binding nature of the Global Compact as a challenge and the most significant limitation. They fear that the Compact will be just another talking shop without making any real difference to the migration problem. However, in international politics, distinction between binding texts (hard law) and non-binding texts (soft law) is minimal because the parties, i.e., the states themselves, enforce both types of agreements. Moreover, soft law also ensures the support of the maximum number of members and a fast process since it usually does not require voting in domestic parliaments. None of the objectives or commitments of the Compact imposes any new obligation on the signatories. Instead, it reiterates the existing treaties and conventions. Issues with hard law can be seen in the approach of the UN member states towards the 1951 Refugee Convention, a legally binding document. Even after six decades of its adoption, more than 50 countries are yet to sign the agreement.

The most significant challenges before the Compact lie in its implementation and in the many significant countries that have not signed up to it. The refusal of many countries, including the United States, Australia and Hungary, to adopt the Compact corresponds with the rise of populism and anti-immigrant sentiments across the globe. These countries view the adoption of the Compact as an instance of surrender of sovereignty. Addressing the gap between reality and perception about migration and migrants will be a great challenge before the Compact in the coming years. Finally, the Compact does not talk about who will coordinate, monitor and fund its implementation. Since member states are responsible for implementation, they will have to do much more than mere reviews and occasional follow up in order to achieve the goals of the Compact.

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

*About the author: Rajeesh Kumar is Associate Fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi

Source: This article was published by IDSA

By Alasdair Macleod*

It is easy to conclude the EU, and the Eurozone in particular, is a financial and systemic time-bomb waiting to happen. Most commentary has focused on problems that are routinely patched over, such as Greece, Italy, or the impending rescue of Deutsche Bank. This is a mistake. The European Central Bank and the EU machine are adept in dealing with issues of this sort, mostly by brazening them out, while buying everything off. As Mario Draghi famously said, “whatever it takes.”

There is a precondition for this legerdemain to work. Money must continue to flow into the financial system faster than the demand for it expands, because the maintenance of asset values is the key. And the ECB has done just that, with negative deposit rates and its €2.5 trillion asset purchase program. But that program ends this month, making it the likely turning point, whereby it all starts to go wrong.

Most of the ECB’s money has been spent on government bonds for a secondary reason, and that is to ensure Eurozone governments remain in the euro system. Profligate politicians in the Mediterranean nations are soon disabused of their desires to return to their old currencies. Just imagine the interest rates the Italians would have to pay in lira on their €2.85 trillion of government debt, given a private sector GDP tax base of only €840 billion, just one third of that government debt.

It never takes newly-elected Italian politicians long to understand why they must remain in the euro system, and that the ECB will guarantee to keep interest rates significantly lower than they would otherwise be. Yet the ECB is now giving up its asset purchases, so won’t be buying Italian debt or any other for that matter. The rigging of the Eurozone’s sovereign debt market is at a turning point. The ending of this source of finance for the PIGS2 is a very serious matter indeed.

A side effect of the ECB’s asset purchase program has been the reduction of Eurozone bank lending to the private sector, which has been crowded out by the focus on government debt. This is illustrated in the following chart.

Following the Lehman crisis, the banks were forced to increase their lending to private sector companies, whose cash flow had taken a bad hit. Early in 2012 this began to reverse, and today total non-financial bank assets are even lower than they were in the aftermath of the Lehman crisis. Regulatory pressure is a large part of the reason for this trend, because under the EU’s version of the Basel Committee rules, government debt in euros does not require a risk weighting, while commercial debt does. So our first danger sign is the Eurozone banking system has ensured that banks load up on government debt at the expense of non-financial commercial borrowers.

The fact that banks are not serving the private sector helps explain why the Eurozone’s nominal GDP has stagnated, declining by 12% in the six largest Eurozone economies over the ten years to 2017. Meanwhile, the Eurozone’s M3 money increased by 39.2%. With both the ECB’s asset purchasing programs and the application of new commercial bank credit bypassing the real economy, it is hardly surprising that interest rates are now out of line with those of the US, whose economy has returned to full employment under strong fiscal stimulus. The result has been banks can borrow in the euro LIBOR market at negative rates, sell euros for dollars and invest in US Government Treasury Bills for a round trip gain of between 25%–30% when geared up on a bank’s base capital.

