Libya’s Tug of War by المجلة

www.majalla.com Issue 1920- September- 02/09/2022 2 AWeeklyPoliticalNewsMagazine www.majalla.com Issue 1920- September- 02/09/2022 Yahya El-Fakharany: Doctor-Turned-ActorEgyptianA Weekly Political News Magazine Libya’s Tug of War The FormulaSaudiNewEnergy Iran GreatPosesThreat to Sweden

A Weekly Political News www.majalla.com/engMagazine 10th Floor Building 7 Chiswick Business Park 566 Chiswick High Road London W4 5YG Tel : +44 207 831 8181Fax: +44 207 831 2310 HH Saudi Research and Marketing (UK) Ltd Editor-in-Chief Ghassan Charbel The Editor Mostafa El-Dessouki - ةكم قيرط - تارمتؤلما يح - ضايرلا اهل صخرم ىصصختلا عطاقت +44 207 831 8181 :ندنل - 4419933 فتاه :ضايرلا ،www.alkhaleejiah.com :ينورتكلإ عقوم hq@alkhaleejiah.com :ينورتكلإ ديرب + 9714 3 914440 :يبد ،920 000 417 : ةكلملما لخاد نم +44 207 404 6950 :ندنل +00764 537 331 :سيراب +966 11 441 1444 : لودلا فلتخم نمو ينلاعلإا ليكولا Editorial 2 02/09/22

While the new UK Prime Minister is still to be named next week, Bryn Haworth focuses his article on the prospective win of Liz Truss based on her reported near-certain chances and comfortable lead over her opponent Rishi Sunak. Haworth draws a written profile of the former foreign minister, and describes the “hustings” of both Tory candidates who are not speaking to the public as much as they address their party voters. Haworth also pinpoints Boris Johnson’s possible plan to use the mess that would be caused by Truss’s election as a way to help him return back to save the Tories.

Libya’s political stalemate for the past months triggered last week’s bloody episode of violence between militias in Tripoli which resulted in a high toll of casualties and properties in Tripoli. This week Dalia Ziada provides a reading of the current political conflict between the two parallel governments of Fathi Bashagha and Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, who are “equally powerful, in terms of political power, financial means, and popularity.” Warning of another civil war “that will eat up the remainders of Libya and expose the entire region to huge security and economic risks,” Ziada argues that the expansion of local militias refers to their growing power over the politicians who are purchasing their loyalty. Meanwhile, the international community and regional countries seem unwilling to engage in the current standoff.

In the arts section, Mohammad Rouda traces back the history of Venice International Film Festival in commemoration of the 79th edition of the prestigious world event that is taking place this week.

In sports section, Sarah Gamal is taking us on a tour around 1 2 3 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum that traces back “the history and legacy of sports all over the world, as well as the Olympic Games, and combines a collection of items with cutting-edge technology, as well as documenting the importance of sport in the State of Qatar.” Read these articles and more on our website eng.majalla.com. As always, we welcome and value our readers’ feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your comments on our website.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1920- September- 02/09/2022A Weekly Political News Magazine 5 02/09/22 Disgusting Hustings24 40 “Maat”: The Egyptian Goddess of Truth, Justice and Cosmic Order 58 Is sugar unhealthy? 42 Band Revives 1950s Egyptian Songs in Jazzy WayFirst Day back to School34 The Middle East’s First Museum Dedicated to Sporting Achievements3654 Will the US Supreme Court Go Color-blind ?

Participants perform during the Notting Hill Carnival in London, Britain, 29 August 2022. The Notting Hill Carnival, the largest street carnival in Europe, returns to London after a two-year break due to the coronavirus pandemic with more than a million people expected to attend the two-day celebration of Carib bean heritage on 28 and 29 August. /EPA

Notting Hill

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SCarnivalnapshot

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Women wearing red attire worship Lord Shiva, god of creation and destruction, during Teej festival at Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu, Nepal, 30 August 2022. Married Nepalese women celebrate Teej for the long and prosperous life of their husbands and unmarried women celebrate to get a good one by fasting for a day and some women do not even drink water. EPA Nepal festival

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The granddaughter of a former Lebanese president Monday announced her bid for the cash-strapped country’s upcoming presidential elections on a platform critical of the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah. The country’s political woes are compounded by its crippling economic crisis, which the World Bank says is one of the worst worldwide in over a century. The Lebanese pound has lost over 90% of its value against the dollar, with three-quarters of its population living in poverty.

Saudi

acrosscouldleathersecuritywomenKhamisInwhenimmediatelySauditocapturedformedTheorphanagesecurityinvestigationArabiaforcesgovernoracommitteeinthecompetentPressittookthefootageMushait,inblackforcesbeltsbeseentheorphanage

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EGYPT SAUDI LEBANON

Tug boats re oated an oil tanker that was brie y stranded in Egypt's Suez Canal late on Wednesday due to a technical fault with its rudder, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Thesaid.vessel, A nity V, had been blocking the southern section of the canal, two navigational sources said, but SCA sources said shortly after midnight local time that tra c had returned to normal. The incident occurred in the same southern, single-lane stretch of the canal where a giant cargo ship, the Ever Given, ran aground for six days in March 2021, disrupting global trade. According to ship monitoring service TankerTrackers, the Aframax tanker A nity V seemed to have lost control in the Suez Canal on Wednesday evening while heading south.

Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, who captained Iran’s team in the 1998 World Cup in France, unveiled the Thetrophy.trophy tour includes every nation that has quali ed for the tournament.

Iraqi paramilitary forces killed in heavy clashes with the supporters of a powerful Shiite cleric were laid to rest on Wednesday as Iraq’s parliament speaker announced three days of mourning. Normal life crept back in Baghdad after a bloody 24 hours when the supporters of populist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr clashed with Iraqi security forces inside the heavily forti ed Green Zone, the seat of Iraq’s Atgovernment.least30people, both al-Sadr’s loyalists and Iraqi security forces, were killed, and over 400 people were wounded after trading re for hours this week. Al-Sadr later called on his supporters to withdraw on Tuesday, spurring a de-escalation of hostilities.

Iran on Thursday put the FIFA World Cup trophy on display for the rst time, part of the trophy’s global tour ahead of the tournament that kicks o in neighboring Qatar in November.

The trophy display ceremony was held in Tehran’s Milad Tower hall in the capital, with hundreds of spectators looking on. They included city and football o cials, veteran football players, and Dragan Skokic, the head coach of Iran’s national football team.

SAUDI ARABIAUAE

Arabia said Wednesday it opened an investigation after videos purportedly showed forces beating women at an in the kingdom’s southwest. governor of Saudi Arabia’s Asir region committee to probe the beatings in the online video and “refer the case competent authorities,” the state-run Press Agency reported. It was not immediately clear what led to the incident or took footageplace.from an orphanage in the city of Mushait, security o cials hold down black abayas while uniformed forces repeatedly lash them with belts and wooden sticks. One man seen dragging a woman by her hair orphanage lawn as she screamed. The United Arab Emirates will grant visas to those holding tickets to the World Cup in neighboring Qatar, the country announced Tuesday.

The UAE said in a statement those registered for Qatar’s Hayya fan card will be able to apply for multiple-entry visas 19 days before the tournament starts.

IRAN IRAQ

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EGYPT SAUDI LEBANON

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The incident occurred in the same southern, single-lane stretch of the canal where a giant cargo ship, the Ever Given, ran aground for six days in March 2021, disrupting global trade.

Tug boats re oated an oil tanker that was brie y stranded in Egypt's Suez Canal late on Wednesday due to a technical fault with its rudder, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) Thesaid.vessel,

A nity V, had been blocking the southern section of the canal, two navigational sources said, but SCA sources said shortly after midnight local time that tra c had returned to normal.

Saudi acrosscouldleathersecuritywomenKhamisInwhenimmediatelySauditocapturedformedTheorphanagesecurityinvestigationArabiaforcesgovernoracommitteeinthecompetentPressittookthefootageMushait,inblackforcesbeltsbeseentheorphanage

According to ship monitoring service TankerTrackers, the Aframax tanker A nity V seemed to have lost control in the Suez Canal on Wednesday evening while heading south.

Iran on Thursday put the FIFA World Cup trophy on display for the rst time, part of the trophy’s global tour ahead of the tournament that kicks o in neighboring Qatar in November.

The UAE said in a statement those registered for Qatar’s Hayya fan card will be able to apply for multiple-entry visas 19 days before the tournament starts.

The United Arab Emirates will grant visas to those holding tickets to the World Cup in neighboring Qatar, the country announced Tuesday.

IRAN IRAQ SAUDI ARABIAUAE

Ahmad Reza Abedzadeh, who captained Iran’s team in the 1998 World Cup in France, unveiled the Thetrophy.trophy tour includes every nation that has quali ed for the tournament.

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Libya’s Tug of War over story

Libya is stuck in a grave political stalemate that threatens the eruption of a new civil war that nei ther Libya nor its neighbors in North Africa and the Mediterranean can afford as a result of its dire con sequences on regional security. The latest episode of street fighting between the Tripoli-based militias last week is a resounding alarm on the potential manifes tation of this dreadful scenario, if it is not promptly pre-empted by the international community and re gional actors with interests in Libyan affairs.

