Karl Marx: Forgotten Man in Russia

Two hundred years after his birth, a handful of Russian academics want Karl Marx to be a household name.

by Evan Gershkovich- May 11, 2018

( May 11, 2018, Moscow, Sri Lanka Guardian) Two hundred years after Karl Marx was born, a country he never visited is marked with reminders of his legacy. Russia’s most popular social network Vkontakte lists hundreds of people named after the German political economist. In addition to the 1,390 streets throughout the country that bear his name, there is a town called Marx on the Volga River.

But nearly 27 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the 19th century’s most influential thinkers has become an afterthought in the first country to implement his ideas as a political system. Leading up to the May 5 anniversary, Russian authorities chose not the mark the occasion at all.

“The official stance is that his revolutionary ideas brought misfortune to the Russian people,” said Lev Gudkov, director of the independent Levada Center pollster. “Russians have all but forgotten him.”

With authorities silent ahead of Marx’s birthday, academics and historians are picking up the slack. Throughout the year, universities and museums across the country are hosting conferences and exhibitions in the hope of keeping Marx, who argued inequality is inherent to capitalism, alive not just in the country’s ivory towers, but as a household name too.

At Kazan Federal University, educators took a creative approach to their two-day long event at the end of April titled MarxFest. In addition to group discussions and speeches in the style of the popular TED Talks on Marx’s contributions to economic theory, organizers invited a local rapper to freestyle in hope of attracting students.

Aida Novenkova, who heads the university’s graduate studies program in management, economics and finance, said the goal of the festival was to introduce students to an influential thinker “beyond just a chapter in a textbook.”

“I believe that the most important thing is for our students to have access to a wide array of views and to become critical thinkers,” she said by phone. “Marx greatly influenced the world’s understanding of economics, and it is important for students to know that not everything is about politics.”

First-year student Alina Talichkina put the point more bluntly: “To not know a person like this is embarrassing.”

Popularity plunge

A significant number of Russians, however, do not. According to the latest figures Levada shared with The Moscow Times, nearly a quarter of those polled did not know who Marx was. Of those who do, only a few considered him to be a leading thinker.

According to Gudkov, in 1989, 35 percent of Russians thought of Marx as one of the top 10 greatest people to have lived. By the end of 1991 after the Soviet Union fell, only 8 percent did. Since 2008, the number has flatlined at three percent.

Gudkov pointed to criticism of communism in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union as to why Marx has lost popularity. For the ruling elite, Gudkov said, once Russia’s dominant political ideology veered away from Marxism, his writings were no longer a politically expedient tool. And with the author pushed to the margins, his theories ceased to be a compulsory part of the curriculum.

In contrast, Josef Stalin has seen a surge in popularity in recent years. Gudkov noted, though, that Russians retroactively hail him for building a great country and successfully defending it during World War II, not for his ties to the Soviet system.

For Alexander Chepurenko, who researches Marx’s economic theories at the Higher School of Economics, the story of Marx in Russia “is very short and sad.” Even in universities, he said, the thinker takes a “very limited place, and in a very superficial sense.” And while there are several groups within Russia intelligentsia who consider themselves Marxists, he said, they are “marginal.”

One such historian is Ilya Budraitskis, 37, who is currently teaching at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and writes for a number of left-leaning outlets. In a phone interview, he said he actually turned to Marx only after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“I came into adulthood in the ’90s when we suddenly found ourselves with widespread social inequality,” Budraitskis said. “Seeing that pushed me to research capitalism and social justice.”

Indeed, according to Budraitskis, social inequality will be Russians’ major concern in the years to come. According to a recent report by Credit Suisse, Russia is the most unequal of the world’s major economies, with 89 percent of the wealth owned by the country’s richest 10 percent.

As long as that remains the case, Budraitskis, pointing to Marx’s resurgence since the worldwide economic crisis of 2008, believes Marx’s ideas will come become trendy again in Russia. Indeed, sales of his books have soared worldwide, and socialism as a potential political system has become increasingly popular in Europe and even in the United States.

Epoch influencer

For now, though, a popular return to Marx’s ideas in Russia remains a ways off, says Budraitskis. Of those who know are familiar with him, the majority associate his ideas with the “dogmatic Marxism that was taught in the Soviet era” — a crude, simplified version, he argued, of the thinker’s understanding of the perils of capitalism.

“The audience for Marx right now is still very slim,” Budraitskis said. “It is a young, politically interested class of elite university students.”

Still, because Marx offers a critique of capitalism, Andrei Kolganov, a professor of economics at Moscow State University, said his views will inherently come into vogue during economically difficult times. And if Russia’s economy continues to sputter, the Marxist critique could make a comeback. “I believe we will see what we are seeing happen around the world happen in Russia, too,” Kolganov said.

If it does, Artyom Garaev, a Kazan Federal University student and MarxFest organizer, would rather the “socialism of the Soviet Union” not return to Russia. Regardless, “as a philosopher and economist who influenced his epoch,” Garaev said, “Marx should always be relevant.”

