Podcasts about baluchistan

It's a 48-year-old argument that's once again got nuclear-armed neighbours in a showdown and locals on both sides of the border fearing the worst. India blames Pakistan for Kashmir's worst terror attack in years: the killing of 26 tourists, with non-Muslims singled out and murdered in front of loved ones. Islamabad denies involvement. It blames New Delhi for the March terror attack on a train in Baluchistan. There, too, 26 people were killed, with the matching tolls fuelling speculation and conspiracy theories. So what did happen? Why now? And how to break the cycle of repeated tensions over Kashmir, a region carved up at independence from Britain in 1947 and whose borders remain disputed to this day?How far could it go this time? India has suspended a vital 1960 treaty that manages water use between the two neighbours, a treaty that had held through three subsequent wars. Why is this time different?Then there's Kashmir itself, which on the Indian side lost its partial autonomy back in 2019. What's changed inside the Muslim-majority region since? And what's changed on the Pakistani side after what had been a period of relative détente? Is this really a fight orchestrated by respective capitals?Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip.

Kalle Berg berättar om Northvolts konkurs. Det blir också rapport om en “spektakulär” kaffeliga som tros härja i Västsverige. Alice Dadgostar pratar om tågkapningen i pakistanska Baluchistan. Alexandra Carlsson Tenitskaja är dagen till ära med i studion! Hon har tagit del av SD:s EU-valsanalys, och passar även på att berätta om sin nya podd. Dessutom: Nya Zeelands förra premiärminister Jacinda Ardern släpper barnbok och sanningen bakom Severence-skådisens svenska uttal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

THIS WEEK's BIRDS: new music from  Mali Obomsawin w. Magdalena Abrego & Allison Bunk; Tako Taki (music from Japan); Sundanese music from L. S. Kancana Sari Bandung; Detty Kurnia (pop from Bali); Congolese disco from Vibro Success Intercontinental Orchesatra; free jazz/experimental quartet Tulpas (from Mexico City); Astor Piazzola (nuevo tango); Mario Pavone;  Sam Rivers on flutes; Anthony Braxton on flute (+ winds and reeds); Eastern European Roma music song from Dil'Dorova Maisara, Bedrije Misin & Ansambl Bracé Koko, & Nehat Gasi; healing trance  music from Baluchistan;  Salim Halali in Algeria; Abida Parveen (Pakistani soufi) w. Lofti Bouchnak (from Tunisia); straight ahead jazz (live in Senegal) w/ Al Cohn, Billy Mitchell, Dolo Coker, Leroy Vinegar, Frank Butler; much more... Catch the BIRDS live on Friday nights, 9:00pm-MIDNIGHT (EST), in Central New York on WRFI, 88.1 FM Ithaca/ 88.5 FM Odessa;. and WORLDWIDE online via our MUSIC PLAYER at WRFI.ORG. 24/7 via PODBEAN: https://conferenceofthebirds.podbean.com/ via iTUNES: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conference-of-the-birds-podcast/id478688580 Also available at podomatic, Internet Archive, podtail, iheart Radio, and elsewhere. Always FREE of charge to listen to the radio program and free also to stream, download, and subscribe to the podcast online: PLAYLIST at SPINITRON: https://spinitron.com/WRFI/pl/19480153/Conference-of-the-Birds and via the Conference of the Birds page at www.WRFI.ORG https://www.wrfi.org/wrfiprograms/conferenceofthebirds/  Join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/conferenceofthebirds/?ref=bookmarks FIND WRFI on Radio Garden: http://radio.garden/visit/ithaca-ny/aqh8OGBR Contact: confbirds@gmail.com  

Iranian Languages and Dialects, Part VII: Pashto ‎ Summary In this episode, we delve into Pashto, an Iranic language spoken across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and ‎parts of Iran. We explore its significance, dialectal variations, and its deep connection with ‎Pashtun identity. By examining the historical roots and the spread of the language, we uncover ‎how Pashto has shaped and been shaped by the cultural and social dynamics of the region. If you ‎haven't already, I highly recommend listening to my previous episodes on the classification of ‎Iranian languages, as they provide essential background for understanding the context of this ‎discussion. Keywords ‎#PashtoLanguage; #IranicLanguages; #Afghanistan; #Pakistan; #NorthWestFrontier; ‎‎#Baluchistan; #Linguistics; #PashtoDialects; #IranianLanguages; #LanguageHistory; ‎‎#PashtunIdentity; #Podcast; #LanguageAndCulture‎

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is arrested in France, Israel and Hezbollah exchange rocket fire, A Reuters safety advisor is killed in Eastern Ukraine, The Harris and Trump campaigns debate the parameters of their debate, The Harris' campaign reveals it has raised $540M since Biden dropped out, Dozens are killed in militant attacks in Baluchistan, Pakistan, At least 21 are killed in a drone strike in Mali, Uber is hit with a $324M EU fine for improper data transfer, NASA says its stranded astronauts will return in a SpaceX capsule in 2025, Australia introduces the "right to disconnect" from work, and a US government study links high fluoride consumption to lower childhood IQ,   Sources: verity.news

GOOD EVENING:  The show begins the day after Gaza is secured and looks to the challenges in the North in Lebanon and Syria, and in the East in Iran. To Tehran and the empty presidential administration. To Kabul, Islamabad, Baluchistan, Baghdad, Riyadh, Washington, Moscow.   To Galilee and Homo erectus bones. To Canada, to the nuclear arsenal.  Back to Tehran and the succession. To ceasefire talk in Brussels and Beijing. To SETI and the Dark Forest Theory. To Medellin, Brasilia, Caracas, Buenos Aires, Managua, Santo Domingo, Panama City. 1932 Hoovers

GOOD EVENING: The show begins in Iran's neighboring countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Baluchistan, and Kurdistan, asking about relations with Tehran. We then move to Columbia University and Yale University campuses for demonstrations with antisemitic messages. Next, we go to Ukraine's front line, where troops await weapons and ammunition, and then to Kyiv and the Rada for a vote on mobilization and demobilization (which has not yet occurred). We explore what could have been Israel's counterstrike, with John Bolton suggesting striking suspected nuclear weapons facilities. We then shift focus to East Asia and the alliance against the People's Republic of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA). From there, we travel to Caracas, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and Bogota. Finally, we discuss the PLA Aerospace Force, a combat command focusing on orbit and the moon. 1957

Welcome true believers to X-Men Horoscopes where each week our host Lodro Rinzler is in conversation with a special guest to discuss the X-Men issue that aligns with a significant month and year from their life and what that issue reveals about their future...in this case YOUR future! Legendary writer and editor of X-Men Ann Nocenti joins Lodro to talk about the creation story of Longshot and Mojo! What was it like in the Marvel bullpen in the 80s punk era? How do you play editor to someone like Chris Claremont? War: what is it good for? Also in this episode: Lodro takes his top off for Ann! We talk about X-Men Legends 3, a fascinating story Ann wrote that takes place immediately after her 1980s Longshot mini-series featuring Wolverine and Kitty Pryde...at war. What does that issue say about all of US as a society? Tune in to find out! It is not just a horoscope; it is your mutant destiny decoded. Ann Nocenti is a renowned writer, editor, director and journalist. She teaches bootcamp filmmaking, most recently to at-risk teenagers in Kingston, NY, to Cherokee Native Americans at the Tulsa International Film Festival, and in Norway for the Indigenous Film Circle. Her journalism has appeared in Details, Utne, HEEB, Stop Smiling, PRINT, Filmmaker, Scenario, and more. She made a documentary about the resistance fighters in Baluchistan (with Wendy Johnson) called The Baluch and of course Ann is also known for her work in comics, writing Daredevil, editing the X-Men, and creating such iconic characters as Longshot, Typhoid, Spiral, Mojo, Blackheart and many more. More of Lodro Rinzler's work can be found here and here and you can follow the podcast on Instagram at xmenpanelsdaily where we post X-Men comic panels...daily. Have a question or comment for a future episode? Reach out at xmenhoroscopes.com

Fördjupar dagens stora händelser i Sverige och världen. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Partierna splittrade i frågan om juridiskt könsbyte. Gentekniken allt bättre. Baluchistan och terrorn. Botswanas elefanter. Dödade hjälparbetare i Gaza. Ukrainska sjukvårdare rehabiliteras i Sverige: ”Jag måste vara stark”. Tydlig koppling mellan mobbning och skolskjutningar. Greta Stocklassa porträtterar Hans Blix i dokumentären ”Blix Not Bombs”.

#IRAN: Tehran is the center of the disorder & What is to be done? Jonathan Schanzer, FDD https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/01/31/opinion-biden-needs-to-follow-trumps-lead-on-iran/1891 India, Persia, Baluchistan

Today's HeadlinesExtremists murder candidate, attack homes and offices in lead-up to Pakistan voteThimar-LSESD meets physical, emotional, and spiritual needs in the MENAWhat Christian leaders in restricted nations are looking for

In this episode of KAJ Masterclass LIVE, join host Khudania Ajay as he engages in a riveting conversation with Irina Tsukerman, human rights and national security lawyer, geopolitical analyst, and editor of The Washington Outsider. Delve into the outcomes of Davos 2024, the escalating Houthi attacks, and the geopolitical challenges faced by the US and Iran. Irina provides unique insights into global politics, offering a perspective crucial for navigating our ever-changing world. About Irina Tsukerman is a human rights and national security lawyer, geopolitical analyst, editor of The Washington Outsider, and president of Scarab Rising, Inc., a media and security and strategic advisory. Her writings and commentary have appeared in diverse US and international media and have been translated into over a dozen languages. Connect with Irina here: https://www.thewashingtonoutsider.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/irina-tsu...

Suzanne Raine and Ali Ansari start with Baluchistan, and then widen the lens to look at what is driving Iranian aggression in the Middle East. They examine how the threat of force becomes the use of force, and the extent to which apparent co-ordinated Iranian activity might not be quite as simple as it seems.

Today's HeadlinesRegional war threat looms over the Middle EastIran, Pakistan foreign ministers meet to repair security breachBringing a culture of celebration to refugee camps

This episode we're looking at South Africa's case against Israel in the World Court, accusing them of committing genocide in Gaza, the reasons for the cross-border tensions between Pakistan and Iran in Baluchistan, and why the Houthi are attacking ships in the Red Sea. The post BS 122 – Israel Genocide, Houthi, Pakistan, Iran appeared first on The BS Filter.

Read on for today's agenda below prepared by David (thank you very much). - Retired US Diplomat to 5 different nations  David Hunter shares his knowledge, passion, interest, and experience.1)Indian Prime Minister Modi Dedicates Massive New Hindu Temple: The new 'Ram Mandir' temple dedicated to Hindu god Ram was built over the ruins of a Muslim mosque built in 1528 under the Mogul Emperor Babur. That mosque, called  Babri Masjid (Babur's Mosque) was destroyed by Hindu religious extremists in 1992. What does this new Hindu temple say about Hindu-Muslim relations in India today?2)Pakistan and Iran Fight in Baluchistan: The Iranians and Pakistanis have traded attacks on the long 800 mile border crossing through Baluchistan. What is the situation there, and could a wider war break out? If so, what would be the consequences in the region?3)Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu Openly Rejects Two State Solution to Palestine Dispute: In direct defiance of US President Joe Biden, Israeli PM Netanyahu openly rejected calls for a two state solution to the ongoing Gaza War. Why is he taking this position, and what should the US do next?

#Pakistan: Who are the Baluch? And what threat are the Baluch to Tehran or Islamabad? Arif Rafiq. GlobelyNews.com https://globelynews.com/south-asia/iran-pakistan-irgc-isi/ 1891 Ride acrss Oersia and Baluchistan to India

Baluchistan is one of the least reported regions in the world. It's a borderland between Pakistan and Iran and is now at the centre of renewed tensions after both countries carried out deadly air strikes on each other's territory in recent days. The violence comes at a time when much of the world's focus is on events in Gaza and the Middle East. In Perspective, we delve into exactly what's going on in the region. Kabir Taneja is an expert on Baluchistan from the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think tank. He spoke to FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee.

Today's HeadlinesIran and Pakistan exchange missile fireMLC empowers and trains women leadersDOOR celebrates four decades of ministry among the Deaf

This is the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express and I'm Flora Swain.It's the 18th of January and here are the headlines.In the latest in a series of attacks on commercial vessels in the Western Arabian Sea since last month, a vessel came under a drone attack late on Wednesday. It elicited a prompt response from the Navy's Guided Missile Destroyer INS Visakhapatnam. In a statement, the Navy said that INS Visakhapatnam, a mission deployed in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy operations, swiftly responded to a distress call by Marshall Island flagged MV Genco Picardy following a drone attack. MV Genco Picardy, with 22 crew including nine Indians, reported nil casualties.With five days to go to the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the idol of Ram Lalla sculpted by Arjun Yogiraj will be placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum today.The idol was gently lowered into the 'grabh grah' or sanctum sanctorum of the Ram temple with the help of a crane early this morning. Later in the day, the idol will be placed on a throne following 'mandap pravesh' rituals. The Pakistani military conducted a series of "highly coordinated" retaliatory strikes against "terrorist hideouts" in Iran this morning, As per reports, at least nine people have been killed in the assault. The strikes came two days after Iran's missile and drone strikes in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, quote, "This morning Pakistan undertook a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran." Unquote. It said a number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation — codenamed "Marg Bar Sarmachar".Several train and flight operations were disrupted as dense to very dense fog conditions prevailed over Delhi and parts of North India, including Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, early today. The fog conditions were accompanied by a cold wave which is likely to continue over some parts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh over the next four days. Meanwhile, the minimum temperature in Delhi was recorded at 6.6 degrees Celsius.An Army soldier was killed and two others injured on Thursday in a landmine explosion near the Line of Control in Rajouri district's Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Pointing out that the deceased was an Agniveer, sources said that all the three were evacuated to Army's Command Hospital at Udhampur where he succumbed.This was the Catch-Up on the 3 Things by The Indian Express.

The US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, says the course of the Mideast conflict depends on Iran. Also: Pakistan condemns Iran for carrying out a deadly missile strike on Baluchistan, and Chinese scientists clone monkey to speed up medical research.

Prosegue la guerra in Medioriente. Dopo gli attacchi in Siria e Iraq, l'Iran colpisce anche in Pakistan: Islamabad denuncia l'uccisione di due bambini e il ferimento di altri tre a causa di un attacco di droni e missili da parte delle Guardie rivoluzionarie iraniane contro il gruppo armato Jaish al-Adl nella provincia pakistana del Baluchistan.

Onion prices in some parts of the world are eye-wateringly high. India, one of the world's biggest producers, has limited exports, sparking smuggling and price hikes abroad. FRANCE 24's Shirli Sitbon tells us more. But first, we report on how protests have erupted in Pakistan amid rampant killings and enforced disappearances in Baluchistan province. Protesters say the security forces are to blame. Plus, a state of emergency has been declared in Papua New Guinea's capital after more than a dozen people were killed in unrest. Chaos ensued after police went on strike – cars were set on fire and shops looted.