Implications of Libyan Militias’ Expanding Power

By Dalia Ziada

Libyan forces are deployed in Tripoli, Libya, Saturday, Aug. 2022 ,27. Clashes broke out early Saturday between rival militias in Libya’s capital, a health official said. (AP/Yousef Murad)

Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh leads the Government of National Unity (GNU) from Tripoli since March 2021. GNU is an interim government elected in a UN-supervised process by the Libyan Political Di alogue Forum (LPDF). GNU’s main mission was to reconcile eastern and western rivals, unite the armed forces held by both sides, and hold presi dential and parliamentary elections before a dead line that already expired in June 2022.

The Libyan Ministry of Health recorded a death toll of 32 souls and 159 injuries, including inno cent civilians, out of the fierce battle that erupted between the local militias in Tripoli on August 27th. Civilian properties, residential homes, and trade shops have been destroyed, while the gov ernmental security forces rescued and evacuated 64 families from the populous neighborhoods where the militias fought. All of this damage was the direct outcome of a relatively short exchange of fire between two informal armed groups that lasted for only a few hours.

Dbeibeh, who was shocked by the move of his po litical opponents in eastern Libya, refused to cede power and insisted that his government will not leave Tripoli until presidential and parliamentary elections are held.

The foreign and home-grown militias and merce naries are arguably the biggest beneficiary from the current tug of war between the two parallel governments of Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh and Fathi Bashagha. Each of them has been showering the informal armed groups with money and political promises to gain their loyalty.

The amount of the damage compared to the time length of the battle and the random structure of the battling groups are a worrying indication of the heaviness of the arms they possess and the size of the funding that they enjoy.

When GNU failed to hold the presidential elections in December of last year due to what the electoral commission described at the time as “force ma jeure,” the Tobruk-based parliament hired Basha gha on the top of a new parallel government. The parliament is led by Aguila Saleh, a close ally to Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the armed group known as the “Libyan National Army” (LNA).

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) agreed with Dbeibeh’s stance, but im mediately proceeded to work with the conflicting political elite in Tripoli, Tobruk, and Benghazi on creating a legal framework that allows holding the election under the new status quo. UNSMIL and most international observers agree that holding elections in the nearest time possible is the only way to get Libya out of the rut. However, no tangi ble progress was achieved as a result of UNSMIL efforts, up until this day. That made the hope for proceeding with the political solution diminish, and the power of the militias expand.

It is not the first time to see two parallel govern ments competing over legitimacy in Libya. This happened at least twice since the fall of Gaddafi, over one decade ago. However, this time, the com peting heads of the two parallel governments are equally powerful, in terms of political power, fi nancial means, and popularity. Each of Dbeibeh and Bashagha has a solid base of popular support that extends all over Libya, strong foreign backers, and, most importantly, tough militias to protect Bothhim. of the two powerful politicians promised at the beginning of their conflict in March not to use violence against each other, and to avoid the bloodshed of innocent Libyan citizens. But it did 15 02/09/22

The amount of the damage compared to the time length of the battle and the random structure of the battling groups are a worrying indication of the heaviness of the arms they possess.

The latest militia clash is the deadliest since the brief outbreak in Tripoli on July 22nd, which killed 13 people and injured 27. The rounds of deadly friction between militiamen in and around the cap ital city of Tripoli have not stopped since May, as Fathi Bashagha and Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh have been mobilizing local armed groups against each other, in order to contest the legitimacy of their parallel governments.

EXPANDING MILITIA

over storyC

16 02/09/22 not take very long for them to change their minds. For two months after his appointment, Bashagha and the parliament tried to force Dbeibeh to cede power by applying different diplomatic and eco nomic pressures that almost paralyzed his gov ernment. The latest was a wave of riots that kept gas and oil production idle for weeks, in order to suffocate one of the main veins of income that Dbeibeh’s GNU relays on. To the disappointment of the eastern adversaries, Dbeibeh’s own wealth and experience as a businessman bailed him out of this crisis. In the meantime, Bashagha realized that his paral lel government will not gain full legitimacy, either in the eyes of the Libyan people or the foreign ob servers, until he rules from inside Tripoli. As the political pressures failed to oust Dbeibeh from the capital city, Bashagha resorted to the option of re cruiting militia, in order to help him penetrate into Tripoli in the same way Fayez Sarraj did in 2016. Sarraj, who led the former interim Government of National Accord (GNA), had been locked out of Tripoli by a parallel government supported by Benghazi’s Khalifa Haftar for months after being appointed through a UN process. Only when pow erful politicians and businessmen in his cabinet were able to align some of the Tripoli-based mili tia to their side, he was finally able to enter Tripoli. Eventually, Sarraj entered Tripoli on a boat sailing from Tunisia, under the protection of militia. The militia also continued to protect the GNA against assaults by Haftar’s LNA until 2019 when the GNA sought the help of Turkey to deter the LNA advances towards Tripoli.

Fathi Bashagha served as the Interior Minister in Sarraj’s GNA, and thus he already had strong links with most of the militia inside Tripoli. In addition, he has a strong command over the armed groups in Misrata. In that sense, it was easy for Bashagha to launch offensive operations on the GNU, either from inside or outside Tripoli. Nonetheless, all Bashagha’s attempts to enter Tripoli by force have so far failed. That is mainly because the urban ter Men survey the remains of cars burned during clashes on a street in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, Sunday, August 28 2022. (AP Photo/Yousef Murad) It is not the first time to see two parallel governments competing over legitimacy in Libya. This time, the competing heads of the two parallel governments are equally powerful.

rain and the defensive and offensive positions of the warring parties on the military strategy board work perfectly in favor of Dbeibeh.

The latest deadly clashes, in Tripoli, ended with the victory of Dbeibeh’s forces and the with drawal of Bashagha’s fighters, mainly because of Dbeibeh’s success in attracting a greater number of militiamen to his side. In the past two months, Dbeibeh succeeded in stripping Bashagha of most of his supporters, starting from the Tripoli-based militiamen up to his allied politicians in the east ern territories. Dbeibeh invested tens of billions of dollars in purchasing the loyalty of the militia af filiated to Bashagha in Tripoli, as well as enhanc ing the military capabilities of the armed brigades that work under the command of his government.

In addition to the growing support of local mili tias for Dbeibeh, he also enjoys the support of the Turkish troops and affiliated mercenaries, who are working from inside Tripoli alongside the national armed forces since 2019. The Turkish military provides the armed forces affiliated to GNU with training and equipment, in addition to sensitive in telligence that helped them predict and obstruct the latest attacks on Tripoli.

Each of Dbeibeh and Bashagha has a solid base of popular support that extends all over Libya, strong foreign backers, and, most importantly, tough militias to protect him.

On the flip side, Bashagha has not only lost some of his militias to Dbeibeh, but it seems that the eastern politicians have already started to give up on him. That was highlighted by Haftar’s LNA washing their hands from the ongoing struggle over power in Tripoli, despite their initial support of Bashagha against Dbeibeh.

“We do not provide any support for Fathi Bashagha or any other person, in the ongoing competition over power in Tripoli. Both competitors have their own armed groups on the ground there, to fight for them … Whoever is eventually entrenched in the capital city will be the representative of the Libyan government. We can only respect the will of the Libyan people, in that regard,” said the spokesper son of Haftar’s LNA in an interview televised only Fighters loyal to the Gov ernment of National Unity are pictured in a street in the Libyan capital Tripoli on August 27, 2022, following clashes between rival Libyan groups. (Mah (mud TURKIA / AFP 17 02/09/22

WHAT IS THE SITUATION NOW?

The latest deadly clashes, in Tripoli, ended with the victory of Dbeibeh’s forces and the withdrawal of Bashagha’s fighters, mainly because of Dbeibeh’s success in attracting a greater number of militiamen to his side. Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army advance on Tripoli, Libya. (Esam Al-Fetori/Reuters) over story

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two days before the eruption of fighting between the militias in Tripoli on August 27th, which end ed with the withdrawal of the Bashagha militia and Dbeibeh announcing himself as the victor. The change in LNA position towards Bashagha is perceived as a response to Dbeibeh’s concession to some of Haftar’s demands to share power and state revenues. For example, Dbeibeh recently decided that the GNU will pay the salaries of the LNA troops. He also appointed one of the Haftar loyal ists as the president of the oil production facility, which represents the largest source of income to the Libyan state WHAT IS NEXT? It seems that the eastern politicians are now more inclined to make a deal with Dbeibeh, rather than continuing to support Bashagha. In the end, what concerns the political elite in Libya, either from the west or the east, is to remain in power for as long as they can. If Dbeibeh can offer them guarantees to keep them in power, even after the elections are convened, then most probably they will not mind working with him, rather than against him. If that scenario unfolds as predicted, we may see rounds of negotiations between Dbeibeh, the parliament, and the state council in the coming weeks.

On another level, some Libyan politicians and thinkers are calling for forming a third interim government by a new person from outside the ex isting political elite. Some others are calling upon the military committee (5+5) to take the leadership of the country until the sought-after elections are held. However, none of these propositions is real istic enough to be considered for implementation.

