Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

[EX Q]: NATO's nuclear relapse. Moscow's latest tests of intercontinental missiles and its parading of nuclear capable strategic bombers have rightly prompted international concern . In December 2014, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov implied that Russia might be moving nuclear weapons to Crimea . From violations of airspace to near mid-air collisions, the number of incidents between Russia and NATO has soared dramatically , increasing the danger of an unintended escalation . Yet ,  it is rarely mentioned that NATO, too, is back in the game of nuclear deterrence . Washington has recently sent its nuclear capable B-2 and B-52 to Europe for training missions with its NATO partners . It also continues to test intercontinental ballistic missiles . Most problematically, the western military alliance is currently modernising the air-launched nuclear gravity bombs that fall under NATO's nuclear sharing initiative . It is a warm afternoon and thick clouds hang over the houses and farmyards of Buchel, a small village in western Germany and home to 20 of NATO's remaining thermonuclear bombs on European soil . Or so we can only speculate, for the exact location of these approximately 180 air-launched B61 weapons is of course secret . The local baker smiles uneasily when I ask her about the base and is quick to assure me that there is nothing to see . After a 20-minute walk through muddy fields, I can glimpse a large barbed wire fence on the horizon and what seems to be a succession of bunkeresque fortifications . A biting smell of kerosene creeps up my nose . A sign warns me that soldiers may make use of their weapons if I enter . As I walk back across the fields, I frighten a herd of deer that scramble into the bushes . Suddenly, a jet plane soars into the sky with a deafening thunder . In the event of a nuclear war, it would most likely be heading East from here . Designed in the 1960s for use by high-speed aircraft, the thermonuclear B61 is a versatile weapon that comes both as an intermediate range strategic and a short-range tactical weapon with a wide variety of yields . A relic of the early Cold War, it is not just a US but a "NATO weapon" in that its stationing and delivery also involves non-nuclear member states, such as Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey . Tactical nukes are particularly problematic because their short range provides the missing link between a localised conventional war and a highly improbable global exchange of strategic nuclear missiles between Moscow and Washington . Tactical nuclear weapons are no status quo weapons . Their battlefield purpose increases the chance of a nuclear escalation , which is why the superpowers removed most of them from Central Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s . If everything goes to plan , the controversial B61 weapons will be modernised by around 2020 . This "life extension programme" is not simply an initiative to replace rusty old nukes with shiny new ones, but an attempt to increase their accuracy, to replace free fall with precision guided bombs . Ultimately, this will transform the B61 into a new kind of weapon and undermine any pretence that the West is still in the game of denuclearisation . Interestingly, plans to modernise the B61 were initiated in April 2010, only shortly after NATO decided to scrap its nuclear missile shield in Eastern Europe and in the same month that the two largest nuclear powers signed a new Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty . How does NATO explain this nuclear relapse precisely at a time when the alliance had just "reset" its relations with Russia? And what role does the B61 play in the Ukrainian proxy war? Jamie Shea is famous in Brussels for his rhetorical skill, expressive body language and London twang . "He could sell you a landmine if he wanted to", an activist once told me about the man who spun NATO's war against Serbia to a lethargic European public 15 years ago . The alliance's Deputy Assistant Secretary General has come to University College London to talk to students about the Ukrainian crisis and Europe's new security architecture . Charming his audience with jokes and anecdotes , Shea tells the story of an underfunded alliance that urgently needs to up its military game if it wants to stand up to Putin's Russia . He is excited about NATO's new "very