Xiao Qing He contributed reporting from Kazan.

( Moscow Times)

5 police killed during Islamist riot in prison near Jakarta

11th May 2018

A mobile brigade policeman stands in front of the Mobile Police Brigade (Brimob) headquarters in Depok, south of Jakarta, Indonesia, May 9, 2018. Source: Reuters/Beawiharta

INDONESIAN authorities said on Thursday that Islamist terror detainees had surrendered after a standoff that lasted almost two days at a high security detention centre near the capital Jakarta.

Hundreds of police and armoured vehicles were deployed to rescue a police officer taken hostage by inmates after chaos erupted late Tuesday at the facility inside the Mobile Police Brigade headquarters in Depok, leaving five officers and an inmate dead.

Officials deemed the incident an “act of terror” and said that the officers had been “sadistically killed” by the detainees, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group. “We have minimised the number of victims,” deputy chief of national police Syafruddin told reporters.

SEE ALSO: Indonesia needs to be vigilant to avoid becoming a home for terrorists again

In the pre-dawn operation, 145 prisoners “surrendered unconditionally” and the hostage was released with no further casualties reported, said Chief Security Minister Wiranto.

Another ten inmates holding out against police later surrendered after tear gas was used, he said. Several blasts heard near the prison on Thursday morning were caused by police destroying home-made bombs created by the prisoners, police said.

Rioting had broken out after several prisoners demanded they be given food sent to them by their families and managed to grab some of their jailers’ firearms in the ensuing fracas.

Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo thanked security forces for their efforts in containing the crisis. “The state and all the people are never afraid and will never give the slightest room to terrorism and also to efforts that undermine the security of the country,” he told a news conference.

This handout photo released by Indonesia’s National Police and taken on May 9, 2018 shows evidence of firearms, ammunition, and bulletproof gear that prisoners used during a riot at the Mobile Police Brigade headquarters in Depok, West Java. Source: National Police/ AFP

The Islamic State group was quick to claim responsibility for the riot through its Amaq News Agency, but authorities rejected that claim.

Experts, however, said it was likely those responsible were affiliated with IS. “The East Asia Division of the Islamic State reported on the ongoing clashes inside the Depok city prison … and provided photos of fighters and seized weapons,” said SITE Intelligence group on its website during the siege.

Sidney Jones, Director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict told the Jakarta Post that it was likely to be pro-IS Indonesians behind the riot as “they’ve been causing trouble for some time at [the prison].”

SEE ALSO: Indonesia: Mass prisoner escape points to bigger problem

Among the facility’s prisoners is Aman Abdurrahman, an Islamic radical jailed for orchestrating an attack in Jakarta in 2016 that left eight people dead.

Incidentally, Jakarta’s former governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama – jailed under Indonesia’s strict blasphemy laws last year for allegedly insulting Islam – is also held at the detention centre.

Indonesia’s overcrowded prisons are notorious for their poor conditions and outbreaks of violence. Two years ago, nearly 500 inmates broke out from a prison after complaining about overcrowding and extortion.

Additional reporting from Reuters and AFP.

Paris knife attacker was known to counter-terrorism police

Khamzat Azimov, who struck in busy theatre district of French capital on Saturday night, had been flagged as a security risk

 One man killed in Paris as knifeman attacks passersby at random – video report

Kim Willsher -Sun 13 May 2018

French officials said the knife-wielding attacker who killed a passerby and injured four others in Paris on Saturday evening had been previously been flagged as a possible security risk and interviewed by counter-terrorist police.

The attacker, named as Khamzat Azimov, 20, struck in one of the most popular areas of the city, near the celebrated opera house and theatres, before before being shot dead by police in Paris.
Police said he was previously interviewed because of his contacts, not his behaviour, and they insisted he had shown no signs of extremism in his everyday life or on social media.

Azimov, was listed as a person susceptible to Islamic radicalisation, but “more for the company he keeps than for his own behaviour, his actions or his opinions”, according to a report in Le Figaro.
French police took the man’s parents into custody on Sunday for questioning about his links to jihadists in Syria and searched the family home in the 18th arrondissement in the north of Paris. One of Azimov’s friends from Strasbourg, where he grew up, was also reportedly detained for questioning.

Azimov struck at random in the busy area of restaurants and theatres near Paris’s Opera Garnier in the city’s second arrondissement, at about 8.50pm local time.

Witnesses said Azimov, who was born in Chechnya, but obtained French nationality in 2010 when his mother was naturalised, arrived at the scene of the attack by metro. He was dressed in black, and carrying a knife.

Police were quick to arrive at the scene as he walked along rue Monsigny, a one-way street, apparently looking for victims. Panicked diners fled terraces or took refuge under tables inside restaurants.

Officers, praised for their sangfroid, reportedly tried to halt him with a stun-gun, but when he continued to threaten them shot him dead.

Witnesses said Azimov shouted: “Go ahead. Shoot. I’m going to get you.”