Installing a third interim government is merely a

* Dalia Ziada is an Egyptian author and Director of the Liberal Democracy Institute. Her work covers military affairs, political Islamism, and geopolitics in the Middle East and North Africa.

reinvention of the same barren system that has been keeping Libya stuck in deadly conflicts for years. Likewise, the military committee (5+5), which can hardly reach a consensus on their agen das which are limited in scope, stands a minimal chance to succeed in running state affairs and or ganizing Nevertheless,elections.itwould be unrealistic to expect that Bashagha may not take another shot at en tering Tripoli by the help of militia. He has al ready been mobilizing militias at the southern and western gates of Tripoli for over a month. He may even try to enter Tripoli via the sea or the coastal road in the north, but for this to happen he should re-earn the support of LNA. If this sce nario eventually happens, the battle will be even more brutal than the ones we saw in the past few months. This situation may easily ignite another civil war that will eat up the remainders of Libya and expose the entire region to huge security and economic risks.

Tweets at @daliaziada. 19 02/09/22

The international community and regional actors –except for Turkey – appear to be undisturbed, or at least unwilling to engage themselves in the secu rity standoff inside Libya, this time. The economic burdens of the ongoing war in Eastern Europe could somehow explain this state of global indif ference towards the escalating crisis in Libya. Yet, it also reveals a state of confusion that the policy makers in concerned countries and international bodies are having towards the masterminds of both sides of the chronic Libyan crisis. Due to the growing political power of the local militias, even over the politicians who pay them, it has become too costly for interested foreign actors to support one side of the Libyan conflict against the other.

Libya’s interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh. Gregorio Borgia/Pool via REUTERS Libya’s Fathi Bashagha, who was appointed prime minister by the eastern-based parliament this month, looks on during an interview with Reuters in Tunis, Tunisia March 30, 2022. REUTERS Installing a third interim government is merely a reinvention of the same barren system that has been keeping Libya stuck in deadly conflicts for years.

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By Suzan Quitaz In March 2022, the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) released its 80-page Yearbook 2021 which describes the current threat to Sweden. The detailed report avail able in Swedish has been reviewed by Majalla. The Yearbook states that Sweden’s security is being challenged on many fronts and that Sweden is facing a wider, a more complex and rapidly changing threat from hostile states and violent extremism. The report explicitly points a finger at three foreign powers’ intel ligence activities “Russia, China and Iran are the big gest threats to Sweden’s security,” the report reads. It continues to state that these three countries “are still

Iran Poses Great Threat to Sweden

Official Swedish Security Service Uncovers Iranian Espionage and Illegal Activities Politics

MOIS’S REFUGE ESPIONAGE Iranians are one of Sweden’s largest minorities, ac counting for over one percent of the population. Ac cording to available data there are about 100,000 Iranians living in Sweden. They started arriving from early 1980 and onwards, many of them were dissidents and have been exposed to a multi-pronged threat at the hand of Iranian agents. It became so se vere that in 1993, the Swedish government expelled a number of Iranian diplomats for spying on Iranian Thedissidents.survival of the Iranian regime is a high priority for MOIS. Opposition groups in exile are considered as an internal threat that just happens to be located outside Iran’s borders. Sweden has been marked as one of those countries that are hosting individuals MOIS wishes to “deal” with. MOIS’s refugee espio nage in Sweden is aimed at those individuals whom the Islamic Republic views as a threat. In October 2015, a couple entered Sweden under the disguise that they are Afghani refugees. Though the couple did not have any identity papers, the Swed ish Migration Agency awarded them political asy lum. Their neighbors told the Swedish newspaper Expressen, that the couple’s windows at home were always covered and they could not see a thing. In April 2021, they were arrested by Säpo for planning an act of terrorism in Sweden, and it turned out that they were not Afghani nationals, but rather MOIS agents, according to unconfirmed reports. In 2019, one person was convicted of refugee espio nage in Sweden. On behalf of the Iranian State, the person unlawfully collected data about exiled Irani ans in Sweden and abroad. In late 2021, two Iranian brothers with Swedish citizenship were arrested by Säpo. The two brothers 21 02/09/22

This article will look at the threat Iran poses and how these threats have been manifested. Säpo’s de tailed report claims that Iran is on the lookout to se cure nuclear technology through illegal means. The report explains that the Islamic republic “conducts industrial espionage which is primarily aimed at the Swedish high-tech industry and Swedish products that can be used in a nuclear weapons program.”

The Iranian threat is complex and manifested in both legal and illegal activities, such as targeting Iranians living in Sweden as well as Sweden itself.

Charlotte Von Essen, the head of the Swedish Se curity Service says “Sweden is under pressure. The Swedish Security Service can see how other coun tries are acting increasingly aggressively, trying to gain advantages to strengthen their position. This has an impact on Sweden’s economy, political de cision-making, democratic rights and freedoms, and territorial sovereignty.”

It added, “Iranian intelligence officers act, among other ways, under diplomatic cover in Sweden.”

The threat actors, meaning the Iranian agents, get their instructions from the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Among other methods, these agents act under diplomatic cover in Sweden and are prepared to go to extreme lengths to achieve their goals.

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi attends a news conference in Tehran, Iran August 2022 ,29 Majid Agency)WANAAsgaripour/(WestAsiaNewsviaREUTERS

the main threats, and are now acting more offen sively to promote their own interests, create spheres of interest and force other states to act as they want them to. In Russia’s case, this was obvious already prior to their invasion of Ukraine.”

One of MOIS’s high priorities is the continued sur vival of the Iranian regime. Opposition groups in exile are considered as an internal threat that just happened to be located outside Iran’s borders. Such groups and people are in Sweden and hence they have been targeted by MOIS which has employed various methods to reach them, e.g., refugee espio nage, collecting data, mapping and monitoring their activities and, in some cases, target assassinations.

The relationship between Iran and Sweden has of ten been a troubled one. In July 2022, in a land mark proceeding, Swedish prosecutors charged an Iranian with war crimes over the mass execution of prisoners in 1988. The man is Hamid Nouri, a for mer prison official and prosecutor, who was found guilty of torture, inhuman treatment and the killing of as many as 5,000 political prisoners in Gohar dasht prison outside the Iranian city of Karaj. Iran strongly condemned the judgment and claimed it is “politically motivated.”

The report explains that the Islamic republic “conducts industrial espionage which is primarily aimed at the Swedish high-tech industry and Swedish products that can be used in a nuclear weapons program.”

The two brothers’ arrest is a grim reminder of the ex tent to which Iran is willing to go. The older brother is named Peyman Kia, now 42 years old, and said to have worked as an intelligence investigator at Säpo. He also worked for the Office for Special Acquisi tion (KSI), which is part of the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service (MUST) and is one of the most secretive intelligence units within the Swedish Armed Forces. The main task of KSI is that of liaison with foreign intelligence organi zations and espionage through human intelligence (HUMINT). The younger brother Payam, 35 years old, previously studied at the Swedish Police Col lege and worked for a brief period for Säpo. Previous Swedish Security Service Yearbooks also noted that Sweden has been targeted by Iran, and assess that the intelligence threat will continue to in crease. Yearbook 2020 describes that hostile states target commercial actors, technology, research and development, and are life-threatening to those peo ple who have sought refuge in Sweden. It continues to declare that hostile states will also continue to try to influence Swedish political positions. In 2021, 2020 and the years before, Säpo has con tinuously viewed Iran as a hostile state and saw it as the most serious intelligence threat to Sweden alongside Russia and China. Säpo’s report findings of 2021 are similar to 2020 in that both reports al lege that Iran is involved in illegal activity in Swe den and that Iran is dedicated in its efforts to secure tech for nuclear weapons. The report of 2020 noted, “Iran is investing heavy resources in this area and some of the resources are used in Sweden.” The Iranian nuclear agreement is within striking distance. If an agreement is reached with Iran, it would require Iran to deliver on its obligations such as reducing its stockpile of enriched uranium, in 22 02/09/22

A photo taken on April ,2 2015 shows representatives of the P1+5 and Iran posing before the announcement of an agreement on nuclear talks with Iran at the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne.

were born in Iran and entered Sweden as children in 1994. They were both accused of spying for the Islamic Republic of Iran from 2011 until their ar rests in September and November of 2021. They are currently kept in strict isolation and their trial is expected to take place in the coming months, but it will not be open to the public.

AFP/ FABRICE COFFRINI Sweden has been marked as one of those countries that are hosting individuals MOIS wishes to “deal” with. MOIS’s refugee espionage in Sweden is aimed at those individuals whom the Islamic Republic views as a threat.