Trong xung đột ở dải Gaza, bùng lên từ hôm 07/10/2023 sau cuộc tấn công đẫm máu của Hamas, lực lượng Hồi giáo vũ trang Palestine, Iran nổi lên như là một trong những tiếng nói gay gắt nhất chống lại cuộc phản công Israel tại Gaza. Điều này phù hợp với chính sách đối ngoại kiên quyết chống Israel của Teheran. Hai quốc gia Trung Đông thường được mô tả là kẻ thù không đội trời chung. Nhưng người ta đã nhanh chóng quên rằng Teheran và Tel Aviv từng là những đồng minh tương trợ. Từ 40 năm qua, chính sách về nước Cộng hòa Hồi giáo Iran của phương Tây được diễn giải dưới hai khía cạnh : Ở bên ngoài là một mối « đe dọa » và ở trong nước là chính sách « trấn áp ». Tuy nhiên, đằng sau những phát biểu gay gắt, kêu gọi « xóa sổ Israel ra khỏi bản đồ thế giới », và đe dọa phát động chiến tranh hạt nhân chống Iran, hai quốc gia này từ 70 năm qua chưa bao giờ ngừng duy trì các mối quan hệ thực sự, nhưng thường được giấu kín.Trong một hội thảo được tổ chức ở Edinburgh, Scotland vào tháng 06/2013, ông Trita Parsi, một nhà chính trị học, chuyên gia về Iran, trước hết nhắc sơ lại lịch sử quan hệ giữa người Ba Tư và Do Thái đã có từ ngàn năm trước.« Mối quan hệ giữa người Iran và người Israel thực ra khá là tích cực trong suốt lịch sử, nhân duyên bắt đầu từ 539 TCN, khi vua Cyrus của Đế chế Ba Tư giải phóng người Do Thái khỏi ách tôi mọi của người Babylon. 1/3 dân số Do Thái sống ở Babylon. Ngày nay họ là những người Do Thái ở Irak, 1/3 thì nhập cư vào Ba Tư. Hiện nay họ là những người Do Thái ở Iran, vẫn còn 25.000 người sống ở Iran, tạo thành cộng đồng Do Thái lớn nhất sinh sống ngoài Israel tại Trung Đông. Một phần ba còn lại quay về Palestine thực hiện công trình phục dựng lần thứ hai Đền thờ ở Jerusalem, được tài trợ từ thuế của người Ba Tư ».1950 – 1979 : Israel và chính sách ngoại viVậy thì mối quan hệ giữa Iran và Israel thời hiện đại đã được bắt đầu như thế nào ? Dưới triều đại Pahlavi, cai trị từ năm 1925, cho đến khi bị lật đổ trong cuộc cách mạng năm 1979, mối quan hệ giữa Iran và Israel không có gì là thù địch. Tuy nhiên, vấn đề về người Palestine đã là một trong số các mối bận tâm trong chính sách đối ngoại của Iran.Trả lời kênh truyền hình Al Jazeera của Qatar, nhà sử học Eirik Kvindesland, trường đại học Oxford nhắc lại, Iran là một trong số 11 thành viên của ủy ban đặc biệt do Liên Hiệp Quốc thành lập năm 1947 nhằm đưa ra giải pháp cho Palestine sau khi quyền kiểm soát lãnh thổ của Anh chấm dứt. Tuy nhiên, Iran là một trong số ba quốc gia bỏ phiếu chống lại kế hoạch phân chia Palestine của Liên Hiệp Quốc, khi cho rằng dự án này sẽ làm leo thang bạo lực trong khu vực trong nhiều thế hệ sau đó.Theo giải thích của vị giáo sư trường đại học Oxford, « Iran cùng với Ấn Độ và Nam Tư, đã đưa ra một dự án thay thế, một giải pháp liên bang nhằm giữ Palestine là một quốc gia có một Quốc Hội, nhưng được chia thành các bang Ả Rập và Do Thái. Đó là sự thỏa hiệp của Iran để cố gắng duy trì mối quan hệ tích cực với phương Tây vốn ủng hộ chủ nghĩa Phục quốc Do Thái, với chính phong trào Phục quốc Do Thái, cũng như với các nước Ả Rập và Hồi giáo láng giềng. »Dù vậy, hai năm sau khi Israel chiếm đóng nhiều lãnh thổ hơn mức Liên Hiệp Quốc phê duyệt và tuyên bố thành lập Nhà nước Do Thái, bất chấp việc 700 ngàn người Palestine bị cưỡng bức di dời và bị tước đoạt đất đai tài sản, Iran – dưới thời Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, vị vua thứ hai của triều đại Pahlavi, hay còn gọi là Shah – là quốc gia có đông người Hồi Giáo thứ hai, theo chân Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ, công nhận Israel.Đối với sử gia Kvindesland, động thái này của Teheran thời đó chủ yếu là để quản lý tài sản của khoảng 2.000 người Iran sinh sống ở Palestine và đã bị quân đội Israel tịch thu trong cuộc chiến Ả Rập-Israel lần thứ nhất năm 1948.Nhưng điều này cũng diễn ra trong bối cảnh « chính sách ngoại vi » của Israel. Nhà sử học Eirik Kvindesland giải thích, « để chấm dứt thế cô lập ở Trung Đông, thủ tướng Israel David Ben Gurion ngay từ khi lên cầm quyền năm 1948, đã theo đuổi mối quan hệ với các quốc gia không phải là Ả Rập ở "rìa" Trung Đông, điều mà sau này được gọi là học thuyết ngoại vi. Chính sách này bao gồm cả Ethiopia, nhưng Iran và Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ cho đến nay được cho là những cách tiếp cận thành công nhất của Israel. »Israel-Iran : Nỗi sợ Liên Xô và các cường quốc Ả RậpMối quan hệ này giữa Iran và Israel xuất phát từ một cảm giác chung : Cả hai nước e sợ Liên Xô và các cường quốc Ả Rập thời đó như Ai Cập và Irak. Là những đồng minh trung thành của Mỹ trong khu vực, cả hai nước tăng cường các mối hợp tác quân sự và an ninh. Tuy nhiên, theo quan sát của Eirik Kvindesland, trong mối quan hệ này, Israel cần đến Iran nhiều hơn là chiều ngược lại.« Israel luôn là bên chủ động, nhưng quốc vương Iran cũng muốn tìm cách cải thiện mối quan hệ của Iran với Mỹ, và vào thời điểm đó, Israel được coi là một cách tốt nhất để đạt được mục tiêu này. Ngoài ra, còn có triển vọng xây dựng bộ máy an ninh. Cơ quan an ninh và tình báo SAVAK của Iran thời đó đã được Mossad (Cơ quan tình báo Israel) đào tạo một phần. Đây là những thứ mà Iran có thể nhận được từ nơi khác, nhưng Israel rất muốn cung cấp chúng vì họ cần một đối tác ở Trung Đông, bất kể là có tư tưởng chống chủ nghĩa Phục quốc Do Thái và chống Israel. »Trong giai đoạn này, quan hệ thương mại giữa hai nước cũng phát triển mạnh. An ninh năng lượng của Israel được bảo đảm nhờ vào việc xây dựng đường ống dẫn dầu Eilat – Ashkelon, được cung ứng từ nguồn dầu hỏa của Iran. Tuy nhiên, mối quan hệ này giữa Iran và Israel phần lớn được giữ bí mật. Nhà chính trị học Trita Parsi nhắc lại :« Tuy nhiên, theo quan điểm của Shah, ông muốn càng giữ kín điều này càng tốt, ví dụ như khi thủ tướng Israel Yitzhak Rabin (nhiệm kỳ 1974-1977) đến Iran vào những năm 70, ông ấy thường đội tóc giả để không ai nhận ra. Những người Iran đã xây một đường băng đặc biệt tại sân bay Teheran, cách xa nhà ga trung tâm, để không ai để ý đến việc rất nhiều máy bay của Israel đi lại giữa Tel Aviv và Teheran. »Cách Mạng Hồi Giáo 1979 : Một bước ngoặt lớnCách mạng Hồi Giáo Iran nổ ra năm 1979, vua Ba Tư bị lật đổ. Giáo chủ Ruhollah Khomeini, người lãnh đạo cuộc cách mạng, đưa ra một thế giới quan mới, chủ yếu ủng hộ Hồi Giáo. Kể từ giờ, Iran ủng hộ cuộc đấu của người Palestine và khẳng định sự đối đầu với Israel, đồng minh của Mỹ, một « Đại Quỷ », theo như cách gọi của chế độ thần quyền Teheran. Ngày 12/02/1979, Yasser Arafat là lãnh đạo chính trị nước ngoài đầu tiên đến thăm Cộng Hòa Hồi Giáo Iran.Theo giải thích từ nhiều nhà nghiên cứu, tham vọng của nước Iran Cách mạng Hồi Giáo theo hệ phái Shia là tự khẳng định như là một lãnh đạo mới của thế giới Hồi giáo, vượt lên trên cả sự chia rẽ giữa người Ả Rập và người Ba Tư, cũng như là giữa hai hệ phái Sunni và Shia. Nhà địa lý học Bernard Hourcade, cựu giám đốc Viện Pháp về Thế giới Iran, trên tờ báo Pháp Le Un, cho rằng, khi giương ngọn cờ đấu tranh của Palestine để « giải phóng Jerusalem », Iran đã có được một tấm « giấy thông hành » để được lắng nghe trong thế giới Ả Rập. Đương nhiên, chính sách tích cực này của Iran đã đặt các chế độ Ả Rập liên minh với Mỹ vào thế phòng thủ.Tuy nhiên, nhà chính trị học Trita Parsi, cũng trong cuộc nói chuyện ở Scotland năm 2013, từng lưu ý, bất chấp cuộc cách mạng Hồi giáo, quan hệ « tích cực » giữa Israel và Iran vẫn còn tiếp diễn trong những năm sau đó, nhất là trong giai đoạn Irak xâm lược Iran vào những năm 1980:« Khi Irak xâm lược Iran năm 1980, Israel lo sợ Irak sẽ giành chiến thắng, nên đã sốt sắng hỗ trợ Iran bằng cách bán vũ khí và cung cấp nhiều phụ tùng thay thế dành cho kho vũ khí Mỹ, vào thời điểm, Iran vô cùng yếu thế do các lệnh cấm vận vũ khí của Mỹ mà Israel đã cảm thấy thoải mái vi phạm. Trên thực tế, trong những năm 1980, chính Israel đã vận động Washington đàm phán với Iran, bán vũ khí cho Iran và không mảy may để ý đến hệ tư tưởng chống Israel của Iran. »Chiến tranh kết thúc, giáo chủ Khomeini qua đời năm 1989, Iran phải nỗ lực tái thiết kinh tế. Thỏa thuận Oslo năm 1993 mở ra nhiều triển vọng hòa bình cho Palestine. Tổng thống Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) chủ trương cải cách nối lại các mối liên hệ bí mật với Israel, nhiều cuộc họp không chính thức liên tiếp diễn ra trong khuôn khổ trao đổi kinh tế, văn hoá, hay giáo dục.Trở mặtNhưng những biến động môi trường địa chính trị trong khu vực một lần nữa đã bẻ gãy sự năng động này của mối quan hệ. Thỏa thuận Oslo thất bại, Liên Xô sụp đổ, Chiến tranh lạnh kết thúc, rồi cuộc tấn công khủng bố 11/9/2001 và cuộc chiến xâm lược Irak của Mỹ năm 2003 đã làm tan vỡ những thế cân bằng cũ, đồng thời đặt vấn đề hạt nhân của Iran vào trung tâm của các mối lo an ninh khu vực, cũng như là toàn cầu.Đây cũng là thời điểm Iran và Israel trỗi dậy như là hai trong số các cường quốc mới trong khu vực. Thay vì trở thành những đối tác tiềm năng, cả hai nước dần đi đến xem nhau như là những đối thủ cạnh tranh và kẻ thù của nhau. Chuyên gia về Iran Trita Parsi giải thích : « Israel, trong những 1980, từng vận động Hoa Kỳ cải thiện quan hệ với Iran, khi ấy tỏ ra lo ngại về việc Mỹ và Iran nối lại quan hệ và nghĩ rằng điều đó sẽ gây tổn hại đến lợi ích an ninh của Israel. Thay vào đó, Israel đã tìm cách đẩy Iran vào thế ngày càng bị cô lập. »Giờ đây, sự thù địch ngày càng gia tăng khi cả hai bên đều tìm cách củng cố và phát triển tầm ảnh hưởng trong khu vực. Iran ra sức hỗ trợ mạng lưới « trục kháng chiến », gồm các nhóm chính trị và vũ trang ở một số quốc gia trong khu vực như Liban, Syria, Irak và Yemen, những nước ủng hộ lý lẽ của người Palestine.Israel trong những năm qua cũng ủng hộ nhiều nhóm phản đối chính quyền Teheran, trong đó có nhiều tổ chức bị Iran xếp vào hàng « khủng bố » như Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), một tổ chức có trụ sở ở châu Âu, các tổ chức Hồi giáo hệ phái Sunni ở tỉnh Sistan và Baluchistan đông nam Iran, cũng như là các nhóm vũ trang người Kurd có trụ sở tại vùng Kurdistan Irak.Iran và Israel còn mở những cuộc tấn công nhằm vào các lợi ích của nhau, đặt bên trong và ngoài lãnh thổ. Trên bình diện ngoại giao, Iran và Israel nỗ lực lôi kéo một số nước Ả Rập. Tháng 3/2023, dưới sự trung gian hòa giải, Ả Rập Xê Út – một đồng minh của Mỹ - đã tuyên bố nối lại bang giao với Iran.Hoa Kỳ cũng cố gắng làm trung gian cho một thỏa thuận tương tự giữa Ả Rập Xê Út và Israel. Nhưng mọi triển vọng bình thường hóa quan hệ giữa nhà nước Do Thái và vương quốc Ả Rập này đã bị đình lại, ít nhất cho đến hiện tại, sau vụ phe Hamas tấn công Israel và Israel phản công dữ dội, gây ra một cơn ác mộng nhân đạo, giết chết gần 10 ngàn người Palestine, một phần ba trong số này là trẻ em.Theo đánh giá của ông Trita Parsi, hiện nay là phó chủ tịch điều hành Viện Quincy, một tổ chức cố vấn độc lập tại Mỹ, cuộc xung đột này cho thấy, « đối với chế độ hiện hành ở Iran, bất kỳ sự xích lại gần nào với Israel giờ là điều không thể. »Mệnh lệnh an ninh chung trong nhiều thập kỷ trước đây, từng biến hai nước thành đồng minh, thật sự đã biến mất vào đầu những năm 1990. Teheran phản đối thế bá quyền của Mỹ ở Trung Đông, trong khi Israel tìm cách đẩy lùi mọi nỗ lực của Washington nhằm triệt thoái quân khỏi khu vực.  Trả lời Al Jazeera, nhà chính trị học người Mỹ gốc Iran này kết luận : « Đây là một cuộc cạnh tranh để giành quyền thống trị và ảnh hưởng trong khu vực. Hai quốc gia này đã bị lôi kéo vào một cuộc chiến tranh cấp thấp trong hơn một thập kỷ qua. Không có dấu hiệu nào cho thấy có sự thay đổi đó. »(Nguồn Al Jazeera, Le Un, và TED.com)

Today's HeadlinesTwin mosque blasts kill 60India: Religious extremists invade Christian home, disrupt toddler birthday partyDOOR International develops training resources for Deaf leaders

On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Sept. 29 at 7:06 a.m. CT: WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is in a familiar position with little time left to prevent a government shutdown: It's effectively paralyzed as conservatives feud with Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The California congressman has pushed his Republican conference to embrace a short-term spending plan that would include a sweeping Republican proposal for the southern border. But a small group of hard-line conservatives has defied McCarthy's leadership in a quest to get rid of stopgap funding plans even if it means a government shutdown. The conflict has resulted in a House Republican conference struggling to pass spending legislation just as government funding expires. The deadline is Saturday. WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have spent more than six hours making their case for pursuing an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. They launched their first hearing Thursday promising to “provide accountability” as they probe the family's finances and the lucrative business dealings of Biden's son Hunter. Republicans so far have shown no hard evidence of wrongdoing by the president, and key witnesses said they do not yet see hard evidence of impeachable offenses. It all comes just before a potential government shutdown. The White House called the hearing a “baseless stunt.” Oversight Chairman James Comer later issued subpoenas for additional Biden family bank records. The National Weather Service is warning of heavy rains and the chance of flooding in the Northeast, including New York City and Connecticut. HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii authorities are looking for a man who fled with a handgun after getting into a scuffle while trying to talk to soldiers at an Army base. No shots were fired but the Army treated it as an “active shooter situation” and two military bases on Oahu went into lockdown for several hours. The Army is working with the Honolulu Police Department to find the suspect, who is still at large. Wheeler Army Airfield also went into lockdown. Schofield Barracks is on Oahu and is about 20 miles north of Honolulu. It hosts the 25th Infantry Division and the 8th Theater Sustainment Command. QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Authorities in Pakistan say at least 52 people were killed and nearly 70 wounded after a powerful bomb exploded in a crowd of people celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday in the southwest of the country. The bombing, one of the deadliest in recent years, occurred in Mastung, a district in Baluchistan province, an area that has witnessed scores of attacks by insurgents. Videos showed an area near a mosque strewn with the shoes of the dead and wounded. Some of the bodies had been covered with bedsheets. Two people were killed in a separate blast at a mosque in the northwest. A champion is crowned in the American League East, the Mariners win a crucial game with a late inning rally, the Blue Jays now have a firm hold on the American League's second wild card spot, the race for the final two wild card spots in the National League remains tight with weather adding a wrinkle to the already tension filled race, and the Lions move to 3-1. On the version of Hot off the Wire posted Sept. 28 at 4 p.m. CT: WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are making the case for pursuing an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden. They launched their first hearing Thursday with testimony from outside experts in tax law, criminal investigations and constitutional legal theory. It's a high-stakes opening act for Republicans as as they try to link the business dealings of Biden's son, Hunter, to the president. But so far they have no hard evidence of wrongdoing by the president. it comes just before a potential government shutdown. Oversight Chairman James Comer says they want to “provide accountability” to Americans. But Democrats argued Donald Trump who is Biden's chief rival in 2024 is egging them on, with no evidence of Biden wrongdoing. THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Police in the Netherlands say a lone gunman wearing a bulletproof vest opened fire in an apartment and a hospital in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, killing three people, including a 14-year-old girl. The shooting sent patients and medics fleeing the Erasmus Medical Center in downtown Rotterdam, including some who were wheeled out of the building in beds. Police Chief Fred Westerbeke says the shooter was a 32-year-old student from Rotterdam. He was arrested at the hospital carrying a firearm. The suspect's identity has not been released, and the motive for the shootings remains under investigation. WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy grew at a 2.1% annual pace from April through June, extending its sturdy performance in the face of higher interest rates, the government said Thursday, leaving its previous estimate unchanged. The second-quarter expansion of the nation's gross domestic product — its total output of goods and services — marked a modest deceleration from the economy's 2.2% annual growth from January through March. Consumer spending, business investment and state and local government outlays drove the second-quarter economic expansion. The economy and job market have shown surprising resilience even as the Federal Reserve has dramatically raised interest rates to combat inflation, which last year hit a four-decade high. SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The Pentagon says that the American soldier who sprinted into North Korea across the heavily fortified border between the Koreas more than two months ago was whisked to a Texas Army base for medical checks and interviews after his return to the U.S. North Korea abruptly announced a day earlier that it would expel Pvt. Travis King. The White House says his return was organized with the help of ally Sweden and rival China. While officials have said King is in good health and the immediate focus will be on caring for him and reintegrating him into U.S. society, his troubles are likely far from over. King ran into the North while on a civilian tour of a border village on July 18. Lawmakers probing the cause of last month's deadly Maui wildfire did not get many answers during Thursday's congressional hearing on the role the electrical grid played in the disaster. Hawaii's top public utility officials and the president of Hawaiian Electric testified in the hearing about the role the electrical grid played in last month's deadly Maui wildfire. Hawaiian Electric president Shelee Kimura promised to provide the committee with more details about the timeline that day. The Lahaina fire killed at least 97 people and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings. It erupted on Aug. 8, when strong winds appeared to cause a Hawaiian Electric power line to fall, igniting dry brush and grass near a large subdivision. WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the federal agency overseeing the research program decided to stop serving alcohol. The National Science Foundation says researchers and support staff can still buy a weekly ration of alcohol from the McMurdo Station store. But the changes could prove significant because the bars have been central to social life in the isolated environment. The changes come as concerns grow that sexual misconduct has been allowed to flourish at McMurdo. An investigation by The Associated Press last month uncovered a pattern of women who said their claims of sexual harassment and assault were minimized by their employers. BOSTON (AP) — A California man has pleaded guilty to arranging hundreds of sham marriages in an effort to circumvent immigration laws. That is according to federal prosecutors. Forty-nine-year-old Marcialito Biol Benitez, a Philippine national living in Los Angeles, pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and immigration document fraud. U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper scheduled sentencing for Jan. 10. The U.S. attorney's office in Boston said Benitez operated a large-scale marriage fraud agency in which he arranged marriages between foreign nationals and American citizens. Prosecutors alleged the agency charged up to $35,000 to submit false paperwork substantiating the sham marriages. NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood actors will resume negotiations with studios and streaming services next week. The announcement Wednesday comes the same day that a nearly five-month writers strike formally ended. That strike's end quickly led to announcements that TV's late-night hosts would return to the air by Monday. That's the same day negotiators from the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists will resume talks on a new contract. They've been on strike more than two months, leading to a complete shutdown of movie and film productions. This week's end to the writers strike raised hopes that a deal with actors could be reached soon. LONDON (AP) — Michael Gambon, the Irish-born actor knighted for his long and storied career on the stage and screen and who gained admiration from a new generation of moviegoers with his portrayal of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight “Harry Potter” films, has died. He was 82. A statement by his family, issued by his publicist on Thursday, said he died following “a bout of pneumonia.” While the Potter role raised Gambon's international profile and found him a huge audience, he had long been recognized as one of Britain's leading actors. His work spanned TV, theater, film and radio over five decades. He was cast as the much-loved Dumbledore after his predecessor, Richard Harris, died in 2002. DETROIT (AP) — Miguel Cabrera's career will end with the Detroit Tigers on Sunday against Cleveland at Comerica Park, where a sold-out crowd will include a few thousands fans paying for standing-room only tickets to cheer for him one more time. The 12-time All-Star leaves the game with quite a legacy. The popular player has also provided a desperately needed jolt of joy in his native Venezuela during a crisis that has pushed millions into poverty and compelled 7.3 million people to migrate. Cabrera has put himself in the conversation with all-time greats at the plate. NEW YORK (AP) — Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Dave Matthews, H.E.R., Chris Stapleton, St. Vincent and New Edition will perform at this fall's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which will be broadcast live for the first time. The ceremony will be live on Disney+ on Nov. 3 and streamable afterward. ABC will air a special featuring performance highlights and standout moments on Jan. 1. The inductees this year include Missy Elliott, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan, “Soul Train” creator Don Cornelius, Kate Bush and the late George Michael. Nominees were voted on by more than 1,000 artists, historians and music industry professionals. The curtain is finally coming down on Netflix's once-iconic DVD-by-mail service, a quarter century after the birth of a concept that obliterated Blockbuster video stores while providing a springboard into video streaming that has transformed entertainment. The DVD service that has been steadily shrinking in the shadow of Netflix's video streaming service will shut down after its five remaining distribution centers mail out their final discs Friday to the fewer than 1 million remaining subscribers. It marks the end of a service that began when a first-class stamp cost 32 cents, less than half today's price, and went on make its red-and-white envelopes a welcome sight in mailboxes. —The Associated Press About this program Host Terry Lipshetz is a senior producer for Lee Enterprises. Besides producing the daily Hot off the Wire news podcast, Terry conducts periodic interviews for this Behind the Headlines program, co-hosts the Streamed & Screened movies and television program and is the producer of Across the Sky, a podcast dedicated to weather and climate. Lee Enterprises produces many national, regional and sports podcasts. Learn more here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TONIGHT: ; from  show begins in Delhi at the G20 and moves to Gwadar, the Chinese built port in Southern Baluchistan.  From Bamako, Mali to Moscow, Russia, dispatching the Wagner Grouo to West Africa; from a hidden airfield in South Lebanon to the caves of the Judean Desert in 132 AD; from Kabul to Islamabad; from Kyiv to Moscow; from Maui to the California Camp Fire. Much attention to the provocative remarks by the president of Brazil.  1928 Brazil