French police at the site of the knife attack near Opera Garnier in Paris. Photograph: Xinhua/Rex/Shutterstock

In the moments before, he stabbed to death a 29-year-old man walking in the street and injured four others. Two of the injured were said to be in a serious, but not life-threatening, condition in hospital.
Several witnesses claimed the attacker cried “Allahu Akbar” as he lunged at people. This was confirmed by the public prosecutor, François Molins. Isis has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Born in the Caucuses, Azimov’s family came to France in the early 2000s and moved to Nice before settling on a housing estate at Elsau, in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, home to a large number of Chechen migrants. The family’s request for refugee status was initially refused; on appeal it was finally approved by the National Court for the Right to Asylum in 2004. Azimov’s father was refused French nationality after separating from the boy’s mother. Le Monde said the couple had since reunited and moved to a new home in the north of Paris.

Although he had never been in trouble with the police or the authorities and had no criminal record, he had come to the attention of French security services because of his contacts with a group of young people wanting to travel to Syria.

Azimov, who was not carrying identity papers, had been interviewed by counter-terrorism officers a year ago after it was discovered he was friends with a man whose wife had travelled to Syria. He had been on the Fiche-S list of people considered a potential security risk since 2016 but was considered a suiveur(follower), or secondary figure, according to anti-terrorist officers. He had no criminal record.

Up to 20,000 – from radical Islamists to hooligans and members of the extreme right or extreme left – people are believed to be on the Fiche S list and classified according to their potential risk.

In a series of tweets, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said his thoughts were with the victims of the attack and praised the courage of police who “neutralised the terrorist”.

“France is paying in blood once again, but it will not give one inch to the enemies of freedom,” he wrote.

The interior minister, Gérard Collomb, hailed the sangfroid and quick response of police who shot the attacker. “My first thoughts are with the victims of this odious act,” he tweeted.

Another woman who was out with her young son and saw the knifeman said he seemed determined to attack police officers who had tried to surround and immobilise him.

“Police surrounded him and I really thought that would stop him, but not at all. He literally jumped at the police. He was so determined,” she told BFM TV.

She added: “He was small, slim, longish hair, like all the fashionable young, a three-day beard. He did not stand out. He was dressed normally. Never in my life would I have thought he was going to attack.”


A forensic officer and a police officer stand next to a numbered reference index pad and a camera on a tripod near the scene of the crime in Paris. Photograph: Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images
A waiter on duty near the opera house, named only as Jonathan, described the attack, which happened in front of his restaurant.

“The attacker was walking in the street, armed with a knife. He had a lot of blood on his hands. He was walking in the road and stopping at all the shops. He was threatening everyone who crossed his path.”

He added: “He threatened a woman and her companion came to defend her and was threatened as well. Then he moved on to the next restaurant and attacked it. I wasn’t particularly worried, I was under the impression he was mad or drugged up.”

On Sunday, while Macron and his wife Brigitte were taking a bank-holiday break at Fort de Brégançon in the south of France, Collomb held an hour-long emergency security meeting with representatives from the security services, police and advisers at the interior ministry.

France’s anti-terrorist brigade was investigating the attack and the prosecutor has opened an inquiry into murder linked to a terrorist organisation.

Top State Department Nuclear Expert Announces Resignation After Trump Iran Deal Exit

Officials warn of brain drain across government offices.

U.S. President Donald Trump leaves after announcing his decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal in a speech at the White House on May 8. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

BY COLUM LYNCH, ROBBIE GRAMER

| MAY 11, 2018, 3:07 PM

One of the State Department’s top experts on nuclear proliferation resigned this week after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, in what officials and analysts say is part of a worrying brain drain from public service generally over the past 18 months.

Richard Johnson, a career civil servant who served as acting assistant coordinator in State’s Office of Iran Nuclear Implementation, had been involved in talks with countries that sought to salvage the deal in recent weeks, including Britain, France, and Germany — an effort that ultimately failed.

He did not give a specific reason for his departure. But in a farewell email to colleagues and staff, Johnson stressed that the 2015 agreement Trump was ditching had successfully curbed Iran’s nuclear program.

“I am proud to have played a small part in this work, particularly the extraordinary achievement of implementing the [deal] with Iran, which has clearly been successful in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” he wrote.

Foreign Policy obtained a copy of the email.

Johnson’s departure leaves a growing void in the State Department’s stable of experts on Iran’s nuclear program and highlights a broader problem of high-level departures from government.

Officials say the trend is particularly evident at the State Department, where Trump sidelined career diplomats and morale plummeted under former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The office Johnson led has gone from seven full-time staffers to none since Trump’s inauguration.

Tillerson last year shuttered the department’s sanctions coordination office and moved some sanctions experts into administrative roles.

One U.S. official who works on sanctions described Johnson’s resignation as a “big loss” for the department and reflective of a growing sense that the Trump administration is casting aside career experts and ignoring their input as it pushes through a bevy of controversial foreign-policy priorities.