Politics

The sanctions relief of the prospective nuclear deal would give the Iranians the financial means to continue with its illegal activities, be it in Sweden or any other part of the world.

stalling cameras in its nuclear installations and re porting its activities to the International Atomic En ergy Agency. In return, the countries that are party to the agreement such as U.S, UK, France, Germany and China and others must lift their diplomatic and economic sanctions that have been imposed on Iran since 2012. In this regard, we are talking about sanctions relief worth over $100 Billon. It is obvious that the Islamic Republic of Iran is engaging in hostile activities in mainland Europe, US and the Middle East. Various intelligence agen cies and governments have accused the Iranians of supplying rockets and drones to various armed mili tias in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Gaza and the West Bank. Iran is also accused of supplying weapons to the Houthi rebels in Yemen, weapons they used to target cities in United Arab Emirates and Saudi IsraelArabia.along with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and other countries strongly oppose the prospective deal because it does not put a permanent halt to Iran’s nuclear program and the agreement’s provisions cannot be easily enforced. Moreover, the $100 bil lon of sanctions relief would give the Iranians the financial means to further fund and expand its army of proxies in the Middle East and continue with its illegal activities, be it in Sweden or any other part of the world. The question is why Biden sleepwalking to sign this disastrous deal? 23 02/09/22

ImagesApicture

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi hold a meeting in Tehran on SERGEI - .2022 ,19 July

SPUTNIK/AFPSAVOSTYANOV/via Getty of Peyman Kia circulated in Swedish media

How will she adapt to a geographical dunce so lacking in experience of the world she mistook the Black Sea for the Baltic and, from

24 02/09/22

How will our frail monarch react when greeted by a naïve young prime minister so fond of hugging that she almost knocked the wind out of every convert to her cause? I guess the answer is not to show much enthusiasm, Ma’am, which shouldn’t be too difficult.

After a long summer communing with their dead, the Conservatives have chosen a new leader Disgusting Hustings

But how will the Queen start to comprehend a fickle young thing who has gone from Liberal Democrat to extreme right-wing Tory, from Remainer to ardent Brexiteer, from rabid republican to… rabid monarchist?

So, the results are in. Finally, courtesy of the ‘selectorate’ of Tory party members, we have a new prime minister.

By Bryn Haworth

We have a head of state called Elizabeth and a new occupant of Number Ten Downing Street, also called Elizabeth.

And how will the ageing matriarch be able to handle a woman who models herself on a previous female prime minister – one, incidentally, the Queen couldn’t abide – without bearing the faintest resemblance to her?

PoliticsEctoplasm

The dirt on Rishi Sunak has been dished long since. The dirt on Liz Truss includes her spell at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when she allowed farmers to dump pollutants, including pesticides and animal faeces, in the country’s rivers.

Liz Truss arrives just in time for autumn, but what a summer it’s been. Temperatures have hit record highs here, in what William Blake – complacently as it turns out – once called a ‘green and pleasant land’. Any greenness has given way to apocalyptic shades of brown and fiery red. As for pleasantness, the decision of the Conservatives to elect a new leader took care of that. The British people were unanimous in the view that the bickering of the final two candidates provided an amusing distraction from the scorching heat. Similarly, at the Proms, the emperor Nero had us all on our feet when he confounded his critics with a masterful violin recital. Actually, the heat made such behaviour unthinkable. The Albert Hall was forced to ban standing ovations for health reasons. The air was so hot, we were told it exceeded the heat in our own lungs. Not for the first time – in fact, it feels like the story of the decade so far – we were obliged to sit in our lounges and watch the telly. There was no escape from current affairs. Of course, compared with those who lost their homes in the fires, I was blessed, my house remained intact. Compared to those who had to sleep in wet sheets with ice in their hot water bottles, I was lucky, a massive fan just about sufficed. The worst upset for me was finding an entire batch of suppositories had melted. For the benefit of younger readers who are yet to experience the rarefied pleasure of suppositories, let me explain, they are made of animal fat and designed to melt in the human body. Even when stored in a bathroom cupboard, they are quite unable to withstand temperatures they would normally encounter in the rectum, and those were the ambient conditions.

Now that is dirt. However, these are already in the public realm.

safe in the room next to the one full of dirt. The obit safe is the antithesis of the other one, it’s where the nice stuff is kept.

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How will the Queen start to comprehend a fickle young thing who has gone from Liberal Democrat to extreme rightwing Tory, from Remainer to ardent Brexiteer, from rabid republican to… rabid monarchist?

Not asleep at the wheel

Now it’s not my business here to teach a great grandmother how to suck eggs. The Queen’s consummate professionalism is sure to prevail. But some of us have to write about this enigma and, believe me, this is no easy thing to do. The material is so scant, the woman in question so spectral. Ideally, I could have drawn on two traditions in journalism, those of the kompromat and the obituary. The first is the dirt kept securely under lock and key by any self-respecting editor. Never having been an editor, I have always imagined a little safe in their office which contains the dirt on various important people, but there’s no way such a strong box could actually be little. We should probably imagine it as a kind of walk-in fridge of the size and capacity that would accommodate a fleeing Boris Johnson. Better still, imagine it as Augean stables so large that Hercules himself could never cleanse them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer’s stables, for example, the ones he claimed expenses for heating. But I digress.

The other journalistic tradition I could have followed involves preparing obituaries for prominent people before they die. It must be a sobering thought for those people, that eloquent assessments of their time on Earth already exist, locked in a second capacious

Because I am writing before the end of the seemingly interminable Conservative leadership contest, I feel like I’m anticipating somewhat, though every rune and tea leaf I’ve so far managed to read predicts a Truss victory. It wouldn’t just be a gamble to write Sunak’s obit a whole week before his political career bit the dust. It would be a waste of time, as literally no one, not even his mum, would be interested after it had. Instead, I’m really attempting to write the reverse of an obituary, in breathless anticipation of a prime ministerial career as yet in its infancy. In other words, I have to say something intelligent about the future of the very infant you, dear readers, will just have heard squealing from a lectern in Downing Street. It will take no small amount of nerve to attempt this advanced level of prognostication.

sheer excess of vivacity, called the president of France her foe? No wonder Boris Johnson made her Foreign Secretary. In short, how will the Queen solve the riddle of this sphinx? Will she, like the rest of the country, be wondering to what conceivable question, pondered over for so many torrid weeks, Liz Truss could be the answer? Clue: at the time of the financial crisis in 2008, the Queen asked economists at the LSE why they hadn’t seen it coming. How will she handle this ingenue who is so keen on maths, but completely at sea when it comes to economics?

God knows what filth is yet to be revealed – I, regrettably, don’t.

Politics

Mary M medium in 1929

Liz Truss as Maggie

Mind you, credit where it’s due, the last medium to pull off the ectoplasmic pussy bow was Mary M in 1929: Truss, a spiritualist of the highest calibre, has taken the trouble to channel an economist from the glory days of Thatcherism. Admittedly not the dearly departed Friedrich Hayek, nor the late lamented Milton Friedman, nor even the tragically deceased (and splendidly named) Joseph Schumpeter, but a man called Patrick Minford who is actually still breathing, and who she claims as an authority for the idea that cutting taxes is the only way to deal with inflation. Never mind that superannuated survivors of the days of Thatcher’s reign have told her that their boss would never have cut taxes before getting the nation’s accounts in order. Liz has persevered in her mission to embody the Iron Lady in all her monetarist glory. This dabbling in the afterlife can come at a price, and at times the stressful demands of the occult have appeared to disorient Truss. Unlike her idol, she has done a lot of turning. Over the course of the summer, her best turn of all came after she suggested that public sector workers outside London should be paid less than their counterparts in the capital. When the turn came, after a clamour from Tory MPs representing the provinces, she accused the media of misrepresenting her. But is it any wonder Lizzy is so dizzy? In general, she has been unable to decide from one moment to the next whether she›s addressing the Tory membership or the wider voting public. The song actually went ‘You make me dizzy Miss Lizzy!’ These U-turns are enough to confuse both her audiences. It won›t be long before we all find it difficult to exit a room the way we came in. This could also be a turning point for the way this country is run. The Tory party has had it all its own way for twelve years, living off the rest of us. Much longer and the parasite could die with the host. Both candidates had to behave as if no one outside the party could overhear what they were telling the members. In Sunak’s case, he was caught on camera telling the party faithful in Tunbridge Wells what they wanted to hear about funding, how he had striven to redirect money to them from ‘deprived’ areas. Now, at last, we could understand why people are ‘disgusted in Tunbridge Wells.’*

It was high time they got what they so richly deserved: not merely hustings to deliver properly costed policies, but disgusted hustings to keep them fuming and to disgust the rest of us. In 26 02/09/22

Not to put too fine a point on it, to all intents and purposes, regardless of our class or income status, young and old alike, we became suppositories. Times of crisis, like the imminent prospect of the hangman’s rope, have a way of focusing the mind. When Keynes, the famous economist, remarked that ‘in the long run, we are all dead’ it is possible he was being over-optimistic – who now has faith in ‘the long run’, when energy prices are set to ruin middle income households and a newsreader mistakenly refers to the Office of National Sadistics? – while Benjamin Franklin famously said ‘Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.’ Right. Unless, it seems, you are a contender for the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist (stop snickering at the back) Party. Then the taxes bit will somehow be taboo, and as for death, it shall definitely have no dominion. The whole summer seems to have been taken up with a very protracted séance to summon the Iron Lady. Sadly, Liz Truss is the feeble wisp of ectoplasm they have to show for it.