The moderator gives a brief introduction. You know, the Baluch problem started in 1833 when the British basically wanted to expand their imperial empire to Afghanistan. And there are two routes to Afghanistan. One is to Baluchistan, one is to NWFP. And they tried it through that route, the other route, and they faced basically drastic humiliation.   When the army went in, basically one man was left alive to take the message, don't bother coming to Afghanistan, in a sense. But then they tried to come through Baluchistan and the Baluch people resisted. So the British played the game of basically, I want to lay a railway line, I want to lay a telegraph line. The current border between Pakistan and Iran, which is inside Baluchistan, is the General Gord Smith's telegraph line. Okay. And to cut this story short, basically the British divided us first on this line. It's a long story, I don't wanna go through it.    And then in 1928, basically Iran took that part and made it part of Iran. And In 1967, Pakistan was formed. Then the other part of Balochistan, in 1947, March 1948, Pakistan mobilized troops, backed fully by the British at the time, and occupied us. And thus, basically, we're the nutshell of history again. The other part of Ghatia, which was in Afghanistan, the British divided us on that line as well. And also, Afghanistan gave compensation to the British in the second and third Afghan war. So those territories are inside Balochistan, but we regard them as Afghan territories, so we don't regard them as ours. But we will release them. It's not in our control at the moment. When we're an independent Balochistan, obviously we will give Afghanistan their territory back and so on and so forth mutually. With Afghanistan, we always had a very good relationship. It's just that Pakistan and Iran is our problem. Recorded: 2023-08-23  Duration: 01:01:45   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balochistan    #Baluchistan #Genocide #Pakistan #Iran #BritishImperialism #HumanRights   Our published content is on our podcast host http://democracycast.libsyn.com    Send Listener feedback by sending an email to:    democracycast@earthlink.net    http://www.DemocracyWatchNews.org  https://twitter.com/dwatchnews?lang=en    https://facebook.com/dwatchnews    https://www.instagram.com/democracywatchnews/  https://www.linkedin.com/company/35464830  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRhWxBiRG-01eLS9A_vlVuA    We also augment the news on Twitter globally Asia-Eastern Augments/covers news for West Asia, North Africa & Central Asia #democracy #HumanRights #PressFreedom #environment #OpenGov Asia-Pacific Augments/covers news for South & SE Asia, & The Pacific  #HumanRights #PressFreedom #Environment #OpenGov #News #East Europe Augments/covers news throughout Europe  #Democracy #HumanRights #PressFreedom #PublicPolicy #MediaEthics #environment #transparency International  Augments/covers news for more than 190 countries each month.  An independent-global news-service, Democracy Watch News covers #democracy #HumanRights #NonviolentConflict #PressFreedom #journalism #mediaEthics #Environment. Latin America & South Atlantic Augments/covers news for Latin America & South Atlantic. #HumanRights #OpenGov #PressFreedom #NonviolentConflict #Environment in #SouthAmerica #Caribbean #CentralAmerica. North America Augments/covers news for USA Canada Mexico and the North Pacific. #Mexico #Canada #USA stories/events affecting #democracy #humanrights #journalism #opengov #environment. Sub Saharan Africa Augments/covers news for Sub Saharan Africa #News #WestAfrica #CentralAfrica #EastAfrica #SouthernAfrica #HumanRights #PressFreedom #Environment       Our production team and theme music    Democracy Watch News is currently produced by volunteers. Please donate,  we are now a 501c3 charitable nonprofit in the USA. Donations are tax deductible.     Please share with your networks.

In this podcast episode, we hear from Syed Muzammil Shah about his life journey from his initial education to his career in journalism and political science. He shares his critical self-reflection and thoughts on topics such as biological determinism, critical thinking, and the lack of freedom for media in Pakistan.  @syedmuzammilofficial7067  also discusses the importance of region-specific content in mainstream media and the lack of coverage of Baluchistan and Tribal Areas. He sheds light on the establishment of Pakistan, the state within the state, and the hybrid democracy and dependent economy. Furthermore, Muzamil talks about promoting a humanistic secular model to survive, the dirty politics of Pakistan, and Imran Khan's dangerous social vision. He also emphasizes the rights of minorities, women, and the need for progressive societies and forward-looking minds. Muzamil shares his insights on toxic masculinity and the importance of balanced living, social activities, and entertainment. He also shares his philosophy in life and his favorite books that changed his life. Towards the end of the episode, Muzamil talks about his goals and purpose, and how progress follows destruction. He also shares his contact details for those interested in reaching out to him. Join us for an insightful discussion with Muzamil as we explore the journey of a journalist-turned-political scientist in Pakistan.

A new edition of Roqe focused on the uprising in Iran and particularly, the southeast region of Baluchistan, including a feature interview with the internationally recognized “Prince of Baluchi music,” Iranian-Swedish folk musician Rostam Mirlashari, in the Roqe Studio. Jian begins the episode with a heartfelt audio essay praising the resilience of the people of Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchistan who have kept the burning flame of revolution alive. And Pegah joins Jian for a Roqe Roundup to recap a few pivotal days of activity in Toronto for the Iranian community this past week, and a new-but-unsurprising announcement regarding compulsory hijab laws in Iran.

Pakistani authorities launched a new nationwide anti-polio drive amid a spike in new cases among children, health officials said. It was the sixth such campaign in 2022, aiming to inoculate children under the age of 5 in high-risk areas. The newest drive was aimed at Islamabad and in the high-risk districts in eastern Punjab and southwestern Baluchistan province. A similar campaign was launched in the northwest in the first week of December. Pakistan regularly launches polio campaigns despite attacks on workers and police assigned to inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children. Since April, Pakistan has registered 20 new polio cases and the outbreak has been seen as a blow to the efforts to eradicate the disease, which can cause severe paralysis in children. Pakistan came close to eradicating polio in 2021, when only one case was reported. Since then, the new cases have been reported in the northwest, forcing the government to launch anti-polio drives at small intervals in high-risk areas across the country. The last such campaign was launched in November 2022. Pakistan's anti-polio campaigns are also supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which pledged $1.2 billion to the effort to end polio worldwide. The money will be used for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative's strategy through 2026. The initiative is aimed at ending the polio virus in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two endemic countries, the foundation said. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A shooter fired on an Independence Day parade from a rooftop in suburban Chicago, spraying the crowd with gunshots initially mistaken for fireworks. Hundreds of panicked revelers of all ages then fled in terror. At least six people were killed and at least 30 wounded. An hourslong manhunt ensued during which residents hunkered down in businesses or received police escorts to their homes. That ended with a traffic stop and brief chase Monday evening, when authorities detained a man they described as a person of interest. The number of U.S. flights being canceled is slowing down, but plenty of travelers are facing long delays as they try to get home from trips over the July Fourth holiday weekend. By late Monday afternoon on the East Coast, more than 2,200 U.S. flights had been delayed and more than 200 were canceled, according to FlightAware. Scandinavian Airlines has filed for bankruptcy in the United States, warning the walkout by 1,000 pilots a day earlier had put the future of the carrier at risk. The group said Tuesday it had “voluntarily filed for chapter 11 in the U.S." A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared victory in seizing the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, the mayor of a city that could be next in Moscow's firing line warned residents to evacuate ahead of an expected assault. Sloviansk Mayor Vadim Lyakh's warning Tuesday underscored fears that Russia will press deeper into eastern Ukraine's Donbas industrial heartland after Kyiv withdrew its forces from the city of Lysychansk on Sunday to avoid being surrounded. Pakistani officials say at least nine people, including women and children, were killed as heavy rains lashed southwestern Baluchistan province and triggered flash floods in several places. Hundreds of homes have been inundated in and around Australia's largest city in a flood emergency that was causing trouble for 50,000 people. Officials said Tuesday emergency response teams made 100 rescues overnight of people trapped in cars on flooded roads or in inundated homes. New South Wales state Premier Dominic Perrottet said 50,000 people in and around Sydney were given evacuation orders and warnings to prepare to abandon homes. In sports, holiday baseball highlights, Brittney Griner sends President Joe Biden a note and Wimbledon moves toward quarterfinals. Those stories and more from the holiday weekend on the latest episode. —The Associated PressSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this #Back2basicsPodcast, We have invited Mr. Zafar Qadir who is Educating and engineering social change through the use of innovative technologies in the education sector for the common masses in the remote districts of Pakistan. Technology is the game-changer. Schooling only delivers if it meets tomorrow's needs and requirements. Details at www.tf.edu.pk.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 414, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: American Indians 1: A more accurate translation of his name would be “wild” or “unbroken” horse. Crazy Horse. 2: This Pawtuxet Indian who befriended the Pilgrims was also known as Tisquantum. Squanto. 3: Canadian Indians played 1st version of this sport with few rules and up to 1000 players in a game. lacrosse. 4: Side the Iroquois supported in the French and Indian War. British (English side). 5: Inter-tribal language of the North American Plains Indians. sign language. Round 2. Category: Pol Pot-Pourri 1: This 1984 Oscar-winning film brought the genocidal horrors of Pol Pot and his regime to the eyes of the world. The Killing Fields. 2: In 1949 Pol Pot went to study radio electronics in this city where he ended up joining the French Communist Party. Paris. 3: In January 1979 Vietnamese troops took over this capital city and overthrew Pol Pot. Phnom Penh. 4: This colorful name for Pol Pot's political movement was given to it by Cambodian king Norodom Sihanouk. Khmer Rouge. 5: Also the year of the U.S. pullout from Vietnam, it's the year Pol Pot seized dictatorial control of Cambodia. 1975. Round 3. Category: National Geographic 1: Mount Vesuvius looms over this city. Naples. 2: 1 of the 2 landlocked countries of South America, its judicial capital is Sucre. Bolivia. 3: This nation is composed of 4 provinces: Sind, Baluchistan, the NW Frontier province and Punjab. Pakistan. 4: This Western Hemisphere nation of about 31 million has 10 provinces. Canada. 5: This West African country is semi-arid except for areas near its namesake river in the southwest. Niger. Round 4. Category: Historic Nicknames 1: Washington Irving thought this nickname of Anthony Wayne's referred to daring, not insanity. Mad. 2: Actress Pauline Cushman's espionage work during this war made her the "Spy of the Cumberland". Civil War. 3: This animal phrase meaning "courageous" was Richard I of England's nickname. the Lionhearted. 4: He was the "Father of Texas", but the Indians called him "Big Drunk". Sam Houston. 5: "Juana the Mad" was the queen of these 2 united Spanish kingdoms. Aragon and Castile. Round 5. Category: Islands 1: The Danes call this island dependency in the north Atlantic Gronland. Greenland. 2: There are more than 600 gigantic stone figures on this island. Easter Island. 3: In Canada the Northumberland Strait separates New Brunswick from this island province. Prince Edward Island. 4: Principal exports of this archipelago north of Scotland include wool and its famous ponies. Shetland Islands. 5: Amelia Earhart was lost near Howland Island after making her last stop at Lae on this Pacific island. New Guinea. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

A multi-billion-dollar mining deal for a Copper/ Gold mine in Baluchistan, that was going nowhere for many years suddenly comes alive. Will Barrick Reko diq save Imran Khan? If not, who is the winner? Watch this video to find out! #RekoDigDeal #Pakistan #Baluchistan #Balochistan #ImranKhan #NoConfidenceMotion

On Feb 27, 2022, a group of spirited Pashtun-Americans and Balochi-Americans demanded a free Pashtunistan and a free Baluchistan in front of Governor's mansion in Sacramento, California. How the Durand Line has wreaked havoc & why it must go.

New music and song from around the planet: Sahara, Mali, Cuba, Italy, Finland, Albania, Ukraine x 6, Baluchistan, BC, Nova Scotia, USA, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and Quebec. Plus some spirited instrumentals to keep us all bouncing along towards St. Patrick's Day

Music by fabulously strong and talented women from Africa, Cuba, Spain, France, Italy, Baluchistan, Ukraine, Canada, and America. New releases from Oysterband (UK), Mama's Broke (NS), Dakhabrakha (Ukraine), Early Spirit (BC), Chris Newman (Yorkshire), Dlu (Scotland), Andy Martyn (London), and three great trad bands from Quebec. Plus concert previews for Coig, Forro do Cana & Celso Machado. And more!

Janiye Chacha Nehru ne kya kiya? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bharatpodcast/message

Photo:  Kissa Khawani bazaar in Peshawar. Screen grab. Nitin Gokhale @nitingokhale , @StratNewsGlobal.com ; @GordonGChang, Gatestone, Newsweek, The Hill Afghan terrorists extort funds from Pakistani merchants. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pakistan-interest-in-afghanistan-to-counter-indian-influence-says-us-report-2515692 Nitin Gokhale, @nitingokhale   Strategic affairs analyst based in Delhi, on Pakistan's effort to co00ntgr Indian influence in Afghanistan.  China in Afghanistan.  Baluchistan.  @StratNewsGlobal.com

Be part of our community by joining our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thoughtbehindthings In conversation with Dr. Muhammad Iftikhar Khokhar, this episode explores Urdu language and children literature. How much work he has done for this cause? When he started writing? Why he shifted to literature after studying journalism? How is he managing writing and academics simultaneously? When has he moved from Islamic University to Riphah? Talking about Urdu curriculum, why we couldn’t accept it as our own? How he sees the lack of availability of content in Urdu language? What he thinks about single national curriculum? Having multiple regional languages brings diversity, is it a problem or opportunity? What can we do unify them? Is Urdu language being imposed on us? Tune in to know more on his working experience in Baluchistan, what he thinks the Urdu literature is headed and how he sees young generation’s passion for exploring this language! Follow us on Instagram: • https://www.instagram.com/thoughtbehindthings • https://www.instagram.com/muzamilhasan --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/syed-muzamil-hasan-zaidi3/support