Until the Trump administration moved to dismantle the nuclear pact, Johnson, 38, had planned to remain in government service, according to a former State Department official.

“He’s exactly the kind of person we want to keep in government,” says Brian O’Toole, a former Treasury official who is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.

“The demonization of the civil service is draining experts like Richard. That attitude needs to be reversed if we want to continue being a superpower — you can’t be powerful without good people in government.”

A former State Department official who worked with Johnson described him as “one of the most talented nonproliferation experts in the [U.S. government],” having served at the National Security Council and as an inspector in North Korea.

Johnson is planning to join the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit group dedicated to preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The group is headed by a former energy secretary who led the U.S. technical team during the Iran negotiations.

Johnson’s colleagues gave him a send-off at the State Plaza Hotel, blocks from the State Department, on Wednesday night, just hours after Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Iran deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The farewell reception drew current and former officials involved in negotiating or overseeing the Iran agreement, including two of the senior-most career diplomats at the State Department: Thomas Shannon, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, and career Ambassador Stephen Mull, the former Iran nuclear implementation coordinator, according to the former official who worked with Johnson.

“[It] was a mini-reunion for the JCPOA negotiating team — much alcohol was consumed,” one of the people who attended says.

“I am not going to speak for everybody, but I, and a lot of other people at that party, believe that Trump has withdrawn us from the deal based on nothing more than animus toward his predecessor,” says Jarrett Blanc, a Barack Obama-era political appointee who worked on the Iran deal and attended Johnson’s farewell dinner.

“I can’t say I know exactly why [Johnson] left, but if this is another example of the Trump administration being unable to keep talent, we should all be worried,” he says.

“In general, we do not comment on matters involving individual employees,” a State Department spokesperson says in an email. “As directed by the President, we will continue to work with nations around the world to create a new coalition to counter Iran’s nuclear and proliferation threats, as well as its support for terrorism, militancy, and asymmetric weapons like ballistic missiles.”

Johnson did not respond to a request for comment on his reasons for leaving. But in his farewell email, he expressed his belief that the Iran nuclear deal “would only further help to lay the foundation for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, a goal we all share.”

In a final signoff, Johnson reflected on the reasons why, as a high school student, he was drawn into government service.

“When my father (always the engineer) challenged me to defend my choice to major in international relations at a private liberal arts college, [he asked] ‘what kind of job can you get with that degree?’” Johnson recalled.

“I printed out the job description of a Foreign Service Officer from an early version of the State Department website and said, ‘This is what I could do.’”

FP Chief National Security Correspondent Dan De Luce contributed to this report. 

Update, May 11, 2018, 3:18 p.m.: This article was updated to include comments from a State Department spokesperson. 

Kim Jong Un’s game-plan is pretty clear

https://www.statista.com/chart/10380/north-korean-economy-growing-despite-sanctions/

by Kumar David-May 12, 2018, 6:32 pm 

A fortnight ago the gathered masses hollered "Nobel! Nobel!" at a Trump rally loud enough to be heard in Oslo. The thought then crossed my mind that it would be like awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to a bacterium for the invention of antibiotics. A common view is that Trump’s braggadocio intimidated North Korea with threats of obliteration even though (if) it could have taken two or three US cities down with it. The Nobel Committee, red faced by Aung San Suu Kyi’s disgraceful complicity in genocide, is most unlikely to be stampeded into making an ass of itself again by embracing the most controversial big-power leader of the day, and one despised by more than half his compatriots. This columnist has to confess to joy at the time of the award to Suu Kyi; in hindsight utterly premature.

Let’s examine, albeit speculatively, the current state of play, but first let me say sorry if you find the caption "landscape undergoing sea-change" oxymoronic. Kim’s game-plan is pitched at three levels of depth and complexity; the wily roly-poly has already achieved 1(a). The step by step design I attribute to Kim is:

1. (a) Defuse all possibility of a US first-strike and secure the import of fuels and consumer goods. (b) Fish for capital injection, albeit on a limited scale, from the South and China to support a mini-Deng Xiao Ping (mini-DXP) initiatives.

2. Campaign for the lifting of sanctions in exchange for "complete denuclearisation; a complete nuclear free Korean Peninsula" to which Kim and Moon Jae-in committed in the Panmunjom Declaration of 27 April 2018.

3. Secure reunification of the Peninsula on a formula that will guarantee the regime, its principal functionaries and the military, safety for say 50 years – One Country Two Systems but very different from Hong Kong-China or East-West Germany.

Part (a) of objective 1, making a US first-strike impossible, has been achieved. Whatever the outcome of the Kim-Trump talks, so long as the Kim-Moon dialog is in progress, US military action is out of the question. Not even a surreal oddity like Trump can press the button. The talks involve a raft of issues – return of prisoners, lowering military tension, joint liaison bodies, meetings at "all levels; central and local governments, parliaments, political parties and civil organisations" etc. This will drag on beyond Trumps term of office. Fire and fury has been stamped out.