high readiness joint task force" and about new and larger planned NATO manoeuvrrs in Eastern Europe . One topic he has precious little to say about is the alliance's nuclear policy . When I prompt him , Shea explains that while the life extension programme was originally meant to provide NATO with a bargaining chip for future nuclear disarmament talks with the Kremlin, Russia's involvement in Eastern Ukraine fundamentally altered the strategic context, rendering the B61 "once again a part of NATO's deterrence posture" . "I'm not nostalgic for the Cold War", he laughs,"but you have to prepare for Cold War mark two even if you don't want it" . In this, Shea is on the same page as US Secretary of State John Kerry who recently claimed that the crisis in Ukraine was calling NATO"back to the role that this alliance was originally created to perform" . Why this relapse to what Shea calls"the nuclear game"? The first part of the answer lies in NATO's recent failures . Clearly, the stand off with Russia is a welcome distraction from its fiasco in Afghanistan and the alliance's lack of a purpose in the absence of Milosevic or Gaddafi . Yet ,  there is more to this than just an identity crisis . NATO, as Trine Flockhardt so aptly puts it, is something of a "nuclear addict" - it hangs on to its nuclear weapons despite frequently declaring its desire to abandon them . Both US President Obama and NATO's new General Secretary Stoltenberg are known advocates of nuclear disarmament - but in 2014 their alliance is stepping up its nuclear deterrence and the US administration is pouring $1trn into the future of its nuclear weapons systems . There are obvious pressures behind this nuclear habit, from the nuclear arms industry via hawkish politicians and generals to certain Eastern European NATO members - but the real issue is a lack of public scrutiny . In the UK, the debate about nuclear weapons tends to concentrate on Britain's nuclear submarines and what would happen to them if Scotland declared independence . The US is currently preoccupied with the safety of its nuclear silos . These issues are of course important , but they should not cause us to overlook NATO's nuclear relapse . People like Shea publicly admit their relief that the public has kept so quiet about nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War . Indeed ,  governments remember all too well their predecessors' struggles with the peace and anti-nuclear movement of the 1980s . This is why today's NATO does"not want to wake up a sleeping dog", he explains . In 2014, the spotlight briefly returned to that one-time symbol of division in Europe, the Berlin wall . Even Mikhail Gorbachev attended the festivities on November 9, a spectacle of lights, balloons and emotions . Twenty-five years after its fall, the Berlin wall is one of the world's most heavily memorialised sites, a tourist attraction like few other 20th century structures . But while the wall remains the symbol of the Cold War in schoolbooks, op-eds and emotive speeches , it is also a highly problematic one . Rather than representing the threat of mutual nuclear annihilation, it always stood for a much simpler lesson - that of the West's moral victory over the "prison" of real existing socialism . If we want to understand the Cold War in all its self-destructiveness , we need to look elsewhere . A visitor to villages that lie near nuclear weapons storage sites in Europe might be surprised to be greeted by American flags in shop windows and front gardens . This form of identification with US nuclear weapons is puzzling given that these sites would be primary targets in the event of a nuclear war with Moscow . The West is currently too preoccupied with Russia's new nuclear militarism to notice the way that its own military alliance functions as an agent of regional insecurity . Lest we forget , NATO never abandoned its "first use" doctrine . It does not rule out the possibility of being first to go nuclear in an armed conflict with another nuclear power . Some will argue that "now is not the time" to start a public debate on NATO's tactical nukes , but even these critics would have to concede that the modernisation of the B61 further compromises the West's position in the 2015 revision of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty . If a new arms race is to be prevented in its infancy , the sleeping dog might have to learn to bark and bite again .