The ECB’s monetary policy has been to ignore this interest rate arbitrage in order to support an extreme overvaluation in the whole gamut of euro-denominated bonds. It cannot go on for ever. Fortunately for Mario Draghi, the pressure to change tack has lessened slightly as signs of a US economic slowdown appear to be increasing, and with it, further dollar interest rate rises deferred.

TARGET2

Our second danger sign is the massive TARGET2 interbank imbalances, which have not mattered so long as everyone has faith that it does not matter. This faith is the glue that holds a disparate group of national central banks together. Again, it comes down to the maintenance of asset values, because even though assets are not formally designated as collateral, their values underwrite confidence in the TARGET2 system. 

Massive imbalances have accumulated between the intra-regional central banks, as shown in our next chart, starting from the time of the Lehman crisis.

Germany’s Bundesbank, at just under €900 billion is due the most, and Italy, at just under €490 billion owes the most. These imbalances reflect accumulating trade imbalances between member states and non-trade movements of capital, reflecting capital flight. Additionally, imbalances arise when the ECB instructs a regional central bank to purchase bonds issued by its government and local corporate entities. This accounts for a TARGET2 deficit of €251 billion at the ECB, and surpluses to balance this deficit are spread round the regional central banks. This offsets other deficits, so the Bank of Italy owes more to the other regional banks than the €490 billion headline suggests.

Trust in the system is crucial for the regional central banks owed money, principally Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Finland. If there is a general deterioration in Eurozone collateral values, then TARGET2 imbalances will begin to matter to these creditors.

Eurozone Banks

Commercial banks in the Eurozone face a number of problems. The best way of illustrating them is by way of a brief list:

• Share prices of systemically important banks have performed badly following the Lehman crisis. In Germany, Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank have fallen 85% from their post-Lehman highs, Santander in Spain by 66%, and Unicredit in Italy by 88%.
• Share prices in the banking sector are usually a reliable barometer of systemic risks.
• The principal function of a Eurozone bank has always been to ensure its respective national government’s debt requirement is financed. This has become a particularly acute systemic problem in the PIGS.
• Basel II and upcoming Basel III regulations do not require banks to take a risk haircut on government debt, thereby encouraging them to overweight government debt on their balance sheets, and underweight equivalent corporate debt. Banks no longer serve the private sector, except reluctantly.
• Eurozone banks tend to have higher balance sheet gearing than those in other jurisdictions. A relatively small fall in government bond prices puts some of them at immediate risk, and if bond prices decline it is the weakest banks that will bring down the whole banking system.
• Eurozone banks are connected to the global banking system through interbank exposure and derivative markets, so systemic risks in the Eurozone are transmitted to other banking systems.

This list is not exhaustive, but it can be readily seen that an environment of declining asset prices and higher euro bond yields increases systemic threats to the entire banking system. As was the case with Austria’s Credit-Anstalt failure in 1931, one falling domino in the EU can easily topple the rest.

The ECB Itself is a Risk

As stated above, the ECB through its various asset purchase programs has caused the accumulation of some €2.5 trillion of debt, mostly in government bonds. The euro system’s central banks now have a balance sheet total of €4.64 trillion, for which the ECB is the ringmaster. Most of this debt is parked on the NCBs’ balance sheets, reflected in the TARGET2 imbalances.

The ECB’s subscribed equity capital is €7.74 billion and its own balance sheet total is €414 billion.3 This gives an operational gearing on core capital of 53 times. Securities held for monetary purposes (the portion of government debt purchased under various asset purchase programs shown on the balance sheet) is shown at €231 billion (it will have increased further in the current year). This means a fall in the value of these securities of only 3% will wipe out all the ECB’s capital.