[All quotations are from the Panmunjom Declaration widely available on the web].

Part (b) in item 1 of Kim’s game-plan is not as simple as (a). He knows that formal lifting of Security Council sanctions is a complex grind, but he hopes to play side-games with China, the South and Russia in the meantime. They will indulge in trade because he has mentioned denuclearisation and the latter two will gladly stabilise an anti-American regime in the region. 1(b) starts with easing restrictions on fuel, machinery and consumer goods imports, short of sanctions busting. It is not still clear how this will roll but the South will turn a blind eye to consumer goods "smuggling" in addition to food and medicines already permitted. China never cut oil flow and will now be more brazen. All this will have near universal third-world support.

A new turn in the economy

Something not so well known outside the Peninsula is that Kim has kicked off on a mini-DXP economic strategy. Small private trade is prospering and minor capitalists are encouraged. Some state enterprises are no longer rigidly controlled and allowed a degree of management independence. There are many reports that shelves are well stocked in Pyongyang. The capital is another world from the rest of the country. A reliable number is the South’s Bank of Korea (BoK) estimate that in 2016 the North’s GDP grew at 3.9% and probably higher in 2017. The economy collapsed after the Soviet Union went bust; GDP halved from 1990 and 1999. There was a see-saw till 2015, but sustained growth seems to have resumed.

"North Korea’s economy grew at its fastest pace in 17 years in 2016, South Korea’s central bank said on Friday, despite the isolated country facing international sanctions aimed at curbing its defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons" said a Reuters’ report of 21 June, 2017 echoed in a CNBC report of 20 July quoting the same BoK source - see graph. But don’t be fooled by near 4% growth from an abysmally low base. It will need double digit growth for a decade to pull the country out of the mire.

Kim, having for now tethered the American hunter-killer, needs a breathing space to build the economy. The guarantee of survival is a nuclear deterrent and delivery capability. For that, parleying with the South must be sustained. In the past the North has been adept at making promises that it does not keep. Kim knows he must retain his nuclear capabilities, or else he will be Gadhafied, Saddam Husseined or screwed like Iran; he is a dictator, not a goof.

Forerunners to reunification

Complete denuclearisation, in Kim’s parlance accepted by Moon for inclusion in the Declaration, is governed by the adjective "Complete". What is Complete? Is it when US troops in Korea and their nuclear umbrella is gone? Also recall that US Okinawa bases (seven in the island chain) were used to attack Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Iraq. Arguably Okinawa is a nuclear threat! This implies that the negotiating gap between 1(b) and 2 will be unending. Kim is aware and probably bargaining on it being prolonged while he hangs on to his atomic toys and enjoys reduced import restrictions short of formal sanctions lifting. Negotiations with Trump are not important except to buy time and keep the wolf at bay; that’s my take.

Before reunification the North’s economy must be recapitalised and vitalised. Literacy is high and the work-force well-trained, the country is endowed with natural resources; investment is taking place in infrastructure. However the hybrid currency system – separate domestic and foreign monies - will have to go. The ration-coupon system which functions side by side with money wages will have to be replaced by a wage system throughout the economy. Land will have to open to peasant owners so that agricultural output can boom. China and Vietnam are trail blazers and can serve as exemplars.

With reunification the North will enter the world trading system and WTO and join international bodies. Doing this as an extension of the already integrated South will ease flow. Crucially the relationship of the economically dominant central state in the North to a free-wheeling capitalist system in the South will be a Gordian knot to unravel. For this reason the Korean One Country Two Systems recipe will be like Hong Kong and China, not German reunification, but with elephant and tail inverted. I imagine economic integration will be a bigger headache than political horse trading. Kim’s nuclear chips give him goodies to bring to the latter bargaining table.

Whither the United States?

We are passing through a defining moment not only in US-China relations but in US-East Asia affairs because the big picture is not only about trade, it’s about strategic positioning for the remainder of this millennium; it’s about the future. Thomas Friedman says in the New York Times of 1 May that in one corner stand Trump and his hardliners who want to engage in the struggle before it’s too late and China gets too big. And he thinks Xi Jinping and the Party want the fight now because it’s already too late, China is already too big.

Trade threats are everyday fallout; a high-level US trade delegation was in Beijing last week. One can’t paint a blow-by-blow picture of winners and losers, but the big picture so far is ‘advantage-China’. China exports four times as much to the US as it imports, seemingly it has more to lose, but its economy is younger and more robust and people who remember recent hardship are resilient and better able to ride through rough times. With no elections and with a one-party state China is located on different plane from the US. Long term, China can’t lose.

As a new détente emerges in the Far East (the two Koreas, China and Japan) the US becomes somewhat redundant; the cards are stacked against it. My instinct says time is not on its side. This is a reading of the tealeaves, not an expression of choice, endorsement of one-party power or affidavit in support of Xi Jinping absolutism. My travels in China often bring me upfront against an overbearing state. You can’t buy a train or museum ticket without proof of identity, huge posters supporting the government are ubiquitous, the Internet is politically filtered and bloggers beware. It’s intrusive.