The most vivid analogy for the latest crisis in global supply chains, the Suez Canal blocking by a grounded super-container ship, is that of a heart attack. Just as a block in an artery can lead to disastrous consequences for a human, the blockage of an arterial waterway can disrupt global trade. The Suez accounts for 12% of the world’s total cargo movement because it is a key transit route between Asia and Europe.There are ways to mitigate, and, even better, to prevent heart attacks. It is necessary to consider how to do the same for supply chain disruptions. The simplest mitigation is bypass surgery (or in this case, taking the long route around the Cape of Good Hope, or the more tentative Arctic Route made possible by global warming). Putting in a stent is another (which translates to widening Suez to be, say, two-lane, which has happened, in parts).Preventing heart attacks altogether would be the other approach (say, exercise, better diet/lifestyle, drugs). In logistics terms, this means reducing the amount of cargo that is being shipped long distance. That is to say, avoid the tyranny of the supply chain by shortening it. Build near where you sell. In fact, the very antithesis of globalization. That is paradoxical, considering how very global the ship in question is. MV EverGiven is Japanese-owned, managed by a Taiwanese company named Evergreen, operated by a German company, has a 25-member crew that is fully Indian, and had on board 2 (mandatory) Egyptian pilots whose job it is to shepherd vessels through the canal without incident. Before the usual suspects start to lay the blame on the Indian crew, it is worth pointing out that in the canal, the local pilots are, by law, in charge of the ship. The captain and crew defer to them. So human error probably has to be attributed to them; in addition, there was apparently a severe dust-storm that may have affected the ship’s movements. A retired marine engineer in who has traversed the Suez many times confirmed the above. He also said:There could be problems with engine maintenance. If there were attempts to finely position the vessel in the wake of the storm, that would depend on how well the engine starts, stops, reverses, etc. Managements want to keep the boats running, not in drydock; sometimes necessary repairs and maintenance get postponed for too long.Thus there might be several causes behind the mishap. But squeezing out maximum profits while keeping costs down is something that not only ship managers do (the ship earns money only when it is moving; repair or drydock time is dead time). This sentiment is what has driven the entire thrust towards supply-chain efficiency, and methodologies like just-in-time that minimize inventory and thus carrying cost. Perhaps Toyota could do JIT because of Japanese exceptionalism, whereby the suppliers were next door and felt honor-bound to meet their commitments. That is not true in the real world. For instance, see the vaccine wars: the EU, the US, the UK, etc. are hoarding units, and India is cutting supplies, for various reasons. In any case, it is illusory to think that inventory disappeared: it was sitting on a ship instead of in your warehouse. However, Soren Skou, the CEO of Maersk, the largest shipping company in the world, now says the world is moving to “just-in-case”, and multiple suppliers:We are moving towards a just-in-case supply chain, not just-in-time. This incident [in the Suez Canal] will make people think more about their supply chains…How much just-in-time do you want to be? It’s great when it works but when it doesn’t, you lose sales. There’s no just-in-time cost savings that can outweigh the negative of losing sales… We clearly see our customers saying we need to have multiple suppliers to make sure that one small sub-supplier can’t close us down.It is possible to argue that efficiency is the antithesis of strategy. Extreme efficiency brings risk. There is no Plan B; there is no slack in the process. Engineers typically overdesign, and leave a large margin of error to account for unforeseen circumstances. Over the past couple of decades, managers, especially in America, have thrown this sensible caution to the winds, leaving their companies on a knife-edge, subject to geopolitical and technical risk, in the pursuit of (relatively small) increases in profitability.The change has even been visible in personnel. Once upon a time, the smartest young MBAs were hired into sales or finance jobs; but more recently, many have gravitated to being purchasing managers. They have been ruthless in pruning costs; but they have been unmindful of the risks they are taking. These are now coming back to haunt them. A generation of management consultants and ambitious young MBAs in effect conspired to move the world’s production to China. There was a supply chain tyranny of groupthink. Oil was cheap so shipping costs were low; China was efficient and skilled at scaling up; thus production was moved offshore. An extreme case was where chickens reared in the US were slaughtered and shipped to China for processing, and shipped back as packaged food.  But there were unintended consequences. China moved up the experience curve, getting better and better at manufacturing. Conversely, it hollowed out not only production jobs, but also the knowledge of design for manufacturing back in the consuming countries. Thus, not only did the jobs migrate, entire industries did, and they are not going back. This is a double blow: both to developed economies where workers will become permanently unemployable, and to developing economies that will never be able to get a foothold in some industries. The latter case is the Cargo Cult of today: countries completely dependent on the container ships that bring them what they want. The old David Ricardo theory of comparative advantage, which has been the theoretical basis for offshoring, is now passe. It has become important for large economies like India to be able to depend on local production. Otherwise, you are subject to crazy geopolitical risk with no warning. For instance, the Japanese were sandbagged by the Chinese when the latter simply stopped outbound customs clearance of rare earths products, bringing some electronics manufacturers to their knees some years ago.Chinese can and will use every trick in the book. They view trade as part of “unrestricted warfare”. This risk must be mitigated: for instance, India must produce its own Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients so that the pharma industry is vertically integrated and not subject to a potential Chinese veto. The same is true of shipping too: India has to move its container shipping from Colombo (where the Chinese run part of the facilities under long lease) to the under-construction port at Vizhinjam as soon as possible. The larger picture is that the Suez incident is going to make more nations wary of China, if the pandemic hadn’t already done so. This also makes marine choke points more interesting: most notably the Straits of Malacca. An EverGiven-style accident (or more ominously, a military blockade) there would bring the Chinese economy to its knees -- and so would similar action in the Straits of Hormuz off Iran. There were threats earlier that Iran might deliberately sink ships to impede the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. China is painfully aware of this, and it partly explains their debt-trap diplomacy habit of acquiring port assets all over the world, and their focus on Gwadar in Baluchistan, and the proposed Isthmus of Kra canal in Thailand: these are ways to bypass Malacca (and so is much of the Belt and Road Initiative). Incidentally, India with its Andaman and Nicobar command can keep a close eye on Malacca.China is in fact the ultimate loser in the Suez incident, because it makes it difficult for other nations like India to ignore the elephant in the room: their vulnerability and therefore the need to decouple China from their supply chains. Autarky is no longer a bad word. But we also have to be realistic about our lack of certain capabilities or resources. Even though we tend to blame the Chinese for the theft of intellectual property and reverse-engineering, other capabilities have been less visible: on the one hand, government mercantilism such as in hidden financing (often at rates that approach 0%) and in cornering strategic resources (eg. lithium, cobalt, rare earths). On the other, in tooling. A mechanical engineer who runs a robotics company in Bangalore told me the following when I asked him what his main challenge from the Chinese was:It’s definitely tooling. It takes me maybe 18 months to get the product all tooled up; but when I start shipping it, the Chinese guy will reverse-engineer and tool it up in 2-3 months. So he will have a product competing directly with mine within 3-4 months, at a lower cost. So I am desperately running as fast as I can just to stay ahead for that short window of opportunity. In a sense, India has lost an entire generation of mechanical engineers (and civil engineers) because they were all absorbed by the IT industry to do offshored services work. This, in a larger national sense, has been a tragedy. We now have to painstakingly build that capability up all over again. But this is literally the best time to do that; in fact, we do not have a choice. In the most strategic industries, India is far behind; in some cases, so far behind as to be non-existent. For instance, consider semiconductors. It is imperative that India not be dependent on anybody else for chips. There’s a global shortage of chips now, and there is not a single semiconductor fabrication plant in India. This is a critical deficiency. Today, yes, India can do chip designs and get them fabricated by merchant foundries such as TSMC. Tomorrow?Taiwan’s TSMC is dominant in the most advanced chips, ie those under 10-nanometers, and is currently building a next-generation 3-nanometer plant. It has overtaken the US’s Intel and Korea’s Samsung. Intel is now forced to respond with a $20 billion investment in two fabs in the US. There are huge geopolitical risks for India (and the rest of the world) from various issues. What if the Chinese invade Taiwan? They are threatening every day to do so: the latest is an incursion of 20 Chinese planes into Taiwanese air space. There is another, unforeseen problem: water. Taiwan is going through a bad drought, and fabs are facing a big problem with not enough clean water. A chip engineer told me: Clean room setup and many gallons of clean water are needed. Some years back, there was this push to set up a fab in Hyderabad; and it went nowhere because of water requirements. We have to fix that problem as well.The Taiwanese are quite aware of the dangers from a potential Chinese invasion, or even of a blockade. This is the best time for India to put on a hard sell to attract TSMC to set up a fab in some part of India which has sufficient water and the requisite other infrastructure. If the almost literally heart-stopping Suez block has any positive outcome, it is to be hoped that it will accelerate the setting up of a fab (perhaps Taiwanese) in India. (UPDATE: As of March 29th, the MV EverGiven has been floated free after a 6 day-long emergency operation). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

In this episode, Kamyar and Rustin welcome back Dr. Stefan Williamson Fa to talk about the extraordinary life and music of Sufi-Flamenco star, Aziz Balouch. Stefan has re-issued Balouch's EP, Sufi Hispano-Pakastani, originally produced in 1962, with Death is Not the End Records in 2020. Dr. Williamson Fa traces Aziz's biography, from a young boy born in Baluchistan in 1910, to studying in Sindh at a sufi shrine, before making his way to Gibraltar and falling in love with Flamenco music. Balouch became a student of legendary Flamenco master, Pepe Marchena, and spent the rest of his life exploring the deep connections between Andalusian music and mystical Islam. To learn more about Dr. Willamson Fa's research on Aziz Balouch and to listen to his songs in their entirety, visit the accompanying article, ["From Sindh to Andalusia: The Life and Times of Sufi-Flamenco Star Aziz Balouch"] (https://ajammc.com/2021/01/10/sufi-flamenco-aziz-balouch/) on the Ajam Media Collective website.

In this episode, Kamyar and Rustin welcome back Dr. Stefan Williamson Fa to talk about the extraordinary life and music of Sufi-Flamenco star, Aziz Balouch. Stefan has re-issued Balouch's EP, Sufi Hispano-Pakastani, originally produced in 1962, with Death is Not the End Records in 2020. Dr. Williamson Fa traces Aziz's biography, from a young boy born in Baluchistan in 1910, to studying in Sindh at a sufi shrine, before making his way to Gibraltar and falling in love with Flamenco music. Balouch became a student of legendary Flamenco master, Pepe Marchena, and spent the rest of his life exploring the deep connections between Andalusian music and mystical Islam. To learn more about Dr. Willamson Fa's research on Aziz Balouch and to listen to his songs in their entirety, visit the accompanying article, "From Sindh to Andalusia: The Life and Times of Sufi-Flamenco Star Aziz Balouch" on the Ajam Media Collective website.

Anita Jalil is a 27 years old vlogger from Gwadar, Baluchistan. She has started her second YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxCML1DTFf6ArRuie4rvIMA Zahid Baluch is a Baloch actor. Follow him here. https://www.instagram.com/zahid_ali_baluch/

#Coronavirus #Pandemic #lightupwithShua  Baat Coron - Lets Talk   This will be a weekly program beginning during the Corona Virus Quarantine. I do plan to continue it after we are Inshaa Allah - God Willing out of this current self quarantine times.   This program will be in Urdu and in English. I feel privileged and honored to have become good friends with Quratulain Bakhteari, a dynamic and charismatic personality full of energy and joy.     Drawing on thirty years of experience as arguably one of the best community organizers in Pakistan, Quratul Ain proposes to move away from the current model for training development professionals to a wholly new approach that bypasses government and academia and ties communities and workers into a web of learning centers.   Quratul Ain's new approach attempts to organically ground community workers in the community where they work. Rather than bring students to universities for an extended period, Quratul Ain proposes to bring students into a shared environment for an initial period of three months where the staff and students live together, raise their own produce, and learn community development precepts by working together as well as through lectures and discussions.   Each student then goes back to their community with a specific assignment/project to undertake for a period of three to six months. Each student's work is monitored by Quratul Ain's faculty members, who travel to the district where the student is working and interact with a local of people who review and comment upon each student's work.   In the final stage of the program, the student returns to Quratul Ain's Center for a three month period of reflection in which the student presents the results of the work to a panel of faculty members at the Center and spends more time studying and discussing how to strengthen and broaden his/her work.   By focusing on select areas in Baluchistan and Punjab for her initial students, Quratul Ain proposes to make the faculty field review process economically feasible, while concentrating on a number of graduates who can, in turn, form their own community learning nodes, creating a center like hers and reaching out to train other community workers.   Her Links:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix7EJ...   https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/qura...   Remember to subscribe, share, rate and review.   Thank you.   Shua - شعا ع   www.lightupwithshua.com   http://bit.ly/2nc9tZM - Youtube channel   https://goo.gl/rf3HQ9 - The Groton Channel   http://apple.co/2BteyA3 - iTunes   https://goo.gl/dWpvLF - Instagram   Available on iHeartradio, Tunein Radio, Spotify, Castbox. And links are on Facebook, Instagram, Lindedin, and Twitter.  

Baat Coron - Lets Talk This will be a weekly program beginning during the Corona Virus Quarantine. I do plan to continue it after we are Inshaa Allah - God Willing out of this current self quarantine times. This program will be in Urdu and in English. I feel privileged and honored to have become good friends with Quratulain Bakhteari, a dynamic and charismatic personality full of energy and joy. Quratulain Bakhteari opened her first Center for Development Studies, comprised of a small group of dedicated activists/teachers and whose size, mode of operation and scale will be easily replicable. She has set up the Center in Queta, Baluchistan, an area removed from the well-traveled and more populous areas where academic institutions exist. The provincial government has given her a former school and surrounding land to use, on the basis of Quratul Ain's success in dramatically increasing female literacy in the province in the past. Quratul Ain believes that, to be successful, the people she trains have to share common philosophical underpinnings and a willingness to dedicate their lives to the service of their communities. By living in relatively spartan conditions and by teaching students to understand the communities and not want for their physical and emotional needs while undertaking this important work, Quratul Ain believes that a new generation of community development professionals can be properly trained to be creative and courageous in articulating and fulfilling the needs of their communities. Quratul Ain sees each graduate of her courses as a member of a broader fellowship of properly oriented community professionals. She expects that these people will act as educators; and, buoyed by a common view of their calling, work in concert and collaboration. This is one of the reasons that she is focusing her student recruitment on particular districts in particular provinces - so she can build a critical mass of graduates and work with them to figure out how best to organize this group as a potent social force. Her Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ix7EJ... https://www.ashoka.org/en/fellow/qura... Remember to subscribe, share, rate and review. Thank you. Shua - شعا ع www.lightupwithshua.com  http://bit.ly/2nc9tZM - Youtube channel https://goo.gl/rf3HQ9 - The Groton Channel http://apple.co/2BteyA3 - iTunes https://goo.gl/dWpvLF - Instagram

Escuchamos músicas extraídas directamente de la raíz de los pueblos de Asia, todas ellas gracias a las magníficas ediciones del sello Ocora-Radio France. Viajamos por los sones populares y tradicionales de Baluchistán, Corea, Japón, Pakistán y Bali. We play music directly extracted from the roots of the peoples of Asia, all of them thanks to the great issues by Ocora-Radio France label. We travel through the people's music and traditions of Baluchistan, Korea, Japan, Pakistan and Bali. · Rasulbakhsh Zangeshâhi et al. - Zahirig Rudbar / Sowt "Mâbâ To" - Baloutchistan: La tradition instrumentale [VA] · Park Miouk & [Collectif artistique communal de Jindo] - Byeoseulgung (jaeseok-gut) - Corée, Ile de Jindo: Chants funéraires et chamaniques [VA] · Ensemble Yonin no Kaï - Yaegoromo - Japon: Jiuta & kotouta · Subhan Ahmed Nizami & Qawwal Baché - Rang - Pakistan: Qawwali de la Dehli Gharana [Karachi] · Wayan Lotring - Gender wayang: pemungkah - Bali: Hommage à Wayan Lotring · Abdorahmân Surizehi et al. - Zahirig Baho / Zahirig Ballok ordok / Mélodie shervandi "Balach" / Zahirig Kordi - Baloutchistan: La tradition instrumentale [VA] Imagen / Image: Subhan Ahmed Nizami & Qawwal Baché

Lufra and Charis send us into a pronunciation tailspin in this episode, but we still find time to discuss whether we'd drink warm milk from cows in Green Park, and if it's possible for Charis to be that beautiful. We also consider setting up our own YouTube channel dedicated to us trying to replicate different styles of neckcloth, from the Mathematical to the Oriental. You'd watch that right? But mostly in this episode we talk about the characters that make this book such a fan favourite - Alverstoke, Felix, Jessamy, and Frederica herself. By the end we're just reading out our best bits and trying not to cry at how lovely it all is. And for the Mr Charles Trevor fans out there - we stand with you. That man's the very definition of quietly capable, and we've made plans for his future adventures. “I didn't smuggle the dog into the country; I merely caused him to be smuggled out of Baluchistan.” Instagram: @georgetteheyerpodcast Twitter: @heyerpodcast  

Traditionally, Guru Gorakshanath is believed to have been born sometime in the 8th century at Gorkha District, Nepal, although some believe he was born hundreds of years later. He traveled widely across the Indian subcontinent, and accounts about him are found in some form in several places including Nepal, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Punjab, Sindh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Assam, Bengal, Odisha, Kathiawar(Gujarat), Maharashtra, Karnataka, and even Sri Lanka.

Just one day after ISIS in Sinai (also known as Sinai Province or "Wilayat Sinai" had published its latest video, Silah Report had its 9th podcast and managed to discuss the video's content and analyze it. The cast for the 9th episode was: Miles, Adham, Calibre Obscura, Analyst Mick, Jenzen Jones, Ataka, MENA Conflict, Hrachya and Abdullah. Following that, we discussed the small arms and compositions of Baluchistan's fighters, who are waging war against Pakistan to have their own independent state. Including the equipment, force size and training of Pakistani troops who are deployed to face them. Also, Miles brought up some photos showing a Saddam era brochure for Iraqi's military industry intended for the weapons expo they had right before the beginning of the Gulf War. And as usual, the cast discusses a variety of small arms found for sale in Yemen and other countries in the MENA region. Credits- Introduction audio is taken from movie Son of a Lion, with permission of the director Benjamin Gilmour. The conversation takes place in the Kyber Pakhtunkwa (KPK) region of Pakistan and is between a customer examining a "Krinkov"-patterned rifle that is for sale. Music is traditional Arabic Dabkha by the name of اغاني دبكة تي رش رش