You see what he did there? Trust a former Tory, even a relatively decent one like Gauke, to have fobbed an editor off with two almost identical paragraphs in one article. In the old days, he might have been straight down the Carlton Club, bragging about how he got paid good money to do this by a left-wing magazine: “That pretty much trumps however many times Penny Mordaunt managed to say the word ‘c---’ in the House of Commons!” Not anymore, 27 02/09/22

In truth, both candidates behaved more like sphinxes than stoats. They both liked to believe they were having a private conversation with the Tory membership – a sort of Tunbridge Wells garden of the mind – and were miffed when the media overheard what they were saying. The only honest answer when journalists brought these utterances up would have been “Ah yes, but that wasn’t meant for your ears, kindly mind your own business.” I suggest that next time the entire Conservative ‹family› be provided with a private space where they can be as callous as they like and there›s no one to eavesdrop. There must be a network of caves somewhere suitable for the purpose. The ones left vacant in Afghanistan would Givenserve. the procedural constraints, the next best option was a string of semi-private séances so tedious that the general public would nod off or switch off. One TV host actually fainted, possibly from the boredom. Another advantage was that there, in the dark, while the medium was droning on, the various candidates could play footsie under the table.

In his novel Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald describes the ectoplasm that ‘clairvoyants can produce from their mouths in great bubbles which then fall to the ground, where they soon dry and fall to dust.’

One wonders if, after all this effort through the duration of the silly season, the ectoplasm that is Liz Truss is destined to fall and disintegrate in like fashion. She is an insubstantial thing, possibly only the second prime minister to be a ghost. Boris Johnson was the first one, either the ghost of Churchill or of Walpole, depending on how much slack you’re prepared to cut him. It’s possible that, having got there first, the previous ghost will not be exorcised so easily. At the very least, he is survived by his taste in wallpaper. But there could be worse to come. What if the party membership, having got the séance bug and summoned Margaret Thatcher from the other side, were to try for the shade of charisma itself?

Spookily, David Gauke, ex-Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, has written an article in the New Statesman predicting exactly that, under the title ‘How Boris Johnson comes back’. He begins with the situation at the end of Theresa May’s brief tenure: ‘The problems for the country and the party appeared insurmountable; pessimism prevailed. In desperation, Conservatives MPs concluded that there was only one person who could turn around their electoral prospects. Yes, he was a divisive figure of dubious integrity and ministerial competence (he had not impressed when last in office) but he was a vote winner, capable of reaching parts of the electorate that no other Conservative could reach. And so Conservative MPs and members (often against their better judgement) chose Boris Johnson as leader of the party and prime minister in July 2019. The electoral gamble paid off, too. By the following December he had a majority of 80.’ Gauke then follows up with this paragraph, as if from the viewpoint of late in 2023: ‘The problems for the country and the party appear insurmountable; pessimism prevails. In desperation, Conservative MPs conclude that there is only one person who could turn around their electoral prospects. Yes, he is a divisive figure and some doubt his integrity and ministerial competence (he did not impress when last in office) but he is a vote winner, capable of reaching parts of the electorate that no other Conservative could reach (remember that 80 seat majority). And so, the prime minister is removed and Conservative MPs and members (often against their better judgement) choose Boris Johnson to replace them.’

A stoat. Don’t be taken in by the slickness

The British people were unanimous in the view that the bickering of the final two candidates provided an amusing distraction from the scorching heat.

short, ‘disgustings’. Both candidates had to demonstrate that they could deliver a seemingly endless supply of these disgustings. As Andrew Rawnsley put it, ‘The fight for Number Ten has been most notable for the bitter poison of their exchanges. Rishi Sunak and his people have attacked Liz Truss as a deranged fantasist peddling an immoral agenda that will throw millions into destitution and be an electoral “suicide note”. She and her outriders have called him “a stoat”, “a disgrace” who is “not fit for office” and “a socialist”, which is the Tory party’s c-word’ (Observer, 28 August).

I confess I missed the stoat. Perhaps it was a harmless attempt to add a little variety, having exhausted people’s patience with references to reverse ferrets, weasels, rats in sacks, etcetera.

David Gauke, ex-Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. A sense of humour

This may be Johnson’s inner Churchill speaking. As pointed out by Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation, even Churchill was happy to tax the rich when there was a war on. In fact, in his days as a Liberal, Churchill brought in an early version of the welfare state. When the Lords didn’t like the so-called People’s Budget, he threatened to abolish them. It would be fanciful to suggest that, just because Johnson professes to admire Churchill, he bore any resemblance to the legendary war leader – apart, perhaps, from the stoop, which puts one in mind of the old boy picking his way across a bombsite, unruffled and cheerfully defiant.

With Johnson’s trips to Kyiv, it was a case of nice stoop, but no cigar. However, as Gauke and Stewart note, the old national treasure was also happy to Keep Buggering On. In 1951, he came back from the political dead, bringing his pet budgie, Toby, with ‘Tobyhim: was taught to drink and once had to be fished out of a brandy glass. He often perched on visitors’ heads, sometimes leaving a token of esteem— “hoping to be remembered,” according to Churchill. The bird often nibbled at books and manuscripts, Piers Brendon wrote, “thus indicating, in his master’s view, that he had 28 02/09/22

though. Since he had the whip withdrawn over his Remainer views, he’s a reformed character.

silence, however, would have been laughably out of character – he was more likely to find God and join the Trappists – so lately he has resumed normal boosterism, assuring us that something will ‘plainly’ have to be done about the imminent energy bill crisis, even opining that the better off will have to pay.

Truss has taken the trouble to channel an economist from the glory days of Thatcherism, Patrick Minford who she claims as an authority for the idea that cutting taxes is the only way to deal with inflation.

Politics

What if Gauke’s prediction was not written entirely in jest? Soon after that, a mere long-time-in-politics ago, Rory Stewart was telling us Johnson wanted to ‘do a Berlusconi’: ‘A former adviser to Johnson in No 10 said he may seek to emulate Churchill, who had two separate spells as prime minister. “He agrees with most Tories that Liz is very likely to be a disaster,” the source said, speculating Truss could face a leadership challenge herself before the next election. “A refreshed and maybe more remorseful Boris providing optimism after much darkness might appeal to parliamentarians and members alike”’ (Guardian, 29 AhAugust).yes, of course, the sainted Churchill. But wait a minute –wasn’t Truss Johnson’s choice for successor? I know, it’s jolly confusing, so here’s a little Gedankenexperiment for you: what if there is a tiny grain of truth in what the ex-Secretary of State for Justice and former Lord Chancellor says? It would mean that Liz is part of a plan, the patsy in a bigger and more momentous wheeze that would see her fail, dismally, to solve the country’s myriad problems and get toppled, in a state of disgrace even worse than Johnson’s, by which time no one will remember the name Pincher – they barely remember it now – and they will certainly struggle to recall the proroguing of parliament, or the lack of ethics, or even ‘Partygate’. A further speculation for you, though maybe there was something in those tealeaves: the patsy was in on the plot from the start. Because for some unaccountable reason, Truss has announced she has no intention of jogging our memories by continuing the inquiry of the privileges committee into whether Johnson misled parliament. She doesn’t even want an inquiry into the parties. Further evidence is Johnson’s recent behaviour. Even by his own punishing standards, his nibs has been remarkably idle since he gave his resignation speech, the one where he never even used the word ‘resign’. I really have to check the transcript again one of these days. It was such a sleight of hand, I barely noticed the word’s absence the first time round. Since then, he has flown in a jet, belatedly celebrated his wedding, dad-danced, been on holiday more than once, had half his belongings moved out of Number Ten, and in all this time he has kept mum on the issues facing the Completecountry.

KBO. Winston Churchill inspecting bomb damage in Battersea South of London on 10th of September, 1940.

read them. A secretary who showed Churchill a set of nibbled page proofs was told: ‘Oh! Yes, that’s all right, give him the next chapter’ (Churchill’s Bestiary, 54).

That word was borrowed from the verdict of Dominic Cummings, who saw her in action at close quarters and concluded she was as near to ‘properly crackers as anyone in parliament’.

* Letters to the editor traditionally began with ‘Sir’ and were signed ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.’ According to Wikipedia, this is a generic name used in the United Kingdom for a person with strongly conservative political views who writes letters to newspapers or to the BBC in moral outrage. Disgusted is the pseudonym of the supposed letter writer, who is a resident of the stereotypically middleclass town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in southeast England. 29 02/09/22

Truss’ best turn of all came after she suggested that public sector workers outside London should be paid less than their counterparts in the capital.

If so, I wouldn’t fancy her chances when she does make a mess of things. This be the verse: like so many parents before him, Boris could turn out to be the kind of parent Philip Larkin warned us about. And worse still, he will have meant it.

So, maybe it was no accident that, at the end of his political life, Johnson’s dying words were “Hasta la vista, baby!” Strictly speaking, this affectionate valediction was addressed to the Speaker, as are all utterances in the house. But leaving parliamentary conventions aside, as was his wont, perhaps the old rake was mentally adding Liz Truss to his long list of offspring.