Nigerian woman kicked off United flight after white man complained she was ‘pungent,’ suit says

A United Airlines jet lands at San Francisco International Airport in July 2017. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

by Kristine Phillips May 12 at 4:47 PM

An African woman and her children were kicked off a United Airlines flight after a fellow passenger complained that she had a “pungent” odor, according to a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against the company.

The incident involving the passenger, a white male, happened two years ago, when Queen Obioma, a Nigerian citizen, and her two children were boarding a flight from Houston to San Francisco. The family had flown from Lagos, Nigeria, and were on the second leg of a three-flight journey to Ontario, Canada.

Obioma saw that the other passenger had sat in her assigned seat in the business-class cabin, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in federal court in Houston. The passenger refused to move, so a flight crew member, instead, asked Obioma to sit elsewhere in business class.

Later, before takeoff, Obioma went to use the bathroom. On her way back to her seat, the same passenger was standing in the aisle and blocking her from getting to her seat, the lawsuit says. She said “excuse me” three times, but was ignored. After several minutes, Obioma managed to squeeze her way to her seat.

[More dogs die on United than on any other airline. Here’s why.]

But just after she sat down, a crew member told Obioma to go outside the aircraft, where another employee told her that she would be removed from the flight. The lawsuit says the pilot had personally requested that she be removed because the male passenger, who was not identified, had complained that her smell was “pungent” and that he was not comfortable flying with her.

“At that point Ms. Obioma was lost, confused and disoriented. Her mind went blank and she was utterly befuddled,” according to the complaint.

Obioma explained that she was taking her children to school in Canada for the first time and that they had appointments they could not miss. Despite her situation, crew members refused to let Obioma back onto the aircraft and removed the entire family from the flight.

“Ms. Obioma watched her minor children marched out of the aircraft like criminals, confused and perplexed. … She sobbed uncontrollably for a long time,” the complaint says, adding that the children, who were seated in the economy cabin, were humiliated.

A United spokeswoman said in a statement that the company has not been served with the lawsuit and is unable to comment because of the pending litigation.

[Teen sleeping on United flight was groped by another passenger, complaint says]

The lawsuit alleges that United Airlines discriminated against Obioma and her children during the incident on March 4, 2016, at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston because they were black. It also accuses crew members of singling out Obioma, not because she was being disruptive, but because a white man — who refused to sit in his assigned seat — did not want to share a plane with her.

The mother and her children waited for five hours before they could get on another flight, and they missed their scheduled appointments. Obioma also incurred more expenses, the lawsuit says.

United has struggled with customer service issues.

In April 2017, a viral video showed Chicago airport security officers forcibly dragging a passenger from a flight. The removal of David Dao, who was seen with a bloodied mouth in the video, resulted in the firing of two airport security officers and suspension of two others. Dao reached an undisclosed settlement with United a few weeks after the incident, according to the Associated Press. Last month, one of the fired security officers, James Long, sued United and the city of Chicago, claiming he wasn’t properly trained to deal with the situation and that he had been defamed, CBS reported.

Then in July, a passenger had to hold her 2-year-old son in her lap for more than three hours because the airline had sold his seat to a standby passenger.

And in March, a passenger’s 10-month-old puppy suffocated to death after a flight attendant forced the owner to place it in an overhead compartment.

Gene Editing

Besides, ethical concerns of whether it would be permissible to use this technology to enhance normal human traits (such as height or intelligence), there is the perennial question of longevity.

by Victor Cherubim-May 12, 2018

( May 12, 2018, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Heart disease, alzheimer’s, cancer are the most common illnesses that can be eradicated in 20 years, according to Genetic research.

Genome editing or Engineering (also called gene editing) is revolutionising biomedical research due to its high efficiency, ease of use and relatively low cost. It has come after decades of scientific research and ethical and environmental concerns about its efficacy.

This consists of a group of technologies that give scientists, called geneticists, the ability to change an organism’s DNA. These technologies allow genetic material to be added, removed or altered at particular locations in the genome.

A recent platform is known as CRISPR -Cas9, which is short for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats,” has generated a lot of excitement among geneticists and scientists because it is faster, cheaper, more accurate, and efficient than other existing genome editing methods.

Gene Therapies

There are two different categories of gene therapies, “Germline” therapy and “Somatic” therapy. Germline therapy can alter many cell types. But by definition, they also change genes in reproductive cells (like sperm and eggs). Germline therapy could “potentially” prevent inheritance of diseases. Somatic therapies on the other hand target non reproductive cells. These changes only affect the person (the individual) who receives the gene therapy. This therapy could be used to slow or reverse the disease process.

What then, are genes?