MotoChorros, Hong Nusra, Guaido Rastrojero, Santi Wall, Monguerton, Mugabe Sesto, Sultan Ventrilocuo, San Zuñisco, Baluchistan, Elmo Manolarga, Seva Saptha, Fulano Combo, Los Sacklers, Pizzero Voyeur, LegaPoppin, La Lolita Y mucho mas VIDEOTECA REPORT Dron de la Victoria ( a partir de minuto 7:55 ) https://youtu.be/WEteFWnN2rc Bibi huyendo del mitin https://youtu.be/bTfM_bBm8C0 ENLACES Hongkoneses PeloNaranjistas http://spanish.almanar.com.lb/352123 Espía inventado https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/09/10/estados_unidos/1568121539_971243.html Bibi espiando a Donald Rossner https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/12/israel-planted-spying-devices-near-white-house-says-report Open Arms Evangelista https://www.tellerreport.com/life/2019-09-12---sea-rescue--evangelical-church-wants-to-buy-rescue-vessel-.H1bwVh2vLB.html Noruegos hacen algo bien por una vez https://elcaso.elnacional.cat/es/sucesos/supremo-noruego-delito-posesion-munecas-sexuales-infantiles_15000_102.html Guaido 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Imperio Bibi https://www.enlacejudio.com/2019/09/10/netanyahu-anuncia-intencion-de-extender-soberania-de-israel-al-valle-del-jordan-si-gana-en-las-elecciones/ No habrá foto como con Reagan https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/09/09/actualidad/1568021371_421711.html San Zuñisco https://hannity.com/media-room/third-world-nation-san-francisco-resident-flee-city-homeless-stats-worse-than-thought-up-30/ Baluchistan https://www.asianage.com/world/europe/120919/there-has-never-been-democracy-in-balochistan-bhrc-vice-chief-hassan-hamdam.html LegaPoppin https://www.mediterraneodigital.com/humor/lmdd2/mujer-caga-calle-la-fortuna-leganes.html El Reino de la Montaña Amarilla https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/announcement-of-new-kingdom-in-pocket-between-egypt-and-sudan-raises-eyebrows-1.909116 Operacion YellowHammer https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-carencia-alimentos-y-medicinas-gibraltar-documentos-secretos-brexit-salen-201909112122_noticia.html Alimentación Angla 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Regalos de Salman en la Feria del Libro Indonesia https://www.arabnews.com/node/1551151/saudi-arabia La Lolita https://www.diariodecadiz.es/cadiz/Droga-Puerta-Mar_0_1390061359.html Bambalanquismo Lunar https://www.abc.es/ciencia/abci-india-encuentra-nave-perdida-luna-pero-no-logra-establecer-contacto-201909081636_noticia.html Liberación de Stalino https://es.news-front.info/2019/09/07/los-defensores-de-la-rpd-son-dignos-de-la-memoria-de-los-soldados-que-defendieron-al-donbass-durante-la-gran-guerra-patria-pushilin-fotos/ Juerguistas de la Tri https://www.infobae.com/america/deportes/2019/09/11/escandalo-en-la-seleccion-de-mexico-afirman-que-los-jugadores-se-fueron-de-fiesta-con-mujeres-antes-de-perder-por-goleada-ante-argentina/ Bibi evacuado http://www.aurora-israel.co.il/las-alarmas-antiaereas-por-cohetes-de-gaza-interrumpen-el-mitin-de-netanyahu Concienciación contra el poppin https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/osun-first-lady-begs-residents-to-stop-open-defecation.html Julito recurre https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/3758649/0/julio-iglesias-recurre-sentencia-paternidad-javier-sanchez/ Cremita con mercurio https://abcnews.go.com/US/california-woman-hospitalized-face-cream-high-levels-mercury/story?id=65539543 Yankee Pirata https://www.abc.es/cultura/abci-roger-dooley-cerebro-expolio-galeon-san-jose-investiga-archivo-indias-201909120118_noticia.html Una década de Boko https://www.vistazo.com/seccion/mundo/actualidad-mundial/boko-haram-ha-asesinado-mas-de-27000-personas Mossad Ecuatoriano https://www.vistazo.com/seccion/pais/actualidad-nacional/comandos-ecuatorianos-entrenan-en-israel Oro o Agua https://www.vistazo.com/seccion/pais/actualidad-nacional/oro-o-agua-el-dilema-que-cuestionan-indigenas-de-ecuador Los Sacklers https://www.timesofisrael.com/what-a-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-means-for-the-sacklers/

A journalist by profession, Akshobh Giridharadas was based out of Singapore as a reporter and producer with Channel News Asia, Singapore covering international business news. He writes on diverse topics such as geopolitics, business, tech and sports. His previous endeavors include working at ESPN STAR and FOX networks. He is a two time TEDx speaker and is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts specializing in international affairs. With Giridharadas I have spoken extensively about Indian current problems, like education and job creation. However, the focus of our conversation revolved around the Kashmir issue. Does Pakistan have the moral standing to bring the Kashmir issue to the international arena and to criticize India for not respecting human rights? According to Giridharadas, there is no such thing. Pakistan has a very bad record on human rights in Baluchistan and it is a country which is not famous for hosting several minorities, differently from India. Kashmir is and Indian issue, and a Pakistani intervention is not only not respectful of the Indian sovereignty, but also hypocritical.

This week’s suicide attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, the second in two months, could not have come at a more awkward moment for Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan.

Trucks gather near the border to unload their cargo. Pack animals will carry the fuel across. Aslan works at a fuel depot in Pakistan. He is just 12 years old. Smugglers load donkeys and mules with fuel to cross the border. Abdowahed has a bachelor's degree in agriculture but turned to fuel smuggling after drought dried up his orchards in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan. He takes a bath in a spring near the Pakistan border after selling a load of diesel.

Jacob L. Shapiro and Kamran Bokhari make sense of the numerous geopolitical developments that occurred in the world's most volatile region this week. Sign up for free updates on topics like this! Go here: hubs.ly/H06mXwR0 TRANSCRIPT: Jacob L. Shapiro: Hello everyone and welcome to another Geopolitical Futures podcast. I am joined this week by Kamran Bokhari, thanks for joining us Kamran. Kamran Bokhari: Good to be here. JLS: What we're going to do this week is we're going to try and sort out some of the mess that's been going on in the Middle East. It's been a very chaotic week in the Middle East and we thought we'd take a step back and try to explain it to listeners in about 30 or 40 minutes. It's a tall task but we'll see how we go. Kamran, I think the first thing that you might be able to help out with our listeners understanding is understanding a little bit more about the history of Qatar – the history of Qatar's relationships in the region, how it's always sort of been on the outside looking in – but what exactly Saudi Arabia, and the states that Saudi Arabia's convinced to go along with this diplomatic isolation of Qatar, are seeing that upsets them so much. KB: So ever since 1995, when the father of the current emir of Qatar took power, his name was Sheikh Hamad Al Thani, and he actually overthrew his father in '95 and ousted him and took power. Qatar has been on a strange trajectory. I say strange because it's not normal for the Arab world or more specifically the Persian Gulf Arab world, the Khaleejis, to behave in this way. I am referring to an openness for lack of a better term. I mean Al Jazeera was started by the current emir's father and it became sort of the standard bearer of 24/7 news in the Arab world. That made a lot of traditional Arab leaders, both Republican regimes and of course the monarchies, particularly Saudi Arabia, very, very uncomfortable because it was not the way that they had ran their political economies. There's no concept of having discourse. But to make matters worse this new regime post-1995 began with a very what I would call pragmatic approach to the region. It could afford to do because it is the world's largest LNG exporter, that brings in a lot of money. The population, those who are Qatari nationals, is very small – less than 300,000 people. In fact, there are more expats in that country, which is also true for a number of other GCC states. But in the case of Qatar, what happened is that this allowed for the regime to flirt with all sorts of radical political forces ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to more radical elements along the Islamist spectrum. And even give air time to what we used to call secular left-wing Arab nationalists and it began a policy of opening to Iran, developing a relationship that was out of step with the GCC consensus, if you will. And steering towards an independent foreign policy. And a lot of people say, Qatar has been punching above its weight when it comes to foreign policy. It's a tiny, little state. But it's been trying to play major league geopolitics. That's a fair assessment. But I would say that the Qataris are cut from a different cloth if we are to compare them to the rest of the Arab regimes. JLS: Yes, although I think one thing that you perhaps left out was that there's a regional headquarters for U.S. Central Command in Qatar and that Qatar is for all intents and purposes it's sort of in the U.S. camp in the region, or generally has been. And that the U.S. has been able to use Qatar at times in order to have unofficial dialogue with some of these groups that are considered beyond the pale for normal political discourse, right? KB: Absolutely, that's important to note that when Qatar is reaching out to these unsavory characters, from the point of view of the region and the international community, it's not doing so in defiance of the West, it's doing so in concert with its great power ally, the United States. And mind you, that base at Al Udeid where the U.S. Central Command has a major hub in the region, in fact, the regional hub is based in Qatar of Central Command, and that happened after 9/11 and the decision of the United States government, the Bush administration, to pull out of Saudi Arabia. There was a huge base in Saudi Arabia, and Qatar offered space so it was just a minor relocation. At the same time, there are relations between the Qatari government and Israel. There are a lot of rumors about the nature of it. Nobody officially denies or rejects it. But it's well known that there's some form of relationship there. So, Qatar has been reaching out to all sorts of entities and Qatar is the one Arab state that also sees eye-to-eye with Turkey in the region. And so it's had a really diversified foreign policy portfolio. JLS: I want to bring it back to Turkey in a minute but I'll just ask one more thing about Qatar which is that you know you've pointed out that they've always been reaching out to these different groups and they've always had a more independent foreign policy. I think that one of the things that we were discussing internally was that it was very hard to read whether Qatar had simply done something that had gone too far beyond the pale for Saudi Arabia or whether this had sort of been planned for a while and that this is really more of a reflection of the Saudis weakening and not being willing to tolerate Qatar breaking ranks. I noticed recently that Qatar actually asked a lot of people from Hamas, who nominally are based in Qatar, to leave. And it seems like Qatar has actually done some things and has been very open to trying to solve of this diplomatic spat, especially in terms of the United States. So do you think that Qatar actually did something, that it flirted with Iran in a serious way, that both Saudi Arabia and even perhaps the United States didn't mind Saudi Arabia sort of dinging Qatar on the head and saying, nah, that's too far? Or do you think that this really has more to do with Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia trying to consolidate control at the diplomatic level in the same way that Saudi Arabia wasn't going to tolerate internal unrest in a country like Bahrain in 2011? KB: I think it's the latter. I don't see the Qataris doing anything new. The Iranian relationship has been there, there's more made out of it in terms of the public discourse than there is actually. The whole idea of support for Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, that's old stuff, that's been going along for a long time. I haven't seen anything fresh that would suggest that the Qataris crossed some sort of red line. I think it's a lingering dispute and if we go back to 2014, for the better part of that year, the Saudis and the Bahrainis and the UAE, they downgraded diplomatic relations in that year in the spring. And it was not until the fall that they had an agreement of sorts, which was never made public, but according to the reports Qatar had agreed to scale back its involvement with all these groups and not encourage them to where that damaged the interests of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE and others. And so, I think that that's a long-standing dispute and I think that now Saudi Arabia is getting desperate because things are not going well for Saudi Arabia. And the last thing it wants is one of its own GCC members doing things that undermine its collective efforts. So, number one, and I think this is foremost, is Iran. If you go back to the Trump visit that was like three weeks ago to Riyadh and there was a gala event attended not just by Middle Eastern leaders but also from the wider Muslim majority countries. It was very clear that Saudi Arabia had finally got the United States to where it wants to be. Remember that under the Obama administration, the Saudis had a terrible relationship with Washington. Under Trump, they know think that they now have Washington where they want it to be and they want to move forward in isolating Iran. And Qatari dealings with Iran really poke holes into the Saudi strategy. So, I think that this is a case of the Saudis not being able to take it anymore and saying you know enough is enough. If the Qataris are not behaving, we have to up the pressure to twist their arm. JLS: Yeah and I think this is a move that could really backfire on Saudi Arabia. You already see it backfiring a little bit in the sense that they were able to assemble an impressive coalition of countries in this diplomatic offensive against Qatar, but they have not really been able to extend the diplomatic offensive outside of its immediate vicinity and outside of those countries that are immediately dependent on it. And even some of the other GCC states have not gone along to the same extent that Saudi Arabia and the Emiratis and the others have gone to. But you bring up good points with Iran and Turkey and this is another reason why I think this might backfire on the Saudis, which is because if Qatar is looking at this and if Qatar is trying to establish some kind of independence of action, Saudi Arabia is really on a downward slope. Especially when you consider that oil prices right now are continuing to go down and that Saudi has basically proven ineffective in getting the price of oil to come back up and that really is the source of Saudi power. Qatar, as you said, has a close relationship with Turkey. Qatar as you also said also has a closer relationship with Iran than perhaps any of the other Arab countries in the region. You brought up the specific point of the fact that Qatar and Turkey have seen eye to eye for a while right now. I know that there's a lot of stuff there in terms of the political ideology that both Qatar and Turkey favor that you can shed some light on. So how about you go a little bit more in depth into how Turkey and Qatar see the region in the same way, and what is the way in which they've been trying to reshape the region, not just recently but for many years now? KB: From the point of view of the Qataris, they're not so much in ideological sync with the Islamists, they take a more pragmatic view. Unlike Egypt, unlike Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab states, the Qataris say, look, you know we can't dial the clock back. And what do I mean by that is that the Saudis are using tools that used to be effective back in the day, pre-Arab Spring, where there was no opposition of any sorts to the regimes in the region. And Qatar looks at that and says that thing, that tool kit, that approach is useless because it only makes matters worse. Qatar says, look, these forces, the Hamases of this world, the Muslim Brotherhoods of this world, they are a reality and we can't wish them away and we can't suppress them because it only makes matters worse and we need to somehow reach out to them in order for, and this is based on my conversations with Qatari officials over the years, their view is that these are realities and if we don't control them, if we just leave them to their own devices, then they will do things that will undermine the interests of the region and the security of the regimes. So it's sort of flipping the Saudi argument on its head. The Saudis say well you need to keep them under lock and key and that's the way to go. As far as Turkey is concerned, Turkey is more ideologically in tune with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas because the ruling AKP party comes from an Islamist heritage although it's not an Islamist party, its roots lie in Islamism. So there's a meeting of minds. And Qatar realizes that it's a small country and the rest of the Arab states are not really getting it. And they realize that if there's going to be a counterweight to Iran, it's going to be Turkey. And the Qataris have accepted the fact that the Arabs do not have any intrinsic power of their own in the region and therefore they must piggyback on Turkey and hence that relationship. So it's a convergence of interests and ideas. JLS: Yeah, although I want to push back a little bit because I think you're right that Qatar reaches out to a lot of different groups that other countries in the region and most countries in the world wouldn't do business with, right? But I don't think when it comes to more Muslim Brotherhood-oriented groups that Qatar sees them sort of as redheaded stepchildren that it's going to let into Qatar. I think there, Qatar has actually more of an affinity to some of those groups and has used some of those groups in order to push Qatar's influence throughout the region, which is why I suggested that perhaps Turkey and Qatar see more eye to eye ideologically. Do you think I am taking that too far or would you agree with that assessment? KB: I think that your argument has some merit to it, and actually a lot of merit to it, but when I was saying ideologically I was meaning the ideology of the ruling family or the regime in Qatar. They're not Islamists. They don't share those ideologies. If you go to Qatar you know it's fairly Westernized and it's fairly open and so it's not necessarily Islamist but they see these actors as, what you just said, tools to pursue their foreign policy agenda, to be able to have influence. And in my conversations, I did feel that the Qataris really believe that there is no way around these actors. Qatar has sort of, in a self-styled manner, appropriated this task of bringing reconcilable – what they call reconcilable – Islamists to the mainstream. And so that's also a foreign policy offering that Doha sort of says that this what we can do for the world. And they find reception in circles in Washington. Back in 2013, the United States Department of Defense dealt with certain Islamist factions within the Syrian rebel landscape in order to find common ground because of the fear that we're not going to get secular Syrian nationalists under the banner of the Free Syrian Army. And that was mediated by Qatar. And if you look at the Taliban relationship, clearly that was very openly Qatar helping the United States deal with the Taliban. It didn't go too far because of other complications, but nonetheless, it's a great example of how Qatar is trying to say: this is our value proposition that we bring to this region and to great powers who are stakeholders in this region. JLS: Yes, although the flip side of that is it means Qatar is playing with fire. I mean I really, I was really struck by what you said that the ruling family is not Islamist. But that Qatar thinks of using the Islamist groups as tools in order to develop Qatar's power or to protect Qatar's position. I cannot think of a more secular entity that used Islamists that didn't have the Islamists come back to bite them in the end. We have seen over and over and over, whether it was the United States, whether it was Saudi Arabia, whether it was Turkey, it doesn't really matter if the country itself was Muslim or if it's Western or not. It's very, very difficult to control Islamist groups once they get going. So the idea that Qatar is going to be able to use these Islamist groups when they want to use them and is not going to face backlash from them, especially because Qatar is playing such a dual game and is really dealing with all sides. It seems to me that that's, I don't want to say shortsighted and I don't even say it's not going to work. I just can't think of another example of that actually working in the long term for a country's foreign policy. Can you come up with any examples? KB: I can't, and you are absolutely right. I mean this is almost like they are holding up and trying to balance two parallel universes. And it's difficult. But I think that, if we look at it geopolitically, from their point of view, they have no other choice. They have to do this and I think what gives them a bit of hope is that they're a small country. They have enough money to where people don't indulge in politics so this is not going to undermine them domestically anytime soon. But yes, for the region, this could all blow up in their face. And I actually believe that it will. Because there's just no way, given the scale of chaos in the region, that somehow the Qataris will be able to fine tune these Islamist proxies to where they will live in a Muslim democracy of sorts. I just don't see that happening. So you are absolutely right. I don't disagree with that. I was just trying to explain the perspective of the Qataris. JLS: Yeah, but that also explains the perspective of not just the Saudis but even the Emiratis and Bahrain and some of these other groups, for whom, they see Qatar messing around with the Islamists and are sort of asking themselves what on Earth are you doing? We've already seen what happens when we mess with these things and now is a time to close ranks and tighten up against this, not to invite them into our own space. But that's a good segue way into a second… KB: I just want to point out one thing and for our listeners, the UAE making this case is more genuine. But the Saudis accusing the Qataris of doing this is like the kettle calling the pot black or vice versa. The Saudis are still playing with this fire, so they don't have the argument. So yes, they are not with Hamas, they're not with the Muslim Brotherhood, but they are the biggest exporter of Salafism and jihadism on the planet. JLS: Yes, and it's a good segue way into you know sort of the other major developments that have been changing things in the Middle East this week, which is ISIS, which Saudi Arabia you know you can't directly prove that they had a role in helping ISIS develop, but certainly Saudi Arabia and some of the groups that it was funding and some of the things that it was doing when it was involved in Syria supporting different proxies, had a role in the Islamic State coming to the prominence that it has. But you know we saw two major things from the Islamic State this week. We saw, first of all, that the Islamic State is finally coming under some serious existential pressure in its self-declared caliphate. Raqqa has really been the capital and center and focal point of ISIS operations, but you've got the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are made up mostly of Syrian Kurds under the YPG group (there are so many acronyms here that it's sometimes hard to keep track of) but we'll say the SDF, those are the Syrian Kurds and they are U.S. backed, and then we've also seen, surprisingly, the Syrian army has been moving on multiple fronts to get closer to Raqqa. The result of all this is that the Islamic State's position in Raqqa is pretty weak and we've seen them pulling back and we've seen some relative successes for the U.S.-backed forces as they get closer to the city. That was one major development we saw this week. And then the other major development was really the unprecedented IS attack they claimed in Iran. So, I want to tackle both of those things. Maybe let's start with the second one first because I know you were looking at this very closely. Talk about why this is such a big deal and why this isn't just another ISIS terrorist attack in the region. What are the greater implications of ISIS hitting Iran the way that they did? KB: I would begin by saying that this is not something that ISIS just sort of said – oh, well I want to attack Iran tomorrow and let's do it. This is something that speaks to the sophistication, especially as an intelligence entity, of ISIS. The Islamic State has been cultivating these assets for a while, and not just in Iran. We see this happening in as far-flung areas as the Philippines as well. So this is something that's been in the works for a while. They've devoted a certain amount of resources to this project. I suspect that over the years that they've been based in Iraq and they've had proximity to Iran that they were cultivating this. And they saw an opening in Kurdistan, and I am talking about the Iranian province of Kurdistan, and there's more than one province where Iranian Kurds live and they're mostly Sunni and over the years what I've learned is that is Salafism and even jihadist ideology has made its way into the Iranian Kurdish community. And the Kurds are, there's an alienation that they feel, as an ethnic community as well, from Tehran and there is this sort of deep resentment that ISIS really exploited and was able to set up at least this cell. I suspect that this isn't just one cell. There are probably others that ISIS has in its tool kit and will activate at some point in the future, so this is not the last attack in Iran. But what is significant is that Iran is not an Arab state. One of the biggest sectors of the Iranian state is the security sector. There are multiple organizations that deal with security. You know in my visit to Iran, I noticed these guys working firsthand, and they're obsessed with security. They're obsessed with security because they fear Israeli penetration, U.S. penetration, Saudi penetration and so this is not an open, if you will, arena where ISIS could just jump in and say, you know, we're gonna send in suicide bombers. It had to do a lot of work to be able to penetrate that and that speaks to ISIS' capabilities and sophistication. As for the implications, I mean look, ISIS has gamed all of these things out. We tend to look in the open sources, when you read stuff there is this assumption that somehow these are all sort of disconnected attacks that are not linked to some strategic objective. And at Geopolitical Futures, that's what we talk about is, we can't look at events as sort of randomly taking place or taking place as some entity hates another entity. There is a strategic objective. The strategic objective of ISIS is to, a) survive, especially now that it's under pressure, that you just mentioned. You know it's in the process of losing Raqqa. It'll take a long time, but that process has begun. At the same time, so there's that threat but there's also an opportunity. The opportunity is that the sectarian temperature in the region is at an all-time high and this would explain the timing of this attack. ISIS would like nothing more than for Iran and Saudi Arabia to go at each other because, a) it gives them some form of respite. You know, they're not the focus, and it undermines the struggle against ISIS. And b) it creates more opportunity for ISIS to exploit. The more there's sectarianism, the more the Saudis go and fight with Iran and vice versa, the more space there is for ISIS to grow. So I think that this attack in Iran has very deep implications moving forward. JLS: Those are all good points and I want to draw special attention to one of the points you made and then ask you to play what you're saying forward a little bit. First thing, I just want to point out is that you were talking about the Iranian Kurds and how they had somehow been radicalized and there was a sense of disenchantment, or disenchantment is probably not even strong enough, but an antagonism with the current regime in Tehran. And I just want to point out that it's very difficult to speak of the Kurds as a monolith. I think often times people say the word the Kurds and they think of you know just all the Kurds in the Middle East and they're all the same. But we really have to think of in terms of – there are Kurds in Iran, there are Kurds in Iraq, there are Kurds in Syria, there are Kurds in Turkey. They have different religious affiliations, different ideological affiliations, sometimes are speaking different languages that are almost unintelligible to each other. So I try very hard in my writing and when I am speaking about these types of things to be very specific about when I am talking about the Kurds and I thought one of the things you did there was you brought up was just how complicated that situation is and that, of course, has relevance throughout the region. We saw that the Iraqi Kurds and the Kurdistan Regional Government are talking about an independence referendum and maybe we can get to that in a little bit. But you gave a really good explanation of why this is extremely important from Iran's perspective. But what do you think Iran is going to do? What response does this mean Iran is going to have to make? What is the next step for Iran both in terms of, you know, Qatar, which it had some sort of relationship with and it can certainly see this diplomatic offensive led by Saudi Arabia as a diplomatic move against Iran, and then second of all this move by ISIS. What are the practical concrete things that Iran is going to have to do to respond here in the next couple weeks? KB: With regards to Qatar, what we have is a situation where its own GCC allies, its fellow Arab states, have shunned Doha. And so Doha right now needs a lot of friends. The United States has not de-aligned from Qatar and joined the Saudi bandwagon, so that's good. It's forging some sort of a relationship today, the Qatari foreign minister is in Moscow, so there's a Russian angle to that as well. We've already talked about Turkey. At this stage, it wouldn't hurt, necessarily, for Qatar to reach out or benefit from Iranian assistance, but it has to be very careful. It doesn't want to do something with Iran or get too close, especially now, and give a bigger stick to the Saudis with which Riyadh can beat Doha. And so, I think from a Qatari point of view, it's essential that they strike a balance when it comes to Iran. Conversely the Iranians, this is a great opening. And they would like to exploit this to the extent that it is possible. But I think that the Iranians are no illusion as to their limitations. They know that – they'll milk this for whatever it's worth. But they're not under the illusion that somehow Qatar will join them and be part of their camp. That's actually taking it too far. I don't think that they can rely on Qatar. But from the Iranian point of view, so long as Qatar is at odds and defying Saudi Arabia, that's good enough. They don't need more from Qatar and they will milk that to the extent that it is possible. As far as ISIS is concerned, I think that there are two things here. One is that both of them will benefit ISIS, both moves that the Iranians make will benefit ISIS. First is that there is an imperative for the government, for the security establishment, to make sure that this doesn't happen again or at least begin to neutralize, before it grows. There's a sizeable Sunni population in Iran. It's not just the Kurds, there's a sizeable Turkmen population in the northeast near Turkmenistan and there are some of the Arabs, not a majority, but a minority of the Arabs in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, the Ahwazi Arabs as they are called. They are, a minority of them and a significant one, are Sunnis as well. And then you have the big province in the southeast, that's Sistan and Baluchistan, and that province is majority Sunni and ethnically Baluch and already has a jihadist problem and there's cross-border terrorism that takes place where Baluch jihadist rebels go to Pakistan and then you know from there they have a sanctuary that they come in and they strike at the Iranian security forces. They've been pretty successful over the years in killing some very high-ranking IRGC commanders. So from Iran's point of view, this is a lot of vulnerability. So the Sunnis are suspect right now after what happened. I mean it's not easy and I've been to the Khomeini shrine and I can tell you that it's not something, it's not just a cake walk that you can get in there and do all this kind of stuff, let alone parliament. And so from the Iranian point of view, they feel very terrified right now because they used to think they're safe. And this is sort of really a wake-up call for them. So they're gonna go after the Sunnis. The more they go after the Sunnis, the more they are gonna create resentment, not just within their borders, but sectarian tensions are going to rise. And ISIS is going to say, see we told you, and they will have more recruits to go fight the “evil” Iranians and the “evil” Shiites. But at the same time, the Iranians do not think that this is ISIS alone. They deeply believe, at least their security establishment, and I saw a report yesterday where the Iranian intelligence minister was urging caution, saying, let's not jump to conclusions and let's not accuse the Saudis just yet. Let the investigation finish. But the security establishment and the hawks are convinced that there is, even though ISIS is involved, that there is a Saudi footprint in this attack and they'll give you evidence and they'll point to Saudi intent to undermine their country. And so they're gonna go after Saudi Arabia. They're gonna retaliate. It's horrible to predict another bombing, but if a bomb went off inside Saudi Arabia, I would not be surprised that it, you know, Iran somehow retaliated in that shape or form. I am not sure if it will. But I'm just saying that if it does that, then I wouldn't be surprised, because the Iranians, they're not going to just accept this. They have to retaliate and respond. The more they retaliate, they set into motion, they trigger a broader conflict. I am not saying the two sides are going to go to war, but it's going to an ugly proxy battle at least in the immediate future. JLS: In many ways, that proxy battle has already been going on. I think what you are talking about is going to be a real worsening of the situation and unfortunately, that's the way things are going in the Middle East right now. The last thing I want to touch on before we break is the Islamic State, because we've sort of been talking about them in a roundabout way when we talk about all these other issues, but for a long time, the Islamic State, and when I say long time I mean maybe the past two or three years, the Islamic State really has been the center of gravity I think in the Middle East. And I think one of the reasons we're seeing all of these things happening on the periphery is that the force of IS as the center of gravity is actually weakening because IS itself is actually weakening. Now I know that that doesn't mean that ISIS is going to disappear, but I think it does mean that the Islamic State as a strong territorial entity that can threaten some of the different states in the region from a conventional point of view, is actually weakening. So can you talk a little bit about what it means for the Islamic State to have come under such pressure at its capital in Raqqa and what Islamic State's activities are going to look like going forward? We know they're going to pull back a little bit and try and get strength in numbers and some strategic depth but ultimately they are outnumbered and they're outgunned. So they're probably going to have to go back to some tactics of blending back into the population and waiting really for a lot these sectarian dynamics that we're talking about right now to overwhelm the region once more so that they can take advantage of the power vacuum. KB: So I would compare what is happening to ISIS to what happened to the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11. They lost the cities, and for a while, they were an incoherent entity, but they weren't decimated or eliminated, they just were lying low. And they were slowly rebuilding themselves. And now they are at a point where – and I would say it's not just now, it's been the case all along, at least since 2003 – that they exist in ungoverned spaces outside the cities. See we have this perception that if you don't hold a city then you're not a serious player. That may be true at one level, but at another level, it just means that you are operating in an area where the good guys can't project power, at least not effectively, and you exist. So I think – I don't see necessarily just ISIS devolving into an insurgent movement or a terrorist organization – I think that the so-called caliphate is going to shift into a rural area. And this is not something that is a setback from an ISIS point of view, because I don't think that ISIS ever believed – I mean it's a serious player and they've been here before, it was not as big as what they have, I mean I'm talking about their holdings, but in Iraq, they have been driven out of cities before. They've been in the desert, in the rural areas, only to come back because the underlying political, economic, social circumstances really don't get addressed and its enemies start fighting with each other, providing the room for ISIS to once again revive itself. I think that it remains to be seen how quickly ISIS can be pushed out of Raqqa, pushed out of Deir al-Zour, into the desert. And even when it does go there, it's going to still have a space and the time to continue its activities, perhaps not as effectively as it has since Mosul. I think that ISIS knew this would come, ISIS did not believe that – you know, now they have Mosul, now they have Raqqa, now they have Deir al-Zour – that they're not going to see reversals. I think theirs is a very long game and they will go back and forth. And so I think that we need to be cautious when we talk about progress against ISIS. JLS: Is there anything that can be done to solve the underlying political and social circumstances that create ISIS and give ISIS fuel to continue running? KB: That would require the Iranians and the Saudis sitting at a table sharing drinks and having food, and you know that's not happening. So, if that's not happening, and I don't think that there's any power on Earth that can fix those underlying sectarian tensions. I mean if you just look at the Sunnis in Iraq. I mean, there's this big euphoria about how Mosul is no longer in ISIS hands. And I'm saying, well that is true and it is a victory and an important one. But I'm looking at a year, two years, three years down the line. The Sunnis are completely a shattered community in Iraq. They fight with each other. ISIS existed because there's no Sunni core, no Sunni mainstream in Iraq. Ωnd they're losing territory, especially now if the Kurds are moving towards independence, they'll lose territory to the Kurds. They have already lost ground to the Shiites. This is probably the first time, the price of removing ISIS from Mosul is Shiite control over Iraq's second largest city, which was majority Sunni and a majority of Sunnis and Kurds. Now you have a Shiite-dominated military force along with militias that are going to make sure that ISIS doesn't come back, and they're going to engage in some very brutal activities. And that's going to pour you know gasoline on the fire of sectarianism that's already burning. And that's, from an ISIS point of view, another opportunity to exploit and they're looking forward to it. And that's sort of the irony in all of this. JLS: Well it's not a hopeful note to end the week on but unfortunately, it's the reality. Thank you for joining us Kamran, and thank you, everyone, for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, I encourage you to visit us at geopoliticalfutures.com. I also encourage you to email us with comments, critiques, suggestions for topics and anything else you want. You can just email us at comments@geopoliticalfutures.com. I'm Jacob Shapiro, I'm the director of analysis, and we'll see you out here next week.