If the ECB is to avoid an embarrassing recapitalization when, as now seems certain, bond yields rise, it must continue to rig euro bond markets. Therefore, the reintroduction of its asset purchase programs to stop bond yields rising becomes the last fling of the dice. The debt trap Eurozone governments find themselves in has also become a trap for the ECB.

• 2. Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain.
• 3. ECB Annual Report and Accounts, 2017.

*About the author: Alasdair Macleod is the Head of Research at GoldMoney.

Source: This article was published by the MISES Institute

Bangladesh had her parliamentary election on December 30, 2018 in which prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s ruling alliance won a third straight term winning more than 90 percent of the 300 seats contested. Five candidates of the BNP and two candidates from its ally Gono Forum were elected, while the ruling Awami League and its close allies bagged 267. The Jatiya Party, an ally of the Awami League, came second with 20 seats. [An additional 50 seats are reserved for women that will be distributed based on the proportional vote share of the contesting parties.]

Sunday’s election was marred by accusations of ballot stuffing, voter intimidation and violence that killed at least 19 people. Allegedly, most polling centers did not have observers from the opposition parties thus allowing for colossal ballot stuffing even in contested seats in which the opposition parties had little chance of winning. In some centers, poll results showed more votes being casted than the total eligible votes, giving credence to the opposition claims of a ‘farcical election’ with massive vote rigging.

As has become quite routine in the aftermath of any election held in Bangladesh (since 1991), the opponents rejected the election outcome. Their seven elected reps did not take the oath of office on Thursday, Jan. 3.
Western governments, including the United States and the European Union, have condemned the election-day violence and called for an investigation into a range of irregularities. The international media and rights group showed evidences of vote rigging and asked for review of such improprieties, a call that has been rejected by Sheikh Hasina. On Thursday, New York-based Human Rights Watch said the run-up to the vote was characterized by “violence and intimidation against the opposition … and the misuse of laws to limit free speech”. An earlier report, dated Dec. 22, had already described the pre-election atmosphere as “a climate of fear extending from prominent voices in society to ordinary citizens.”

“International donors, the United Nations and friends of Bangladesh should remember that elections are about the rights of voters, not those in power,” Brad Adams, HRW’s Asia director, said in a statement.

Last Friday, January 4, 2019 the United Nations joined the choir calling for an independent and impartial investigation into the election in Bangladesh.
“We urge the authorities to carry out prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations into all alleged acts of violence and human rights violations related to the elections, with a view to holding accountable those responsible, regardless of their political affiliations,” the United Nations said. “There are worrying indications that reprisals have continued to take place, notably against the political opposition, including physical attacks and ill-treatment, arbitrary arrests, harassment, disappearances and filing of criminal cases.” “Reports suggest that violent attacks and intimidation,” the United Nations said, “have been disproportionately carried out by ruling party activists, at times with complicity or involvement of law enforcement officers.”

The United Nations called on the authorities to take urgent measures to prevent further reprisals, and to ensure that law enforcement authorities exercised their powers in accordance with the rule of law. It also urged the national Human Rights Commission to play an independent and proactive role.

The Electronic Voting Machines were first used in this election in six constituencies, which also came under criticism due to the irregularities and polling officers voting on behalf of the voters and in favor of the ruling government. According to the Wikipedia, “In summary, it was the most controversial election in the history of the country characterized by the widespread vote rigging by ruling party activists with the assistance of police, presiding officers and all state powers.”

This is a sad commentary! Before the election there was some optimism in the air that this time with the participation of opposition BNP (which sat out the previous general election over its unmet demand for poll-time neutral, i.e., care-taker, government) and the Jatiya Oikya Front (Gono Forum) the election would be fair, thus allowing democracy to take a deeper root in this country of nearly 160 million people. Apparently, all such hoopla came to nothing. Bangladesh will have to live through its ignominy of being an illiberal democracy for a foreseeable future!

After all, for democracy to benefit the people, the government must be a participative one of the people, by the people and for the people with checks and balances in place. Democracy cannot blossom when there is no opposition or a tyranny of the majority that tramples on the rights and privileges of the minority.