[EX A]: Moscow's latest tests of intercontinental missiles and its parading of nuclear capable strategic bombers have rightly prompted international concern

[EX Q]: India's mass conversion problem. "Homecoming" in the Christmas season is supposed to be a joyous occasion, accompanied by camaraderie and cheer . Not so for the small community of Christians in Agra, a town in the northern Indian province of Uttar Pradesh . On Christmas Eve, the flock of believers were cowering in fear , because a couple of churches were burnt and there was the looming threat of more skirmishes with the belligerent among their Hindu brethren spiralling into serious communal clashes . More portentous was the grand ghar wapsi (homecoming, or mass-reconversion) programme announced by the Dharam Jagran Samiti (loosely translated into Hindi-Religious Awakening Front) in the neighbouring town of Aligarh , where Christmas was to be "celebrated" by bringing 4,000 Christians and 1,000 Muslims back into the folds of Hinduism . This Samiti, a not-so-small wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a militant Hindu organisation, contended that far from propagating religious intolerance, it was only righting historical wrongs and injustice perpetrated by Christian missionaries and Muslim clerics who, in order to bolster the numbers of their respective faiths, had lured and coerced Hindus to stray from their original religion . Attack on secularism . When these turn of events created a furore in parliament , the Narendra Modi- led central government instructed the local administration to thwart the Samiti's grandiose plans, and Christmas day went peacefully . But ,  the solution - a national legislation to ban and criminalise conversions - assertively advocated by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which commands an absolute majority in parliament, and despite repeated disavowals, remains rooted in essentially a chauvinistic, right-wing Hindu ideology, is far more disconcerting, and if implemented , would deal a grievous blow to the constitutional ideal of secularism . It would be downright specious, even dishonest, to claim that missionaries and proselytisers' activities in India had nothing but a salubrious effect . Historical records bear ample testimony to the rigorous implementation of St Caprion's axiom - "extra ecclessium nulla salus" (outside the Church, no salvation), even by the proverbial fire and sword, especially by explorer-cum- conquistadors like Vasco da Gama, the tales of whose brutalities in enforcing a harvest of faith in the erstwhile Portuguese-controlled state of Goa are legion . Active proselytisation was an integral part of the colonial project ; indeed , as historian Ranajit Guha states,"the Bible and the toothbrush were one of the main instruments of the British colonialists" . This reveals that the missionaries did bring "material" gifts to the native population - especially western medicine and hygiene . But these benefits aside, there was another more substantive reason why many Indians, especially the Dalits (Untouchables) and tribals embraced Christianity, and even Islam . Both these religions liberate them, or at least hold out the promise of unshackling them from the pernicious burden of the caste-system which is so deeply entrenched in Hinduism . Though ostensibly secular in objective, the anti-conversion laws in force in various states of India - Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh (all areas with a significantly high population of tribals, Dalits, the depressed castes, and reeling from poverty, illiteracy and abysmal healthcare) in effect gives the government a vast swathe of control over people's choices in matters of faith and religion . Going way beyond , they endow the government with surveillance powers over a constituency of people . Starting from the premise that the freedom of religion and religious chose of "those who are converted"(note; the laws never say "those who convert") need to be protected from incursions of proselytisers - the various anti-conversion legislations, ironically termed as "freedom of religion" laws - make it mandatory for the convertees to inform the head of the district administration . They will then give the go-ahead only once he is satisfied that one is not swapping religions for monetary benefits or other inducements, or by being taken in by fraud, or being swayed by either promises of salvation or threats of incurring divine displeasure, as the case may be . The laws of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh make it incumbent upon neighbours or villagers to inform the administration and the police of any activities of pastors, nuns and clergymen which could give rise to a suspicion of proselytising motives . Without defining what all would, and could, possibly count as "inducement" or "fraud", these laws impose stringent criminal sanctions on violators . Anyone found guilty is visited with imprisonment extending to three years, and with a financial penalty of 50,000 rupees (approximately $800) . Tellingly, the punishment is doubled if those who convert are women, or members of the lower castes and tribal communities . These laws are invoked and enforced only when a group of people, not individuals, seek to move out of Hinduism . One might well question - in face of such provisions, do the laws even need to use the modifiers "forcible" or "fraudulent"? Also ,  not a single legislation even addresses, let alone punish, "reconversion" which the many Hindu zealots are painstakingly claiming as totally voluntary and a righteous reply to the violation of rights by colonisers and their ilk . Indians look up to the judiciary to uphold the secular values of the republic , and the Supreme Court has, time and again, thwarted onslaughts on people's core fundamental right of religious freedom . But its record in adjudicating the evidently unsecular anti-conversion statutes is dubious . The last time it did was in 1977, in the Reverend Stanislaus case , wherein the Odisha and Madhya Pradesh statutes were upheld . Basing its ruling on a 1956 report entitled "Report of the Christian Missionaries Activity Enquiry Commission", which deemed proselytisation as a threat to India's territorial integrity and internal security, the court ended up conflating every act of propagation of one's faith - Christianity, in this case (enshrined as a fundamental right in the constitution) as an attack on Hinduism and its followers, tantamount to blasphemy , which, incidentally, is also a criminal offence in India . A national anti-conversion law, if enacted , would definitely be challenged in the Supreme Court . In that case, the judges could remedy the errors of 1977 by seeking inspiration from the European Court of Human Right's 1993 ruling in the Kokkinakis case , which struck the right balance between keeping out improper proselytism and Christians' right to practise, profess, and propagate their faith .