Duon Lash har gjort omtalade låtar som Gäris i min kucha. Systrarna Sabina och Anfa rappar om sex, brinner för HBTQ-frågor och visar på hiphop som ett sätt att ta sig ur missbruk och kriminalitet. Sabina och Anfa Lashari kommer från Hulta utanför Borås och har rötter i Baluchistan. Den första låten de släppte hette Två fingrar, den spelade de in tillsammans med Silvana Imam.  "Hiphop has no gender" står det på deras jackor. Lash bryter normer och samtidigt ny mark. I Gradvall berättar de hur de hittat sitt sound, om att rimma på baluchiska och viljan att rappa för unga tjejer så de vågar vara sig själva. Producent för Gradvall är Anna Tullberg.

This particular episode attempts to understand Baluchistan. In their usual fashion, Affan and Nino are inquisitive about various aspects of the largest province of Pakistan, and therefore put forward a well researched piece on an overview of the manypakistans within Baluchistan. They shall talk about the history, the people, the food, the geography and so much more!

India and Pakistan have often confronted each other - but each nation also has to deal with domestic security problems. In Indian-administered Kashmir, Justin Rowlatt hears from restive crowds who have been silenced by neither days of curfew nor a news blackout, and witnesses the police tactics used to try and tamp down their protests. Over the border in Pakistan, Shaimaa Khalil explains why the troubled province of Baluchistan is such a headache for central government - and why the violence which plagues it is now being turned against local lawyers. Lucy Ash hears how drama itself can play a role in reconciling Colombians with their past, as former left-wing rebels, ex-right-wing paramilitiaries, and the victims of their crimes meet on stage. Rayhan Demytrie recently saw a different kind of political theatre unfolding on the streets of Armenia's capital, Yerevan, as veterans of the war with Azerbaijan mounted an armed attack against their own state - and were applauded for it by many Armenians. And far from all the madding crowds, Justin Marozzi joins a scientific mission a thousand feet below the surface of the Sargasso Sea hoping to unlock some of the mysteries of the deep ocean.

Insight, analysis, description and colour. Today, death on a dusty highway in Baluchistan and what that might mean for neighbouring Afghanistan; how the people of Hiroshima, where America set off an atomic bomb in 1945, feel about the imminent visit by President Obama; the Swiss have never joined the European Union so why are they so interested in the result of the in/out referendum in Britain next month? We hear how Turkey's Kurdish population fits into the President Erdogan's plan to continue being the dominant force in the country's politics and finally there's an account of a day delightfully wasted on a slow train journey across the south-eastern tip of Australia