Bangladesh is, thus, back to square one, and what we witnessed in the last election was almost a repeat of the previous election results, which does not bode well for the country and its people.

Did the ruling party need such vote rigging to win the 2018 election? I didn’t think so. Despite many flaws, including burgeoning corruption and politicization of all the wings of the administration, the ruling alliance has had many positives that it could have banked upon to cement its win in a fair election, even if held under a care-taker government.

Last month, I had the opportunity of attending a meeting of the US-settled non-resident Bangladeshi- (NRB) born engineers in the Washington D.C. area that was organized by the NRB Council, USA. A video about the progress that Bangladesh has made within the last few years, esp., in gender equality and economic growth was shown. During nearly 10 years of Hasina’s governance, per capita income has increased by nearly 150 percent, while the share of the population living in extreme poverty has shrunk to about 9 percent from 19 percent, according to the World Bank. Some experts suggest that at the current rate of nearly 8 percent growth, Bangladesh would cross the per capita income of India, by 2020, and is expected to turn into a middle-income economy by 2024. It’s an impressive list that should make anyone proud of being a Bangladeshi. I wondered: where would Bangladesh be today if there was no corruption!

So, why this charade with the election? I am told that the ruling alliance did not want to take any chance and ended up re-engineering the entire process, thus, tarnishing the image of Sheikh Hasina internationally. With the goodwill she had created globally, esp. in the aftermath of Rohingya genocide, and the phenomenal scorecard of achievement within the country, surely, she did not need foul plays of her either too-enthusiastic or criminal and rowdy supporters within the ruling party to solidify her election win in 2018.

As a well-wisher, my advice would be that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina listen to the UN and carry out prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigations into all alleged acts of violence and human rights violations related to the elections, with a view to holding accountable those responsible. If foul plays are proven, new and fair elections should be held in those constituencies immediately to correct the previous wrongful acts. Such by-elections would go a long way to restoring people’s trust and salvaging her tarnished image from being perceived as an authoritarian who has turned Bangladesh into a de-facto one-party state, where the ruling party has usurped the constitutional rights of its opponents and common citizens. These measures would salvage democracy, which the country needs badly to encourage foreign investment, and attract NRBs and talented expatriates to fulfil her vision for a ‘prosperous Bangladesh with no one left behind’.

Now that the election is over, and Sheikh Hasina has been asked to form a new cabinet what is next for the opposition parties? Do they have a forward-looking strategy that is peaceful and non-violent?

The BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia (74) is in poor health and is serving time in prison after being convicted of embezzling funds during her time as prime minister. With many of the party leaders behind prison cells or facing trials, her party is in disarray. Her son, Tariq Zia, groomed for leadership role, lives in the UK and risks prison time if he were to return to Bangladesh due to various court verdicts against him. If the party wants to be relevant in the future, it needs to develop a forward-looking strategy minus the Zia factor.

The Gono Forum leader, Dr Kamal Hossain (81), is an old man, and so are most of the leaders of the opposition parties, including the Jatiya Party whose leader H. M. Ershad is ninety years old. All these major parties, including the ruling Awami League (whose leader Sheikh Hasina is 71 years old), need to bring younger generation in the leadership role by grooming individuals that are honest, moral, spiritual and intellectually sharp.

As the unprecedented, fourth-time Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina may like to improve Bangladesh’s ranking in media freedom to strengthen this bedrock of democracy. Currently, the country is ranked 146 out of 180 countries, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). She may like to remove the draconian Digital Security Act (DSA) that has been accused of spreading a climate of fear. The sooner the better!

In the summer of 1992, Sheikh Hasina, then the leader of opposition in the parliament, attended the Democratic Party Convention in New York City. Accompanied by my wife (Eva) and infant (Hassan), I spent half an hour with her at her hotel room in the Trump Plaza Hotel. We found her to be loving, caring and sincere. I pray and hope that my perception is not wrong and that she has the moral fortitude and intellectual foresight of doing what is right towards strengthening democracy and making Bangladesh an envy of South Asia by bettering the lives of all the citizens.