Johnson also has a pet, and I don’t mean Dilyn. One presumes he chose Liz Truss as his favourite because he so detested Sunak, the one who wielded the knife. But I suspect, since there are no pets in politics, he also chose her as a) a way of getting his own back on the treacherous parliamentary party who preferred Sunak, and b) making sure his successor was so weak, abrasive and simple-mindedly right-wing that she would inevitably make a mess of things; such a complete and utter mess of things, that the Tories will see him as their only electoral salvation. It was Sunak who warned the party members she would make them unelectable with her tax cuts and refusal to give people ‘handouts’ when the energy bills and cost of living crisis took their toll. Truss inadvertently confirmed this when, instead of repeating how she would hit the ground running on arrival in Number Ten, she boasted in a tweet that she would hit the ground. The jitters in the Conservative Party extend even to her supporters. Everyone is kept on tenterhooks as the sphinx refuses to say how, or even if, she will save the nation from certain ruin. Matthew Parris, an erstwhile Tory, was scathing in the Times, calling her ‘a planet-sized mass of over-confidence and ambition teetering upon a pinhead of a political brain’ and warning people in his old party not to harbour any comforting illusions about her: ‘…we shall revert to our first impressions. Save yourself the detour and stick with them. She’s crackers. It isn’t going to work.’

“In the past few decades, our neighbors used to go on a two months’ vacation, leaving the home ACs on. Why? He was told that here in Jeddah, it will be hot when they come back! They could not wait for 20 or 30 minutes to have the home cool again!” Ziad, a Saudi Engineer in his late 30’s, told Majalla English when asked about wasting energy behaviors in the past “Onedecades.literof gas used to cost SR 0.45 (12 cents) in 2016. Now, drivers pay SR 2.18 (58 cents) for the same amount. People now are becoming more cost conscious about energy consumption. Wandering the streets [by car] is not the favorite hobby anymore,” he Theadded.gradual transformation of the Saudi energy con sumption scene had started with the foundation of the Saudi Energy Efficiency Center (SEEC) in 2010. This center has played a vital role in reshaping the scene towards less waste, efficient consumption and more

Efficient Consumption in an Oil-Rich Country

By Motasem Al Felou – Jeddah

/AP

Let’sawareness.discover how Saudi Arabia manged to consume less energy despite the growing number of people, ve

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Saudi Aramco engineers and journalists look at the Hawiyah Natural Gas Liquids Recovery Plant in Hawiyah, in the East ern Province of Saudi Arabia on June 28, 2021.

Economy

The New Saudi Energy Formula

It is good to note that SEEC has worked close 31 02/09/22

2. Residential (Around 7 million residential units consume 29% of the initial energy con 3.sumption);LandTransport (Approximately 12 million vehicles account for 18% of the initial energy consumption); and, 4. Common Utilities (Electricity and Desalina tion Stations consume 5% of the initial energy SEECconsumption).focuses on energy efficiency laws, recom mendations, awareness campaigns and coopera tion with other governmental agencies. “Both old and new factories are required to take energy efficiency measures to get a new licence or renew the old one. Saudi Arabia’s industrial sector energy consumption performance is be ing supervised by SEEC in cooperation with the related parties to prevent energy waste and do more with the existing energy,” Taher Taher, a specialist in industrial sector contracting, told Majalla English. “Have you seen SEEC’s pre-summer awareness campaign? They said that 24c is the perfect tem perature for ACs for higher performance and less electricity consumption. The majority of people do not know this piece of information, I believe,” he added.

1. Industry (Over 10,000 factories consume 48% of the initial energy consumption);

hicles and factories that are adding to the energy efficiency challenge of continuously expanding cities.

The gradual transformation of the Saudi consumptionenergyscene had started with the foundation of the Saudi Energy Efficiency Center (SEEC) in 2010. Saudi Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud, speaks during the fourth annual Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 27, 2021. /REUTERS

FOUR FOCUS SECTORS SEEC focuses on four high-energy-consumption sectors in the Kingdom including:

“Success is relative and gradual progress is what Saudi aims to achieve. The new SEEC regulations have excluded all electrical appliances with high electricity consumption.”

ENCOURAGING RESULTS

Economy

“It’s not SEEC alone. It is the collective work of governmental agencies to free up more oil capacity for export and cut down waste, and, consequently keep the environment cleaner,” he Theadded.Saudi Elecricity Company (SEC) has man aged to decrease its diesel consumption to 48% in 2019. The peak of electricity consumption was reached in 2018 with a total consumption of 299 thousand megawatts in power. In 2019, the con sumption has started to fall to the levels of 2014 A field of solar panels at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City of Sci ences and Technology. (Reuters)

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ly with Saudi Standards (previously known as Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organi zation) to issue the Fuel Economy Card, which is a sticker car agents stick on new vehicles to show fuel consumption efficiency levels on a set scale from excellent to poor. The same applies for electrical appliances. Inefficient vehicles and electrical appliances have been gradually banned from entering the local market. “Thermal insulation for all buildings is a must. No building operation licence is given unless thermal insulation is applied. A few years back, SEEC launched an awareness campaign for lighting materials that save electricity. It starts with awareness and ends with new regulations to improve the quality of life,” explained Taher.

“Success is relative and gradual progress is what Saudi aims to achieve. The new SEEC regula tions have excluded all electrical appliances with high electricity consumption. The Kingdom wit nessed lower gas consumption from 2018 until now. The peak was in 2017 at 208 million bar rels of gas annually, compared to 175 million barrels of gas in 2021,” said Eng. Taher.

RENEWABLE ENERGY

Part of the fossil oil consumption efficiency is the reliance on non-fossil oil products. Another solar station will be in Al Jouf, North of the Kingdom, and is set to produce 300 megawatts annually. This is part of the Saudi ambition to produce 9.6 gigawatts from clean resources an nually by 2023.

Added to the SEEC efforts is the partial reliance on clean energy. For example, the construction of Sudair’s Solar Energy Station, which was announced by the Public Investment Fund last April, will begin soon. It is going to produce 1500 megawatts of electricity which has the ca pacity to light up 185,000 residential units. Su dair is located in the middle of the Kingdom.

Coupled with SEEC’s awarness campaigns, raising the price of electricity has made people more cost conscious and cut down on waste.

Saudi Arabia exports 7.5 million barrels of oil daily. The local consumption is around 3 million barrels daily in winter and 3.9 million barrels daily in summer. However, the produc tion capacity has reached around 13 million “Thebarrels.equation is clear. More output with ef ficient domestic consumption means better ex ports, less waste, and more sustainability,” con cluded Taher. A general view of power plant number 10 at Saudi Electricity Company’s Central Operation Area, south of Riyadh. (Reuters)

33 02/09/22 and 2015 to be around 280 thousand megawatts. We have to take into consideration that the gov ernment has reformed energy products prices to be SR 0.18 (4.8 cents for each kilowatt) in 2018 up from SR 0.05 (1.3 cents).

Coupled with SEEC’s awarness campaigns, raising the price of electricity has made people more cost conscious and cut down on waste.

Day

By Luisa Markides

Report

First back to School

An Rollercoaster Ride

The last days of summer are approaching fast. Those warm summer nights have become shorter and cooler again. Those final moments trying to prolong and to keep summer alive for as long as possible. To soak in all those sum mer feelings, never wanting to finish. The holi day happiness many of us were experiencing for the first time after the pandemic restrictions were lifted in most countries around the world.

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Emotional

Summer holidays are coming to an end. In most countries in Europe school returns be tween the second week of August and the first week of September. This week for over 10.5 million of children across the United Kingdom, the majority of pupils will return on Monday the 5th of September to school.

A mixture of feelings, from enthusiasm to some fearful thoughts. Varying from simply happiness, to return-to-school-anxiety. All those and many more sentiments can be no ticed in a pupils’ facial expressions. From those children that already had a few returns to school after their long six-week summer holidays, to those tiny human beings who will walk their very first time through the school gate of their new school.

Lots of excitement in the children’s eyes.

Trying to speak in an enthusiastic way about their positive memories from their past aca demic year, reviving the topics and experi ences they liked the most. Everything begins within us. The more positive energy we give to a certain thing, the easier it will get. It can be also helpful to involve the child in helping to purchase all their belongings, from school uniform to their pencils. To make it become like a yearly ritual, the mo ment of going to choose their school shoes with perhaps a fun outing for a new hair cut. Organizing to meet up with their school friends who might not have seen each other during the summer could help facilitate their feelings of anxiety.

Once school has started, especially during the first weeks, to keep their after school simple, trying to spend a lot of time and at tention with the children is vital. Allowing the children to express themselves, asking them how their day was, with an undivided attention. Perhaps, if time and circumstances allow, to reward the child with a small spe cial family activity to do on the weekend. On the other hand, for millions of working parents those long summer holidays can be a struggle. Having to juggle their work com mitment with childcare is not an easy task.

This week for over 10.5 million of children across the United Kingdom, the majority of pupils will return on Monday the 5th of September to school.