Andite Expansion in the Orient (878.1) 79:0.1 ASIA is the homeland of the human race. It was on a southern peninsula of this continent that Andon and Fonta were born; in the highlands of what is now Afghanistan, their descendant Badonan founded a primitive center of culture that persisted for over one-half million years. Here at this eastern focus of the human race the Sangik peoples differentiated from the Andonic stock, and Asia was their first home, their first hunting ground, their first battlefield. Southwestern Asia witnessed the successive civilizations of Dalamatians, Nodites, Adamites, and Andites, and from these regions the potentials of modern civilization spread to the world. 1. The Andites of Turkestan (878.2) 79:1.1 For over twenty-five thousand years, on down to nearly 2000 B.C., the heart of Eurasia was predominantly, though diminishingly, Andite. In the lowlands of Turkestan the Andites made the westward turning around the inland lakes into Europe, while from the highlands of this region they infiltrated eastward. Eastern Turkestan (Sinkiang) and, to a lesser extent, Tibet were the ancient gateways through which these peoples of Mesopotamia penetrated the mountains to the northern lands of the yellow men. The Andite infiltration of India proceeded from the Turkestan highlands into the Punjab and from the Iranian grazing lands through Baluchistan. These earlier migrations were in no sense conquests; they were, rather, the continual drifting of the Andite tribes into western India and China. (878.3) 79:1.2 For almost fifteen thousand years centers of mixed Andite culture persisted in the basin of the Tarim River in Sinkiang and to the south in the highland regions of Tibet, where the Andites and Andonites had extensively mingled. The Tarim valley was the easternmost outpost of the true Andite culture. Here they built their settlements and entered into trade relations with the progressive Chinese to the east and with the Andonites to the north. In those days the Tarim region was a fertile land; the rainfall was plentiful. To the east the Gobi was an open grassland where the herders were gradually turning to agriculture. This civilization perished when the rain winds shifted to the southeast, but in its day it rivaled Mesopotamia itself. (878.4) 79:1.3 By 8000 B.C. the slowly increasing aridity of the highland regions of central Asia began to drive the Andites to the river bottoms and the seashores. This increasing drought not only drove them to the valleys of the Nile, Euphrates, Indus, and Yellow rivers, but it produced a new development in Andite civilization. A new class of men, the traders, began to appear in large numbers. (879.1) 79:1.4 When climatic conditions made hunting unprofitable for the migrating Andites, they did not follow the evolutionary course of the older races by becoming herders. Commerce and urban life made their appearance. From Egypt through Mesopotamia and Turkestan to the rivers of China and India, the more highly civilized tribes began to assemble in cities devoted to manufacture and trade. Adonia became the central Asian commercial metropolis, being located near the present city of Ashkhabad. Commerce in stone, metal, wood, and pottery was accelerated on both land and water. (879.2) 79:1.5 But ever-increasing drought gradually brought about the great Andite exodus from the lands south and east of the Caspian Sea. The tide of migration began to veer from northward to southward, and the Babylonian cavalrymen began to push into Mesopotamia. (879.3) 79:1.6 Increasing aridity in central Asia further operated to reduce population and to render these people less warlike; and when the diminishing rainfall to the north forced the nomadic Andonites southward, there was a tremendous exodus of Andites from Turkestan. This is the terminal movement of the so-called Aryans into the Levant and India. It culminated that long dispersal of the mixed descendants of Adam during which every Asiatic and most of the island peoples of the Pacific were to some extent improved by these superior races. (879.4) 79:1.7 Thus, while they dispersed over the Eastern Hemisphere, the Andites were dispossessed of their homelands in Mesopotamia and Turkestan, for it was this extensive southward movement of Andonites that diluted the Andites in central Asia nearly to the vanishing point. (879.5) 79:1.8 But even in the twentieth century after Christ there are traces of Andite blood among the Turanian and Tibetan peoples, as is witnessed by the blond types occasionally found in these regions. The early Chinese annals record the presence of the red-haired nomads to the north of the peaceful settlements of the Yellow River, and there still remain paintings which faithfully record the presence of both the blond-Andite and the brunet-Mongolian types in the Tarim basin of long ago. (879.6) 79:1.9 The last great manifestation of the submerged military genius of the central Asiatic Andites was in A.D. 1200, when the Mongols under Genghis Khan began the conquest of the greater portion of the Asiatic continent. And like the Andites of old, these warriors proclaimed the existence of “one God in heaven.” The early breakup of their empire long delayed cultural intercourse between Occident and Orient and greatly handicapped the growth of the monotheistic concept in Asia. 2. The Andite Conquest of India (879.7) 79:2.1 India is the only locality where all the Urantia races were blended, the Andite invasion adding the last stock. In the highlands northwest of India the Sangik races came into existence, and without exception members of each penetrated the subcontinent of India in their early days, leaving behind them the most heterogeneous race mixture ever to exist on Urantia. Ancient India acted as a catch basin for the migrating races. The base of the peninsula was formerly somewhat narrower than now, much of the deltas of the Ganges and Indus being the work of the last fifty thousand years. (879.8) 79:2.2 The earliest race mixtures in India were a blending of the migrating red and yellow races with the aboriginal Andonites. This group was later weakened by absorbing the greater portion of the extinct eastern green peoples as well as large numbers of the orange race, was slightly improved through limited admixture with the blue man, but suffered exceedingly through assimilation of large numbers of the indigo race. But the so-called aborigines of India are hardly representative of these early people; they are rather the most inferior southern and eastern fringe, which was never fully absorbed by either the early Andites or their later appearing Aryan cousins. (880.1) 79:2.3 By 20,000 B.C. the population of western India had already become tinged with the Adamic blood, and never in the history of Urantia did any one people combine so many different races. But it was unfortunate that the secondary Sangik strains predominated, and it was a real calamity that both the blue and the red man were so largely missing from this racial melting pot of long ago; more of the primary Sangik strains would have contributed very much toward the enhancement of what might have been an even greater civilization. As it developed, the red man was destroying himself in the Americas, the blue man was disporting himself in Europe, and the early descendants of Adam (and most of the later ones) exhibited little desire to admix with the darker colored peoples, whether in India, Africa, or elsewhere. (880.2) 79:2.4 About 15,000 B.C. increasing population pressure throughout Turkestan and Iran occasioned the first really extensive Andite movement toward India. For over fifteen centuries these superior peoples poured in through the highlands of Baluchistan, spreading out over the valleys of the Indus and Ganges and slowly moving southward into the Deccan. This Andite pressure from the northwest drove many of the southern and eastern inferiors into Burma and southern China but not sufficiently to save the invaders from racial obliteration. (880.3) 79:2.5 The failure of India to achieve the hegemony of Eurasia was largely a matter of topography; population pressure from the north only crowded the majority of the people southward into the decreasing territory of the Deccan, surrounded on all sides by the sea. Had there been adjacent lands for emigration, then would the inferiors have been crowded out in all directions, and the superior stocks would have achieved a higher civilization. (880.4) 79:2.6 As it was, these earlier Andite conquerors made a desperate attempt to preserve their identity and stem the tide of racial engulfment by the establishment of rigid restrictions regarding intermarriage. Nonetheless, the Andites had become submerged by 10,000 B.C., but the whole mass of the people had been markedly improved by this absorption. (880.5) 79:2.7 Race mixture is always advantageous in that it favors versatility of culture and makes for a progressive civilization, but if the inferior elements of racial stocks predominate, such achievements will be short-lived. A polyglot culture can be preserved only if the superior stocks reproduce themselves in a safe margin over the inferior. Unrestrained multiplication of inferiors, with decreasing reproduction of superiors, is unfailingly suicidal of cultural civilization. (880.6) 79:2.8 Had the Andite conquerors been in numbers three times what they were, or had they driven out or destroyed the least desirable third of the mixed orange-green-indigo inhabitants, then would India have become one of the world’s leading centers of cultural civilization and undoubtedly would have attracted more of the later waves of Mesopotamians that flowed into Turkestan and thence northward to Europe. 3. Dravidian India (881.1) 79:3.1 The blending of the Andite conquerors of India with the native stock eventually resulted in that mixed people which has been called Dravidian. The earlier and purer Dravidians possessed a great capacity for cultural achievement, which was continuously weakened as their Andite inheritance became progressively attenuated. And this is what doomed the budding civilization of India almost twelve thousand years ago. But the infusion of even this small amount of the blood of Adam produced a marked acceleration in social development. This composite stock immediately produced the most versatile civilization then on earth. (881.2) 79:3.2 Not long after conquering India, the Dravidian Andites lost their racial and cultural contact with Mesopotamia, but the later opening up of the sea lanes and the caravan routes re-established these connections; and at no time within the last ten thousand years has India ever been entirely out of touch with Mesopotamia on the west and China to the east, although the mountain barriers greatly favored western intercourse. (881.3) 79:3.3 The superior culture and religious leanings of the peoples of India date from the early times of Dravidian domination and are due, in part, to the fact that so many of the Sethite priesthood entered India, both in the earlier Andite and in the later Aryan invasions. The thread of monotheism running through the religious history of India thus stems from the teachings of the Adamites in the second garden. (881.4) 79:3.4 As early as 16,000 B.C. a company of one hundred Sethite priests entered India and very nearly achieved the religious conquest of the western half of that polyglot people. But their religion did not persist. Within five thousand years their doctrines of the Paradise Trinity had degenerated into the triune symbol of the fire god. (881.5) 79:3.5 But for more than seven thousand years, down to the end of the Andite migrations, the religious status of the inhabitants of India was far above that of the world at large. During these times India bid fair to produce the leading cultural, religious, philosophic, and commercial civilization of the world. And but for the complete submergence of the Andites by the peoples of the south, this destiny would probably have been realized.* (881.6) 79:3.6 The Dravidian centers of culture were located in the river valleys, principally of the Indus and Ganges, and in the Deccan along the three great rivers flowing through the Eastern Ghats to the sea. The settlements along the seacoast of the Western Ghats owed their prominence to maritime relationships with Sumeria. (881.7) 79:3.7 The Dravidians were among the earliest peoples to build cities and to engage in an extensive export and import business, both by land and sea. By 7000 B.C. camel trains were making regular trips to distant Mesopotamia; Dravidian shipping was pushing coastwise across the Arabian Sea to the Sumerian cities of the Persian Gulf and was venturing on the waters of the Bay of Bengal as far as the East Indies. An alphabet, together with the art of writing, was imported from Sumeria by these seafarers and merchants. (881.8) 79:3.8 These commercial relationships greatly contributed to the further diversification of a cosmopolitan culture, resulting in the early appearance of many of the refinements and even luxuries of urban life. When the later appearing Aryans entered India, they did not recognize in the Dravidians their Andite cousins submerged in the Sangik races, but they did find a well-advanced civilization. Despite biologic limitations, the Dravidians founded a superior civilization. It was well diffused throughout all India and has survived on down to modern times in the Deccan. 4. The Aryan Invasion of India (882.1) 79:4.1 The second Andite penetration of India was the Aryan invasion during a period of almost five hundred years in the middle of the third millennium before Christ. This migration marked the terminal exodus of the Andites from their homelands in Turkestan. (882.2) 79:4.2 The early Aryan centers were scattered over the northern half of India, notably in the northwest. These invaders never completed the conquest of the country and subsequently met their undoing in this neglect since their lesser numbers made them vulnerable to absorption by the Dravidians of the south, who subsequently overran the entire peninsula except the Himalayan provinces. (882.3) 79:4.3 The Aryans made very little racial impression on India except in the northern provinces. In the Deccan their influence was cultural and religious more than racial. The greater persistence of the so-called Aryan blood in northern India is not only due to their presence in these regions in greater numbers but also because they were reinforced by later conquerors, traders, and missionaries. Right on down to the first century before Christ there was a continuous infiltration of Aryan blood into the Punjab, the last influx being attendant upon the campaigns of the Hellenistic peoples. (882.4) 79:4.4 On the Gangetic plain Aryan and Dravidian eventually mingled to produce a high culture, and this center was later reinforced by contributions from the northeast, coming from China. (882.5) 79:4.5 In India many types of social organizations flourished from time to time, from the semidemocratic systems of the Aryans to despotic and monarchial forms of government. But the most characteristic feature of society was the persistence of the great social castes that were instituted by the Aryans in an effort to perpetuate racial identity. This elaborate caste system has been preserved on down to the present time. (882.6) 79:4.6 Of the four great castes, all but the first were established in the futile effort to prevent racial amalgamation of the Aryan conquerors with their inferior subjects. But the premier caste, the teacher-priests, stems from the Sethites; the Brahmans of the twentieth century after Christ are the lineal cultural descendants of the priests of the second garden, albeit their teachings differ greatly from those of their illustrious predecessors. (882.7) 79:4.7 When the Aryans entered India, they brought with them their concepts of Deity as they had been preserved in the lingering traditions of the religion of the second garden. But the Brahman priests were never able to withstand the pagan momentum built up by the sudden contact with the inferior religions of the Deccan after the racial obliteration of the Aryans. Thus the vast majority of the population fell into the bondage of the enslaving superstitions of inferior religions; and so it was that India failed to produce the high civilization which had been foreshadowed in earlier times. (882.8) 79:4.8 The spiritual awakening of the sixth century before Christ did not persist in India, having died out even before the Mohammedan invasion. But someday a greater Gautama may arise to lead all India in the search for the living God, and then the world will observe the fruition of the cultural potentialities of a versatile people so long comatose under the benumbing influence of an unprogressing spiritual vision. (883.1) 79:4.9 Culture does rest on a biologic foundation, but caste alone could not perpetuate the Aryan culture, for religion, true religion, is the indispensable source of that higher energy which drives men to establish a superior civilization based on human brotherhood. 5. Red Man and Yellow Man (883.2) 79:5.1 While the story of India is that of Andite conquest and eventual submergence in the older evolutionary peoples, the narrative of eastern Asia is more properly that of the primary Sangiks, particularly the red man and the yellow man. These two races largely escaped that admixture with the debased Neanderthal strain which so greatly retarded the blue man in Europe, thus preserving the superior potential of the primary Sangik type. (883.3) 79:5.2 While the early Neanderthalers were spread out over the entire breadth of Eurasia, the eastern wing was the more contaminated with debased animal strains. These subhuman types were pushed south by the fifth glacier, the same ice sheet which so long blocked Sangik migration into eastern Asia. And when the red man moved northeast around the highlands of India, he found northeastern Asia free from these subhuman types. The tribal organization of the red races was formed earlier than that of any other peoples, and they were the first to migrate from the central Asian focus of the Sangiks. The inferior Neanderthal strains were destroyed or driven off the mainland by the later migrating yellow tribes. But the red man had reigned supreme in eastern Asia for almost one hundred thousand years before the yellow tribes arrived. (883.4) 79:5.3 More than three hundred thousand years ago the main body of the yellow race entered China from the south as coastwise migrants. Each millennium they penetrated farther and farther inland, but they did not make contact with their migrating Tibetan brethren until comparatively recent times. (883.5) 79:5.4 Growing population pressure caused the northward-moving yellow race to begin to push into the hunting grounds of the red man. This encroachment, coupled with natural racial antagonism, culminated in increasing hostilities, and thus began the crucial struggle for the fertile lands of farther Asia. (883.6) 79:5.5 The story of this agelong contest between the red and yellow races is an epic of Urantia history. For over two hundred thousand years these two superior races waged bitter and unremitting warfare. In the earlier struggles the red men were generally successful, their raiding parties spreading havoc among the yellow settlements. But the yellow man was an apt pupil in the art of warfare, and he early manifested a marked ability to live peaceably with his compatriots; the Chinese were the first to learn that in union there is strength. The red tribes continued their internecine conflicts, and presently they began to suffer repeated defeats at the aggressive hands of the relentless Chinese, who continued their inexorable march northward. (883.7) 79:5.6 One hundred thousand years ago the decimated tribes of the red race were fighting with their backs to the retreating ice of the last glacier, and when the land passage to the West, over the Bering isthmus, became passable, these tribes were not slow in forsaking the inhospitable shores of the Asiatic continent. It is eighty-five thousand years since the last of the pure red men departed from Asia, but the long struggle left its genetic imprint upon the victorious yellow race. The northern Chinese peoples, together with the Andonite Siberians, assimilated much of the red stock and were in considerable measure benefited thereby.* (884.1) 79:5.7 The North American Indians never came in contact with even the Andite offspring of Adam and Eve, having been dispossessed of their Asiatic homelands some fifty thousand years before the coming of Adam. During the age of Andite migrations the pure red strains were spreading out over North America as nomadic tribes, hunters who practiced agriculture to a small extent. These races and cultural groups remained almost completely isolated from the remainder of the world from their arrival in the Americas down to the end of the first millennium of the Christian era, when they were discovered by the white races of Europe. Up to that time the Eskimos were the nearest to white men the northern tribes of red men had ever seen. (884.2) 79:5.8 The red and the yellow races are the only human stocks that ever achieved a high degree of civilization apart from the influences of the Andites. The oldest Amerindian culture was the Onamonalonton center in California, but this had long since vanished by 35,000 B.C. In Mexico, Central America, and in the mountains of South America the later and more enduring civilizations were founded by a race predominantly red but containing a considerable admixture of the yellow, orange, and blue. (884.3) 79:5.9 These civilizations were evolutionary products of the Sangiks, notwithstanding that traces of Andite blood reached Peru. Excepting the Eskimos in North America and a few Polynesian Andites in South America, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere had no contact with the rest of the world until the end of the first millennium after Christ. In the original Melchizedek plan for the improvement of the Urantia races it had been stipulated that one million of the pure-line descendants of Adam should go to upstep the red men of the Americas. 6. Dawn of Chinese Civilization (884.4) 79:6.1 Sometime after driving the red man across to North America, the expanding Chinese cleared the Andonites from the river valleys of eastern Asia, pushing them north into Siberia and west into Turkestan, where they were soon to come in contact with the superior culture of the Andites. (884.5) 79:6.2 In Burma and the peninsula of Indo-China the cultures of India and China mixed and blended to produce the successive civilizations of those regions. Here the vanished green race has persisted in larger proportion than anywhere else in the world. (884.6) 79:6.3 Many different races occupied the islands of the Pacific. In general, the southern and then more extensive islands were occupied by peoples carrying a heavy percentage of green and indigo blood. The northern islands were held by Andonites and, later on, by races embracing large proportions of the yellow and red stocks. The ancestors of the Japanese people were not driven off the mainland until 12,000 B.C., when they were dislodged by a powerful southern-coastwise thrust of the northern Chinese tribes. Their final exodus was not so much due to population pressure as to the initiative of a chieftain whom they came to regard as a divine personage. (885.1) 79:6.4 Like the peoples of India and the Levant, victorious tribes of the yellow man established their earliest centers along the coast and up the rivers. The coastal settlements fared poorly in later years as the increasing floods and the shifting courses of the rivers made the lowland cities untenable. (885.2) 79:6.5 Twenty thousand years ago the ancestors of the Chinese had built up a dozen strong centers of primitive culture and learning, especially along the Yellow River and the Yangtze. And now these centers began to be reinforced by the arrival of a steady stream of superior blended peoples from Sinkiang and Tibet. The migration from Tibet to the Yangtze valley was not so extensive as in the north, neither were the Tibetan centers so advanced as those of the Tarim basin. But both movements carried a certain amount of Andite blood eastward to the river settlements. (885.3) 79:6.6 The superiority of the ancient yellow race was due to four great factors: (885.4) 79:6.7 1. Genetic. Unlike their blue cousins in Europe, both the red and yellow races had largely escaped mixture with debased human stocks. The northern Chinese, already strengthened by small amounts of the superior red and Andonic strains, were soon to benefit by a considerable influx of Andite blood. The southern Chinese did not fare so well in this regard, and they had long suffered from absorption of the green race, while later on they were to be further weakened by the infiltration of the swarms of inferior peoples crowded out of India by the Dravidian-Andite invasion. And today in China there is a definite difference between the northern and southern races. (885.5) 79:6.8 2. Social. The yellow race early learned the value of peace among themselves. Their internal peaceableness so contributed to population increase as to insure the spread of their civilization among many millions. From 25,000 to 5000 B.C. the highest mass civilization on Urantia was in central and northern China. The yellow man was first to achieve a racial solidarity — the first to attain a large-scale cultural, social, and political civilization. (885.6) 79:6.9 The Chinese of 15,000 B.C. were aggressive militarists; they had not been weakened by an overreverence for the past, and numbering less than twelve million, they formed a compact body speaking a common language. During this age they built up a real nation, much more united and homogeneous than their political unions of historic times. (885.7) 79:6.10 3. Spiritual. During the age of Andite migrations the Chinese were among the more spiritual peoples of earth. Long adherence to the worship of the One Truth proclaimed by Singlangton kept them ahead of most of the other races. The stimulus of a progressive and advanced religion is often a decisive factor in cultural development; as India languished, so China forged ahead under the invigorating stimulus of a religion in which truth was enshrined as the supreme Deity. (885.8) 79:6.11 This worship of truth was provocative of research and fearless exploration of the laws of nature and the potentials of mankind. The Chinese of even six thousand years ago were still keen students and aggressive in their pursuit of truth. (885.9) 79:6.12 4. Geographic. China is protected by the mountains to the west and the Pacific to the east. Only in the north is the way open to attack, and from the days of the red man to the coming of the later descendants of the Andites, the north was not occupied by any aggressive race. (886.1) 79:6.13 And but for the mountain barriers and the later decline in spiritual culture, the yellow race undoubtedly would have attracted to itself the larger part of the Andite migrations from Turkestan and unquestionably would have quickly dominated world civilization. 7. The Andites Enter China (886.2) 79:7.1 About fifteen thousand years ago the Andites, in considerable numbers, were traversing the pass of Ti Tao and spreading out over the upper valley of the Yellow River among the Chinese settlements of Kansu. Presently they penetrated eastward to Honan, where the most progressive settlements were situated. This infiltration from the west was about half Andonite and half Andite. (886.3) 79:7.2 The northern centers of culture along the Yellow River had always been more progressive than the southern settlements on the Yangtze. Within a few thousand years after the arrival of even the small numbers of these superior mortals, the settlements along the Yellow River had forged ahead of the Yangtze villages and had achieved an advanced position over their brethren in the south which has ever since been maintained. (886.4) 79:7.3 It was not that there were so many of the Andites, nor that their culture was so superior, but amalgamation with them produced a more versatile stock. The northern Chinese received just enough of the Andite strain to mildly stimulate their innately able minds but not enough to fire them with the restless, exploratory curiosity so characteristic of the northern white races. This more limited infusion of Andite inheritance was less disturbing to the innate stability of the Sangik type. (886.5) 79:7.4 The later waves of Andites brought with them certain of the cultural advances of Mesopotamia; this is especially true of the last waves of migration from the west. They greatly improved the economic and educational practices of the northern Chinese; and while their influence upon the religious culture of the yellow race was short-lived, their later descendants contributed much to a subsequent spiritual awakening. But the Andite traditions of the beauty of Eden and Dalamatia did influence Chinese traditions; early Chinese legends place “the land of the gods” in the west. (886.6) 79:7.5 The Chinese people did not begin to build cities and engage in manufacture until after 10,000 B.C., subsequent to the climatic changes in Turkestan and the arrival of the later Andite immigrants. The infusion of this new blood did not add so much to the civilization of the yellow man as it stimulated the further and rapid development of the latent tendencies of the superior Chinese stocks. From Honan to Shensi the potentials of an advanced civilization were coming to fruit. Metalworking and all the arts of manufacture date from these days. (886.7) 79:7.6 The similarities between certain of the early Chinese and Mesopotamian methods of time reckoning, astronomy, and governmental administration were due to the commercial relationships between these two remotely situated centers. Chinese merchants traveled the overland routes through Turkestan to Mesopotamia even in the days of the Sumerians. Nor was this exchange one-sided — the valley of the Euphrates benefited considerably thereby, as did the peoples of the Gangetic plain. But the climatic changes and the nomadic invasions of the third millennium before Christ greatly reduced the volume of trade passing over the caravan trails of central Asia. 8. Later Chinese Civilization (887.1) 79:8.1 While the red man suffered from too much warfare, it is not altogether amiss to say that the development of statehood among the Chinese was delayed by the thoroughness of their conquest of Asia. They had a great potential of racial solidarity, but it failed properly to develop because the continuous driving stimulus of the ever-present danger of external aggression was lacking. (887.2) 79:8.2 With the completion of the conquest of eastern Asia the ancient military state gradually disintegrated — past wars were forgotten. Of the epic struggle with the red race there persisted only the hazy tradition of an ancient contest with the archer peoples. The Chinese early turned to agricultural pursuits, which contributed further to their pacific tendencies, while a population well below the land-man ratio for agriculture still further contributed to the growing peacefulness of the country. (887.3) 79:8.3 Consciousness of past achievements (somewhat diminished in the present), the conservatism of an overwhelmingly agricultural people, and a well-developed family life equaled the birth of ancestor veneration, culminating in the custom of so honoring the men of the past as to border on worship. A very similar attitude prevailed among the white races in Europe for some five hundred years following the disruption of Greco-Roman civilization.* (887.4) 79:8.4 The belief in, and worship of, the “One Truth” as taught by Singlangton never entirely died out; but as time passed, the search for new and higher truth became overshadowed by a growing tendency to venerate that which was already established. Slowly the genius of the yellow race became diverted from the pursuit of the unknown to the preservation of the known. And this is the reason for the stagnation of what had been the world’s most rapidly progressing civilization. (887.5) 79:8.5 Between 4000 and 500 B.C. the political reunification of the yellow race was consummated, but the cultural union of the Yangtze and Yellow river centers had already been effected. This political reunification of the later tribal groups was not without conflict, but the societal opinion of war remained low; ancestor worship, increasing dialects, and no call for military action for thousands upon thousands of years had rendered this people ultrapeaceful. (887.6) 79:8.6 Despite failure to fulfill the promise of an early development of advanced statehood, the yellow race did progressively move forward in the realization of the arts of civilization, especially in the realms of agriculture and horticulture. The hydraulic problems faced by the agriculturists in Shensi and Honan demanded group co-operation for solution. Such irrigation and soil-conservation difficulties contributed in no small measure to the development of interdependence with the consequent promotion of peace among farming groups. (887.7) 79:8.7 Soon developments in writing, together with the establishment of schools, contributed to the dissemination of knowledge on a previously unequaled scale. But the cumbersome nature of the ideographic writing system placed a numerical limit upon the learned classes despite the early appearance of printing. And above all else, the process of social standardization and religio-philosophic dogmatization continued apace. The religious development of ancestor veneration became further complicated by a flood of superstitions involving nature worship, but lingering vestiges of a real concept of God remained preserved in the imperial worship of Shang-ti. (888.1) 79:8.8 The great weakness of ancestor veneration is that it promotes a backward-looking philosophy. However wise it may be to glean wisdom from the past, it is folly to regard the past as the exclusive source of truth. Truth is relative and expanding; it lives always in the present, achieving new expression in each generation of men — even in each human life. (888.2) 79:8.9 The great strength in a veneration of ancestry is the value that such an attitude places upon the family. The amazing stability and persistence of Chinese culture is a consequence of the paramount position accorded the family, for civilization is directly dependent on the effective functioning of the family; and in China the family attained a social importance, even a religious significance, approached by few other peoples. (888.3) 79:8.10 The filial devotion and family loyalty exacted by the growing cult of ancestor worship insured the building up of superior family relationships and of enduring family groups, all of which facilitated the following factors in the preservation of civilization: (888.4) 79:8.11 1. Conservation of property and wealth. (888.5) 79:8.12 2. Pooling of the experience of more than one generation. (888.6) 79:8.13 3. Efficient education of children in the arts and sciences of the past. (888.7) 79:8.14 4. Development of a strong sense of duty, the enhancement of morality, and the augmentation of ethical sensitivity. (888.8) 79:8.15 The formative period of Chinese civilization, opening with the coming of the Andites, continues on down to the great ethical, moral, and semireligious awakening of the sixth century before Christ. And Chinese tradition preserves the hazy record of the evolutionary past; the transition from mother- to father-family, the establishment of agriculture, the development of architecture, the initiation of industry — all these are successively narrated. And this story presents, with greater accuracy than any other similar account, the picture of the magnificent ascent of a superior people from the levels of barbarism. During this time they passed from a primitive agricultural society to a higher social organization embracing cities, manufacture, metalworking, commercial exchange, government, writing, mathematics, art, science, and printing. (888.9) 79:8.16 And so the ancient civilization of the yellow race has persisted down through the centuries. It is almost forty thousand years since the first important advances were made in Chinese culture, and though there have been many retrogressions, the civilization of the sons of Han comes the nearest of all to presenting an unbroken picture of continual progression right on down to the times of the twentieth century. The mechanical and religious developments of the white races have been of a high order, but they have never excelled the Chinese in family loyalty, group ethics, or personal morality. (888.10) 79:8.17 This ancient culture has contributed much to human happiness; millions of human beings have lived and died, blessed by its achievements. For centuries this great civilization has rested upon the laurels of the past, but it is even now reawakening to envision anew the transcendent goals of mortal existence, once again to take up the unremitting struggle for never-ending progress. (888.11) 79:8.18 [Presented by an Archangel of Nebadon.]