“Genes are the biological templates the body uses to make the structural proteins and enzymes needed to build and maintain tissues and organs. They are made up of strands of the genetic code, denoted by the letters G,C,T and A”. The letters of the Genetic Code refer to the molecules Guanine (G) Cytosine (C) Thymine (T) and Adenine (A). In DNA, these molecules pair up: G with C and T with A”.

Many diseases from cancer to asthma have genetic bases. Through the application of genome editing technologies, physicians “might” eventually be able to prescribe targeted gene therapy to make corrections to patient genomes and “prevent,” stop or reverse disease.

Gene tools

Gene editing “rewrites DNA, the biological code that makes up the instruction manuals of living organisms”.

Laymen should come to know the vocabulary used by Geneticists. Words such as “gene knockout,” “mutagenesis,” “activation/ repression,” are some among others regularly used.

In simple language, with gene editing, researchers can switch off and on, disable, turn on target genes, correct harmful mutations and change the activity of specific genes in plants and animals, now in humans.

What will our Genome tell us?

The DNA can tell us our sex, hair colour, eye colour, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Body Clock, Long Life, Obesity and other diseases.

The simplest thing DNA can tell us is whether someone is male or female. All you need to know is whether they have X and Y chromosomes (making them male) or a pair of Xs (which makes them female).

We are also told if you have TP3 you have a 90% chance of having cancer. In Breast Cancer, up to 80% of women with BRCA1 or BRCA2 Genes will develop Breast cancer.

The speed of DNA Sequence

The speed of DNA sequencing is increasing. We are now able to read and edit DNA to ascertain whether people are predisposed to certain diseases. Reading DNA letter by letter is called sequencing.

Soon, in fact in the not too distant future, every new born will have a DNA Sequence Report, similar to having a Passport, as an Identity Health Check. Don’t imagine it, it is already here. It is a technological platform to understand our genes, for health care, for prevention of disease and for treatment.

Epigenetic Information

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in the gene function. Most often it denotes changes in a chromosome that affect gene activity and expression.

Epigenetic markers are passed on after birth. Epigenetic silencing is the process of making the markers reversible. There are drugs prescribed to silence the “abberated epigenetic markers”. It is to control trans-generational influences. Which marker(s) to turn on and which ones to turn off, which gene to go back to the job of protecting and restoring disease, is the science which holds great promise for the future.

The question is the positive or negative impact our genes have over long term health as well as our longevity.

DNA Screen

Every newborn will have a DNA screening. At birth you order your DNA Chart. It is your NHGRI identity. It stands for National Human Genome Research Institute, located at Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Besides, your national passport, one may also have to carry a NHGRI identity to travel the world in the future?

Who knows whether Prince Louis, newborn son of Prince William, has a NHGRI identity?

My identity, however, is that I was born in Colombo, Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. I had never known until recently that I had inherited the genes of my great, great, great, great grandfather, Changarapillai Mudaliyar who was born in 1695 and lived to a ripe old age of 89 years.

Personalised Medicine in the future?

Besides, cell free circulating DNA is being explored as a biomarker for treatment of cancer, to monitor their progression (as an alternative to invasive biopsies).

Pharmaco Genomics involves using an individual’s genome to determine whether or not a particular therapy or dose of therapy will be effective. PG information is available in the medicine label in diverse fields such as analgesics, anti-virus, cardiovascular drugs and anti-cancer therapeutics.

DNA Sequencing is being used to investigate infectious disease outbreaks, Ebola virus, drug resistance staphylococci aureas and Klebsieila pneumoniae, as well as food poisoning.

Genome Testing

Genetic Testing has exploded. But there is a tremendous shortage of Genetic Sequencers to perform these tests. There are fewer than 5000 Counsellors in the U.S,which falls short of demand for sequencing of the human genome.

Harvard’s Geneticist, Robert Green is of the view that medicines are not needed to live long. All we have to do is to thing long term. He seems to think that pain killing drugs will soon be replaced with non opioid (narcotic analgesics) as there is concern about opiod abuse and addiction.

The change to the process of using genome as a diagnostic is unstoppable.

Ethical and environmental concerns

Besides, ethical concerns of whether it would be permissible to use this technology to enhance normal human traits (such as height or intelligence), there is the perennial question of longevity.

As I researched this piece, partly in competition with my nephew in the States, who happens to be Geneticist, I also spoke to some other experts who foresee a coming “Uranus” revolution on 15 May 2018,in medicine among other technologies, where we treat age, instead of disease.

To do this, they are trying to figure out how aging works at the molecular level. We know the scientific platform is changing from disease related to age related.

Life expectancy already varies greatly. It is tied to education, wealth, where you live, what you eat and how much alcohol you consume. Life extending therapies could exacerbate these expectancies. This means people with money and resources will have the choice to live longer.

That cannot be right, can it?