[EX A]: Indians look up to the judiciary to uphold the secular values of the republic

[EX Q]: Obama's big government policies don't create enough decent jobs. Friday, the Labor Department is expected to report the economy added about 230,000 jobs in November , and the White House will tout the economic recovery has created jobs for a record 57 months in a row . Voters rejected that message by ousting Democrats in the mid-term elections , quite simply because the President's recovery has simply not delivered enough good paying, full time jobs . In the wake of the financial crisis, unemployment peaked at 10 percent , but the five year recovery has scored only 2.3 percent annual growth and added only about 10 million jobs--a mere 7 percent increase from the recession low of 129 million . President Reagan also inherited a mess--high oil prices, double digit interest rates and unemployment peaking at 10.8 percent . His recovery, over the period comparable to the Obama expansion, registered 4.8 percent annual GDP growth and created 14.3 million jobs--a 16 percent increase from a recession low of 89 million . The difference was governing philosophy . Obama put billions into cumbersome, economically questionable government programs like solar energy, expanded federal entitlements, imposed higher taxes on small entrepreneurs, and burdened businesses and banks with costly and ineffective regulations . Manufacturing and construction--hamstrung by onerous new restrictions on factories and bank lending--have not adequately recovered . Today, both industries employ about 1.6 million fewer workers than before the recession . Lost are many jobs paying more than $25 per hour that once helped undergird the middle class . Democrats, such as Senator Charles Schumer blame new technologies and advocate yet more big government , but innovation that raises labor productivity has been a dominant force since the first axle and wheel , and Obama's failures indicate paucity of Schumer's prescription . More striking has been the failure of U.S  manufacturers to apply home-grown technologies to more effectively boost domestic manufacturing, increase exports and compete with imports . During the 2008 campaign, Obama promised to improve U.S  competitive performance by addressing China's undervalued currency , which artificially disadvantages U.S.-based factories, but hasn't . Since the Obama recovery began , the trade deficit with China has increased $190 billion, destroying 1.6 million American jobs . In addition to the Keystone pipeline, the Administration continues to block petroleum development off the Atlantic, Pacific and Eastern Gulf Coasts . The United States needlessly imports about 5.5 million barrels of petroleum each day at an annual cost of $120 billion a year . That kills another 1 million jobs a year in construction, petroleum refining, manufacturing, and professional services . Health benefits costs are about 50 percent higher for U.S  manufacturers than for competitors in Japan and Germany . Obama promised to do something about that too , but the Affordable Care Act mostly subsidizes health coverage for previously uninsured and lower income Americans . Premiums paid by businesses keep rising faster than inflation, further burdening U.S  competitiveness in international markets . High health care costs, coupled with slack in the jobs market, encourage employers to split full time positions into part-time jobs to avoid paying for health insurance and other benefits . Seven million Americans, who want full time employment, are consigned to part- time work--often in retailing and other lower paying service activities , where jobs are more easily divided among several workers . Workers in finance, technology and other high skilled professions are getting good raises , while wages for lower-skilled workers--especially those stuck in part-time positions--lag inflation . Combined with the shortage of mid-skilled jobs in construction and manufacturing, those forces have driven down median family income to $52,120 from about $56,436 prior to the recession . Families near the top have registered significant gains , while the majority of families have permanently lost much more buying power than those averages indicate . Getting America working and incomes rising again requires better managing globalization, freeing up U.S  energy production and smarter, lower-cost business regulations . Without pro-growth policies, the monthly jobs report will continue to bring depressing news to America's working families and lots of deceptive media hype from White House .
[EX A]:
Friday, the Labor Department is expected to report the economy added about 230,000 jobs in November