UPDATE In the Supreme Court of Pakistan a short order was passed today (January 7, 2013) in which the original agreement and its appendages signed by the Balochistan Development Authority with the foreign companies “is held to have been executed contrary to the provision … View full post →

This episode of Communio Santorum is titled, “And In the East – Part 1.”The 5th C Church Father Jerome wrote, “[Jesus] was present in all places with Thomas in India, with Peter in Rome, with Paul in Illyria, with Titus in Crete, with Andrew in Greece, with each apostle . . . in his own separate region.”So far we've been following the track of most western studies of history, both secular & religious, by concentrating on what took place in the West & Roman Empire. Even though we've delved briefly into the Eastern Roman Empire, as Lars Brownworth aptly reminds us in his outstanding podcast, 12 Byzantine Emperors, even after the West fell in the 5th Century, the Eastern Empire continued to think of & call itself Roman. It's later historians who refer to it as the Byzantine Empire.Recently we've seen the focus of attention shift to the East with the Christological controversies of the 4th & 5th Cs. In this episode, we'll stay in the East and follow the track of the expansion of the Faith as it moved Eastward. This is an amazing chapter often neglected in traditional treatments of church history. It's well captured by Philip Jenkins in his book, The Lost History of Christianity.We start all the way back at the beginning with the apostle Thomas.  He's linked by pretty solid tradition to the spread of Christianity into the East. In the quote we started with from the early 5th C Church Father Jerome, we learn that the Apostle Thomas carried the Gospel East all the way to India.In the early 4th C, Eusebius also attributed the expansion of the faith in India to Thomas. Though these traditions do face some dispute, there are still so-called ‘Thomas Christians' in the southern Indian state of Kerala today. They use an Aramaic form of worship that had to have been transported there very early. A tomb & shrine in honor of Thomas at Mylapore is built of bricks used by a Roman trading colony but was abandoned after ad 50. There's abundant evidence of several Roman trading colonies along the coast of India, with hundreds of 1st C coins & ample evidence of Jewish communities. Jews were known to be a significant part of Roman trade ventures. Their communities were prime stopping places for the efforts of Christian missionaries as they followed the Apostle Paul's model as described in the Book of Acts.A song commemorating Thomas' role in bringing the faith to India, wasn't committed to writing till 1601 but was said to have been passed on in Kerala for 50 generations. Many trading vessels sailed to India in the 1st C when the secret of the monsoon winds was finally discovered, so it's quite possible Thomas did indeed make the journey.  Once the monsoons were finally figured out, over 100 trade ships a year crossed from the Red Sea to India.Jesus told the disciples to take the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. While they were slow to catch on to the need to leave Jerusalem, persecution eventually convinced them to get moving. It's not hard to imagine Thomas considering a voyage to India as a way to literally fulfill the command of Christ. India would have seemed the end of the Earth.Thomas's work in India began in the northwest region of the country. A 4th C work called The Acts of Thomas says that he led a ruler there named Gundafor to faith. That story was rejected by most scholars & critics until an inscription was discovered in 1890 along with some coins which verify the 20-year reign in the 1st C of a King Gundafor.After planting the church in the North, Thomas traveled by ship to the Malabar Coast in the South. He planted several churches, mainly along the Periyar River.  He preached to all classes of people and had about 17,000 converts from all Indian castes. Stone crosses were erected at the places where churches were founded, and they became centers for pilgrimages. Thomas was careful to appoint local leadership for the churches he founded.He then traveled overland to the Southeast Indian coast & the area around Madras. Another local king and many of his subjects were converted. But the Brahmins, highest of the Indian castes, were concerned the Gospel would undermine a cultural system that was to their advantage, so they convinced the king at Mylapore, to arrest & interrogate him. Thomas was sentenced to death & executed in AD 72. The church in that area then came under persecution and many Christians fled for refuge to Kerala.A hundred years later, according to both Eusebius & Jerome, a theologian from the great school at Alexandria named Pantaenus, traveled to India to “preach Christ to the Brahmins.”[1]Serving to confirm Thomas' work in India is the writing of Bar-Daisan. At the opening of the 3rd Century, he spoke of entire tribes following Jesus in North India who claimed to have been converted by Thomas.  They had numerous books and relics to prove it. By AD 226 there were bishops of the Church in the East in northwest India, Afghanistan & Baluchistan, with thousands of laymen and clergy engaging in missionary activity. Such a well-established Christian community means the presence of the Faith there for the previous several decades at the least.The first church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea, to whom we owe so much of our information about the early Church, attributed to Thomas the spread of the Gospel to the East. As those familiar with the history of the Roman Empire know, the Romans faced continuous grief in the East by one Persian group after another. Their contest with the Parthians & Sassanids is a thing of legend. The buffer zone between the Romans & Persians was called Osrhoene with its capital city of Edessa, located at the border of what today is northern Syria & eastern Turkey. According to Eusebius, Thomas received a request from Abgar, king of Edessa, for healing & responded by sending Thaddaeus, one of the disciples mentioned in Luke 10.[2] Thus, the Gospel took root there. There was a sizeable Jewish community in Edessa from which the Gospel made several converts. Word got back to Israel of the Church community growing in the city & when persecution broke out in the Roman Empire, many refugees made their way East to settle in a place that welcomed them.Edessa became a center of the Syrian-speaking church which began sending missionaries East into Mesopotamia, North into Persia, Central Asia, then even further eastward. The missionary Mari managed to plant a church in the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, which became a center of missionary outreach in its own right.By the late 2nd C, Christianity had spread throughout Media, Persia, Parthia, and Bactria. The 2 dozen bishops who oversaw the region carried out their ministry more as itinerant missionaries than by staying in a single city and church. They were what we refer to as tent-makers; earning their way as merchants & craftsmen as they shared the Faith where ever they went.By AD 280 the churches of Mesopotamia & Persia adopted the title of “Catholic” to acknowledge their unity with the Western church during the last days of persecution by the Roman Emperors. In 424 the Mesopotamian church held a council at the city of Ctesiphon where they elected their first lead bishop to have jurisdiction over the whole Church of the East, including India & Ceylon, known today as Sri Lanka. Ctesiphon was an important point on the East-West trade routes which extended to India, China, Java, & Japan.The shift of ecclesiastical authority was away from Edessa, which in 216 became a tributary of Rome. The establishment of an independent patriarchate contributed to a more favorable attitude by the Persians, who no longer had to fear an alliance with the hated Romans.To the west of Persia was the ancient kingdom of Armenia, which had been a political football between the Persians & Romans for generations. Both the Persians & Romans used Armenia as a place to try out new diplomatic maneuvers with each other. The poor Armenians just wanted to be left alone, but that was not to be, given their location between the two empires. Armenia has the historical distinction of being the first state to embrace Christianity as a national religion, even before the conversion of Constantine the Great in the early 4th C.The one who brought the Gospel to Armenia was a member of the royal family named Gregory, called “the Illuminator.” While still a boy, Gregory's family was exiled from Armenia to Cappadocia when his father was thought to have been part of a plot to assassinate the King. As a grown man who'd become a Christian, Gregory returned to Armenia where he shared the Faith with King Tiridates who ruled at the dawn of the 4th C. Tiridates was converted & Gregory's son succeeded him as bishop of the new Armenian church. This son attended the Council of Nicea in 325. Armenian Christianity has remained a distinctive and important brand of the Faith, with 5 million still professing allegiance to the Armenian Church.[3]Though persecution came to an official end in the Roman Empire with Constantine's Edict of Toleration in 313, it BEGAN for the church in Persia in 340. The primary cause for persecution was political. When Rome became Christian, its old enemy turned anti-Christian. Up to that point, the situation had been reversed. For the first 300 hundred years, it was in the West Christians were persecuted & Persia was a refuge. The Parthians were religiously tolerant while their less tolerant Sassanid successors were too busy fighting Rome to waste time or effort on the Christians among them.But in 315 a letter from Constantine to his Persian counterpart Shapur II  triggered the beginnings of an ominous change in the Persian attitude toward Christians. Constantine believed he was writing to help his fellow believers in Persia but succeeded only in exposing them. He wrote to the young Persian ruler: “I rejoice to hear that the fairest provinces of Persia are adorned with Christians. Since you are so powerful and pious, I commend them to your care, and leave them in your protection.”The schemes & intrigues that had flowed for generations between Rome & the Persians were so intense this letter moved Shapur to become suspicious the Christians were a kind of 5th column, working from inside the Empire to bring the Sassanids down. Any doubts were dispelled 20 years later when Constantine gathered his forces in the East for war. Eusebius says Roman bishops accompanied the army into battle. To make matters worse, in Persia, one of their own preachers predicted Rome would defeat the Sassanids.Little wonder then, when persecution began shortly after, the first accusation brought against Christians was that they aided the enemy. Shapur ordered a double taxation on Christians & held their bishop responsible for collecting it. Shapur knew Christians tended to be poor since so many had come from the West fleeing persecution, so the bishop would be hard-pressed to come up w/the money. But Bishop Simon refused to be intimidated. He declared the tax unjust and said, “I'm no tax collector! I'm a shepherd of the Lord's flock.” Shapur counter-declared the church was in rebellion & the killings began.A 2nd decree ordered the destruction of churches and the execution of clergy who refused to participate in the official Sassanid-sponsored sun-worship. Bishop Simon was seized & brought before Shapur. Offered a huge bribe to capitulate, he refused. The Persians promised if he alone would renounce Christ, the rest of the Christian community wouldn't be harmed, but that if he refused he'd be condemning all Christians to destruction. When the Christians heard of this, they rose up, protesting en masse that this was shameful. So Bishop Simon & a large number of the clergy were executed.For the next 20 years, Christians were hunted down from one end of Persia to the other. At times it was a general massacre. But more often it was organized elimination of the church's leaders.Another form of suppression was the search for that part of the Christian community that was most vulnerable to persecution; Persians who'd converted from Zoroastrianism. The faith spread first among non-Persians in the population, especially Jews & Syrians. But by the beginning of the 4th C, Persians in increasing numbers were attracted to the Christian faith. For such converts, church membership often meant the loss of everything - family, property rights, even life.The martyrdom of Bishop Simon and the years of persecution that followed gutted the Persian church of its leadership & organization. As soon as the Christians of Ctesiphon elected a new bishop, he was seized & killed. Adding to the anti-Roman motivation of the government's role in the persecutions was a deep undercurrent of Zoroastrian fanaticism that came as a result of the conversion of so many of their number to Christianity; it was a shocking example of religious envy.Shortly before Shapur II's death in 379, persecution slackened. It had lasted for 40 years and only ended with his death. When at last the suffering ceased, it's estimated close to 200,000 Persian Christians had been put to death.[1] Yates, T. (2004). The expansion of Christianity. Lion Histories Series (28–29). Oxford, England: Lion Publishing.[2] Yates, T. (2004). The expansion of Christianity. Lion Histories Series (24). Oxford, England: Lion Publishing.[3] Yates, T. (2004). The expansion of Christianity. Lion Histories Series (25). Oxford, England: Lion Publishing.

In this episode, Kamyar and Rustin welcome back Dr. Stefan Williamson Fa to talk about the extraordinary life and music of Sufi-Flamenco star, Aziz Balouch. Stefan has re-issued Balouch's EP, *Sufi Hispano-Pakastani*, originally produced in 1962, with [Death is Not the End Records ](https://deathisnot.bandcamp.com/album/sufi-hispano-pakistani) in 2020. Dr. Williamson Fa traces Aziz's biography, from a young boy born in Baluchistan in 1910, to studying in Sindh at a sufi shrine, before making his way to Gibraltar and falling in love with Flamenco music. Balouch became a student of legendary Flamenco master, Pepe Marchena, and spent the rest of his life exploring the deep connections between Andalusian music and mystical Islam. To learn more about Dr. Willamson Fa's research on Aziz Balouch and to listen to his songs in their entirety, visit the accompanying article, "[From Sindh to Andalusia: The Life and Times of Sufi-Flamenco Star Aziz Balouch](https://ajammc.com/2021/01/11/sufi-flamenco-aziz-balouch/)" on the Ajam Media Collective website.