Finding ways to keep their children enter tained and in line with their family arrange ments can become increasingly difficult the more the weeks pass. This can also have a financial burden on family, especially dur ing these times with the cost of living in creasing. For those families who rely on free school meals at school, this has an addition al impact as for six weeks children will not receive their usual warm meals at school. For those families six weeks of school break might have seem endless and maybe also an additional financial drain. However, how are the parents feeling re garding the return to school? A sense of proudness to see them growing up a year older. Yet, I dare to say, that many might feel a little emotional in seeing them depart. Perhaps, the summertime spent together has brought a nice routine into their family life, a slower pace into their everyday life. Per haps, seeing their beloved ones wearing for the first time their oversized school rucksack on that Monday morning makes them look 35 02/09/22

Pupils are returning to school.

Credit: Press Association

For everyone, regardless of their stage of their academic journey, it is leading to a new year and a new phase of their life. Leaving summer behind and trying to embrace what will be a new year of learning. New begin nings. New chances. But, how to support the children to face and ease those transition from summer holidays back into school? The main support could be given by a positive approach. Frequent speaking about school in a positive sense.

Therefore, as expressed before, preparing the child gently for school in advance will reduce separation anxiety and enhance the school readiness. Having a positive mind set will also help the child to confidently step into their academic journey. Finding a way to mark this milestone might be an important part.

The first day of school is at least as a big challenge for parents as it is for children. Letting go is one of the toughest learning challenges a parent must face. To let our children go might start as early as from their moment upon entering this world. It is a life-long learning process from both perspectives, for the parent as much as it is for the child. Overcoming those feel ings of separation anxiety for a parent is not an easy task.

There is a most wonderful inspiring quote Children In the Classroom. Credit: Pexels

Organizing to meet up with their school friends who might not have seen each other during the summer could help facilitate their feelings of anxiety.

fragile and vulnerable. Those feelings experienced by parents might be most common in first-time par ents or for those having children that are just starting their first year at school. Are those feelings of anxiety parents are ex periencing really school-related or could it possibly be that they themselves are not ready for that big milestone called school?

As a parent, we can simply be there, trust and embrace our children and walk with them, be at their side to help them through the chapters of their lives. Prepar ing them gently for what life might well bring them. But as hard as it is, it’s our children’s path they will have to pursue alone. Hence, letting go of a child for a parent might be difficult. This tiny crea ture that we wanted so fiercely protect and shield from the world is now off to school. What might be overwhelming for a par ent’s soul, might be the beginning of an exciting new adventure for that child. One can only hope so.

36 02/09/22 Report

by Dr. Maria Montessori which has in spired parents around the world: “The greatest gifts we can give our children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of Therefore,independence.”inother words, we should give roots to our children so they will always know where their family home is. We should allow them to have wings to fly away and practice what they have learnt.

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Whatever a parent is feeling will be on the first day of this autumn term – good luck to everyone! Here is the wish to a new adventurous school journey.

“The greatest gifts we can give our children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.”

In 1998, the Court struck down as unconstitutional the University of Texas’s AA, arguing that there was no “compelling” need for using race in admission.

But the use of racial quotas and minority set-asides led to accusa tions of “reverse discrimination.”

Next month, the US Supreme Court will decide the constitution ality of university admissions that are based on race. An old sub ject about racial problems in the US is back again in the aftermath of the 2020 killing of Black George Floyd by a White policeman, the expansion of Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, the reck oning of a history of racism, and an overall national preoccupa tion with race and skin color. But this time, the Supreme Court, which had a zigzagging re cord on the subject in the past, is packed by conservative judges -- three of them appointed by former President Donald Trump. Affirmative Action (AA) refers to inclusion of groups based on their gender, race, sexuality, creed or nationality in areas in which they are underrepresented as a result of prior discrimina tion. It was initiated by President Lyndon Johnson (1963–69) to improve opportunities for Blacks as part of Civil Rights leg islation at that time. Later, AA was broadened to cover women, Native-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities and was extended to colleges and universities, and state and federal agencies.

But in 2014, Harvard University and the University of North Carolina challenged lower courts when Asian and White students sued the two universities, complaining that they were discrimi

38 02/09/22

In 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that quotas might not be used to reserve places for minorities if White applicants were denied chances to compete for those places.

In 1995, the Court ruled that AA was unconstitutional unless it fulfilled a “compelling governmental interest.”

By Mohammad Ali Salih - Washington

Will the US Supreme Court Go Color-blind Color-Based University Admission in US Raises Controversy ? Report

All applicants should be allowed and encouraged to talk about their life experiences and how they might contribute to an institu tion’s educational environment or community commitments. We believe that academic freedom is at stake ...

For years, we have sued Harvard and North Carolina universities because their policies led to illegal racial discrimination.

A rule that prohibits race and ethnicity from being considered would ultimately chill prospective students from discussing their racial or ethnic identity or relying on recommendations that carry a racial or ethnic valence. Examples of this would be: leadership in church choir, work for a Black-owned business, or receipt of a scholarship designed to increase minority representation in par ticular fields of study …

Ted Mitchell: “First Amendment Issue”

AndImagine!look at this Harvard arrogance: While the 14th Amendment promises equal protection under the law, Harvard argued that “it does not require us to disregard the commonsense reality that race is one among many things that shape life experiences in meaningful ways.’

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court build ing on June 29, 2022. (Al News)Drago/Bloomberg

Following are two opposing opinions, excerpts from websites and media reports: On one side, Edward Blum, president of SFFA, argues about “re verse discrimination” against Asian and White students.

In other words, Harvard is using the First Amendment to negate the 14th Amendment …”

Edward Blum: “Reverse Discrimination”: “Students for Fair Admis sion (SFFA) represents over 20,000 students and parents of which the ma jority are White, Asian and Pacific Americans who have been rejected by certain universities due to their races. And we have filed lawsuits on their be half … We totally object to using race as one of the factors in college admission. It is reverse discrimination, if not outright Fordiscrimination.years,wehave sued Harvard and North Carolina universities because their policies led to illegal racial discrimination. Now, we are asking the Supreme Court to overturn decades of prec edent and ban the consideration of any race in any admission.

The First Amendment affords colleges and universities substan tial deference on matters involving academic judgment and, as a result, safeguards the role of America’s colleges and universities as incubators for creative thought, productive dialogue, and in novative discovery …

Academic freedom necessarily encompasses decisions about who to enroll at any given institution …” 39 02/09/22

“Forcing colleges to ig nore race in admissions would infringe on their academic freedom and discriminate against ap plicants who discuss life experiences related to their racial or ethnic back grounds … We would like to high light our opinion as a First Amendment problem if the Supreme Court will lean towards prohibiting the consideration of race in university admissions …

Many universities are following Harvard and North Carolina universities in this race-conscious approach, seeking to boost en rollment of underrepresented groups such as Black or Latino stu dents. But public universities in California, Florida and several other states are not allowed to consider race.

On the other side, Ted Mitchell, President of the American Coun cil of Education that filed a brief to the Supreme Court along with other institutions, arguing that the First Amendment allows universities to decide whom to accept to improve their educa tional system.

Harvard has been mistreating Asian-American applicants for years. It has been penalizing them for lacking ‘leadership’, ‘con fidence’, ‘kindness’ and ‘likeability.’

The Whites and Asians were supported by a new organization: Students for Fair Admission (SFFA). After years of litigation, the confrontations are again reaching the Supreme Court.

nated against in the name of AA.

In a preliminary brief to the Supreme Court in May, we argued that Harvard and North Carolina universities’ policies were un constitutional under the 14th Amendment. Legal principles re quiring a race-neutral approach to choosing a class cannot be defeated by the whims of university administrators …

The American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents, led 40 higher education groups in a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Harvard and North Carolina universities’ position that the court should allow the status quo to continue ...

2 A Weekly Political News Magazine www.majalla.com Issue 1920- September- 02/09/2022 Yahya El-Fakharany: Doctor-Turned-ActorEgyptian

The rule of Al-Maat says: “The state exists to achieve AlMaat. Al-Maat must be applied so that the world becomes Thehabitable.”ancient

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Ancient Egypt Had a Spiritual Philosophy to Balance the Society

By Salma Adham - Cairo

While some texts refer to the gods’ specific attributes with out mentioning their names, others cite them without refer ring to their roles, so it isn’t easy to record a complete list of them. For example, some gods symbolize growth, the sun, fertility, arts, life and death, and others.

Among the ancient Egyptian goddesses, there was the god dess of truth, justice and divine order, Maat, who is repre sented in the form of a young lady who is either sitting or

“Maat”: The Egyptian Goddess of Truth, Justice and Cosmic Order

Egyptian deities in the Pharaonic era represented many natural and social phenomena, abstract concepts and values. There are more than 1,500 gods and goddesses in the ancient Egyptian civilization who almost represent every aspect of life.

Culture

Egyptian civilization was moral. The pharaohs adopted the values and ethics upon which their society was based, and they eagerly preferred them and made them a Ancientpriority.

Moreover, she represented the crucial concept of how the universe was maintained. The ancient Egyptians believed the universe had an order, and Maat kept everything in balance. This idea helped the ancient Egyptians develop a strong sense of morality and justice.