Sri Lanka’s ‘disappeared’: Torture, assault and still no justice

Sri Lankan military stand guard in Jaffna, 20 June 2006. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels reaffirmed their commitment to a truce despite surging violence, but said the future of ceasefire monitors from Denmark, Finland and Sweden is still in the balance, and also denied involvement in four recent attacks against civilians, including the bombing of a bus in which 64 passengers, including 15 children, were killed. Source: AFP/Lakruwan Wanniarachchi

By Emma Richards | 11th May 2018

BEATINGS, sexual assault, and burning are just some of the abuses described by those who say they have survived abductions by Sri Lanka’s authorities and military forces, an investigation by Al Jazeera finds.

The new report from 101 East, released today, explores the troubling accusations of enforced disappearances that have plagued Sri Lanka for generations.

“They threw me into this corner and started attacking me,” said Nihal Sirasinga who was abducted in 2009 after he noticed a suspicious white van following him. “They restrained me and started hitting me with metal pipes…

“No matter how much I screamed, no one could hear.”

“There was urine and blood all over the place. They took my belt and started beating my back. After that, they dragged me by my legs on the rocks.”

SEE ALSO:  ‘The law is dead’: China’s ‘disappeared’ find new way to fight system’s torture and lies

Nihal’s story of abduction and abuse is not a unique one. Reporter Drew Ambrose spoke to several men with similar stories of the mysterious “white van.” Many, like Nishal, spend years in detention without charge or access to a lawyer. Nishal was eventually released once it was deemed there was not enough evidence to charge him, but this was after he spent a total of seven years behind bars.

More than 60,000 others have gone missing over the last 30 years; the victims largely belong to the minority Sri Lankan Tamil community. While there are many reports of this being used as a tactic throughout the 26-year civil war against the Tamil Tiger rebel fighters, Ambrose found that the practice continues today.

“Kidnappings were used to instil fear during Sri Lanka’s long-running civil war,” says Ambrose. “It’s been almost a decade since the war ended but we met people who say they were abducted and tortured as recently as last year.”

Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa smiles during a news conference after winning the local government election in Colombo, Sri Lanka February 12, 2018. Source: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s and then defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa are accused of being the “architect of white van abductions,” which they allegedly used to silence critics and dissidents.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, the former defence secretary said these were “baseless allegations,” denying that security forces or the government carried out enforced disappearances.

For the families left behind, the pain is still fresh and not knowing the fate of their loved ones makes it almost unbearable.

Every day for the last year in the region of Mullaitivuu, vigils are held by the families, many of them women, who have spent years searching for truth and justice.

SEE ALSO: Thai junta creating ‘climate of fear’, watchdog says as another critic disappears

As the civil war between government forces and the Tamil Tigers entered its final stages in 2009, it was this northern region of the country that became the frontline for fighting and the location of some of the most notorious disappearances.

Families here say hundreds of Tamil fighters were taken away by the military after they surrendered at the end of the war. Despite being told they would be released in a month, none of them have been seen again and the fight for justice has only led to flat denials from the government and military.

In an interview with 101 East, General Sarath Fonseka, who was army commander at the time of these disappearances and is now a government minister, denies this ever happened.

Sri Lankan military stand guard in Jaffna, 20 June 2006. Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels reaffirmed their commitment to a truce despite surging violence, but said the future of ceasefire monitors from Denmark, Finland and Sweden is still in the balance, and also denied involvement in four recent attacks against civilians, including the bombing of a bus in which 64 passengers, including 15 children, were killed. Source: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFPri Lan

“During my time, I am 100 percent sure … incidents of this nature never took place,” he says.

General Fonseka also refuted claims that abductions are still happening in Sri Lanka.

“Under this government, there are no events reported like that, that I’m aware,” he told Al Jazeera.

But rights groups and witnesses say otherwise, with evidence of enforced disappearances continuing under the current president, Maithripala Sirisena.

SEE ALSO: Malaysia: 5th activist mysteriously disappears, calls mount for police action

“Since 2015, since the new government came into force, we have documented at least 80 cases which have been corroborated by medical evidence and other sources of independent evidence. Most recently we have in 2018, we have at least 6 cases of torture,” said Kulasegaram Geetharhanan, a rights lawyer working with several Tamil men hoping to gain asylum in the UK.

Milton Thusanathan is one of his clients. He tells of being burnt with cigarettes, having his feet and back beaten with sticks and being sexually assaulted with a bottle during the time he was abducted by police in both 2016 and 2017. He believes he was targeted because his father was a Tamil fighter and if he returns to Sri Lanka, he would be abducted again.

“I have no faith in our current government,” Milton said. “They preach one thing and then do something else. If I’m forced back to Sri Lanka, I will commit suicide.”

While the Sri Lankan government announced three years ago that it would create an Office of Missing Persons, the office is still not yet fully operational and little has been done to find those still missing.

Despite its desire to investigate the disappearances and white van abductions, the office doesn’t have criminal power and can only refer suspects to the attorney general.

“It is not punitive,” one commissioner tells Ambrose when asked about the purpose of the Office. “It is to find out what happened to persons, to trace people.”

This means, as Ambrose points out, “the families of those disappeared may get answers, but not necessarily justice.”