It is still not clear what was the real reason behind the association of Maat with the feather as a symbol. Maybe the reason is that feathers are connected with flight, and therefore with the cosmic world of heaven as a goddess, or perhaps the basis lies in the feather’s lightness, which expresses purity and the weight of sins, or for some other reason unknown to us.

After death, everyone had to pass through the Hall of Judgment, where a person’s heart was weighed on a scale against Maat’s feather of truth. Maat’s feather in the af terlife court occupies the omniscient position of knowing what the decedent did in this world to determine if he was a righteous and straight person or was a tyrant, disobedi ent, and liar.

After death, everyone had to pass through the Hall of Judgment, where a person’s heart was weighed on a scale against Maat’s feather of truth.

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There are 42 laws of Maat which are laws recited by the dead while defending himself for Maat during his trial in the underworld, and he has to be honest to escape the tor ment. They refer to the deep moral disciplines in ancient Egyptian religion and the general social life. Egyptian citi zens were expected to act with honor and truth in all mat ters that involved family, the community, the nation, the environment, and the gods. For instance, Maat’s laws include principles such as I have not committed a sin, I did not commit robbery with vio lence, I did not steal, I did not kill men or women, I did not lie, and many others.

According to ancient Egyptians, when the deceased is held accountable in the afterlife, his heart is placed on one side of the scale, and the feather of the goddess Maat is placed on the other. If the feather descends, the decedeint enters Paradise in their beliefs, but if the heart descends, he goes straight to hell, which the ancient Egyptian beliefs represented in the form of an imaginary predatory beast named “Amamout,” whose head is the head of a crocodile, its body is a body of a lion and the back of it is a body of hippopotamus. The court in the afterlife consisted of 42 judges, as many as were the provinces of Egypt, and was headed by Osiris.

Maat is said to have originated when Ra rose from the waters of Nun. For this reason, she was mentioned as the daughter of the sun god Ra and married to Thoth, the god of Besides,wisdom.Maat was attributed with controlling the sea sons of the year and the movement of the stars, which is why Egypt was called “the land of the Nile and Maat.”

standing with an ostrich feather on her head as a symbol of justice and, in some cases, she is depicted with wings.

Also, she is often shown carrying an ankh which is the key to life and sometimes she holds a scepter.

In ancient times, the king had to prove to the gods that he ruled Egypt with Maat (truth, justice and order) by pre senting a symbol of Maat (a woman with a feather on her head) as an offering to all the gods. This offering means approval of Maat’s principles in all aspects of life. As the Egyptian texts mentioned, it is the force by which gods and humans live together.

Maat was closer to the spirit in which justice was applied rather than the detailed legal presentation of the rules. She represented the common and fundamental values that formed the backdrop for justice to be implemented in the spirit of truth and fairness. From the Fifth Dynasty, the minister in charge of justice was called the Priest of Maat, and in later periods, judges wore images of Maat.

A section of the Egyptian Book of the Dead written on papyrus shows the “Weighing of the Heart” using the feather of Maat .as the measure of balance

The goddess Maat, the lady of justice and truth, embraces the cartouche of Queen Nefertari between her wings. Tomb of Queen Nefertari (QV 66) in the Valley of the Queens.

The oldest evidence of a temple dedicated to the worship of Maat dates back to the New Kingdom (about 1569-1081 BC). Because of the great importance attached to Maat, Amenhotep III ordered the establishment of a temple for her in the Karnak complex, and textual evidence indicates the existence of other temples of Maat in Memphis.

Band Revives 1950s Egyptian Songs in Jazzy Way

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By Salwa Samir - Cairo The London-based Egyptian Jazz Projekt band founded by Ahmed Harfoush has recently held a con cert in downtown Cairo. Majalla attended the event and interviewed Harfoush about his band’s mission. He founded it in London in 2015 to spread the Egyp tian musical heritage to the non-Egyptian audience in a new, creative way. “It is a unique project that revives the good old days of the 1950s and its songs. I make arrangements for Latin and Latin Jazz for most of the songs as if they were foreign,” Harfoush said. Harfoush was born in 1974 and is a Jazz vocalist with his band consisting of Italian and English musicians. When he came up with the idea of founding a band focusing on Egyptian Jazz, his team was astonished at “Theyfirst. told me that they have never listened to this kind of music before. They were thrilled by the songs,” he said, adding that they strongly encouraged rt

The Egyptian Jazz Projekt band gave concerts at many international festivals and famed venues in cluding the Royal Albert Hall, London’s most iconic venue on whose stage many celebrities performed, such as American singer Frank Sinatra (1915-1998).

It will also participate this year in Canada’s Festival of Arabic Music and Arts in Toronto.

So I want to say that Egyptian music is universal. It resembles the importance of American songs in the same period of the 1950s.” He selected to highlight the songs of the 1950s be cause “films in which these songs were performed are well known to many people, not just Egyptians, but Arabs as well.”

Harfoush also combined English and Egyptian songs into one. He performed an English song in which he used the first part of it as an introduction to the Egyp tian song, such as Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ which he used to introduce Hafez’ Ahwak.

“It is a unique project that revives the good old days of the 1950s and its songs. I make arrangements for Latin and Latin Jazz for most of the songs.”

When he performs a concert abroad, the people who attend for the first time ask what Egyptian Jazz is.

The band also performed in the Dubai Opera House, as well as Egyptian embassies abroad such as in Aus tria, Germany, Italy and Australia.

The band performed twice at the London Jazz Festi val and will take part for the third time in the edition due in November.

Egyptian Jazz Projekt band performing at the American University in Cairo’s Cultural Center. Credit: SalwaEgyptianSamir Jazz Projekt band performing at the American University in Cairo’s Cultural Center.

“Jazz music touches the heart and soul without any language barriers,” he said. 02/09/22

At his recent concert, which was held at the Ameri can University in Cairo’s Cultural Center, Harfoush performed songs by Abdel Halim’s like Kont Fein Wana Fein, Ya Alby Ya Khaly, Ana Lak Ala Toul, and TogetherShaghalony.withhis band, consisting of drummer, bass guitarist, pianist and clarinetist, he also performed songs by El-Atrash like Albi w Moftaho in swing Shadia’sjazz. (1931-2017) song En Rah Menek Ya Ain, and Laila Murad’s (1918-1955) Abgad Hawaz were also among the songs he performed.

The audience of all ages, including children, interact ed with Harfoush by swaying to the tunes and danc ing in couples in an area near the stage.

Credit: Salwa Samir

“In my concerts, where the Arab community are among the attendees, I notice how they interact with the songs. Sometimes they cry, especially if they haven’t visited their homelands for thirty or forty years,” he said. “They feel nostalgia.”

Wessam Shaker, one of the audience, told Majalla that although she heard these old songs dozens of times, she feels as if she heard them for the first time at this concert.

“I really like the idea of the band,” she said. “The songs are more youngish and jazzy.”

him to form the band. Harfoush said that some Egyptian songs of the 1950s and the preceding years already had jazz and Latin music, which facilitated his mission to turn the Egyptian song into a jazz song with western arrange “Therement. is jazz music in some songs of Abdel-Halim Hafez (1929-1977), Mohamed Abdel-Wahab (19021991), Farid El Atrash (1910-1974), among others.

“But when they attend, they interact by dancing and swaying to the songs despite the fact that they don’t understand Arabic,” he said.

Since its establishment, the band had previously performed in Egypt three times, and this one is the “Infourth.fact, I give concerts abroad more than here in Egypt. My mission is to highlight the beauty of our musical heritage to the foreign audience.”

46 02/09/22

THE DIFFICULT YEARS

A New Edition of the Venice Film Festival, Which Was Founded by Benito Mussolini

The first Venice Film Festival took place in August 1932 by decision of the Na tional Fascist Party as part of the activities and events of the Venice Biennale, which was first held in the region of Venice in the year 1893 to sponsor various arts such as theater, dance, music, and paintings. It has grown since then to become one of the world’s most important hosts of art and Itculture.missed the art of cinema prior to 1932 due to the fact that cinema as was only twenty years old at the time. It began with short experiments in 1912, was advancing in 1927, and was established as an industry and a form of art in 1930. History provides ample evidence that Italian cinema was among the first in the world. This history leads us to the fact that Italian cinema, along with American, Rus sian, Swedish, French, German, and Japa nese cinemas, participated in the renais sance beginning in the early 1910s. Italian cinema was active in production in the early 1930s, prompting Benito Musso lini to commission businessman Giuseppe Volti to study the cinema industry and how to support it. This informed the decision to establish the festival, which began in August 6, 1932 with an acclaimed opening 90

By Mohammed Rouda -

VeniceVeniceFilmFestival. Art

As the 79th Venice International Film Fes tival begins on Wednesday, August 31st, this Italian event is regaining prominence due to two key factors. The first is that it has consistently (especially in the last ten years) been ahead of other festivals in terms of film selection. The second is that it adds another year to its long life every year. This year marks the festival’s nineti eth anniversary since its inception in 1932. The festival has held 78 previous sessions in various political, economic, and artistic environments over the past ninety years. It has discovered dozens of talents and shown hundreds of important films which have won international awards. Four films from the last ten years have won Oscars, and the majority of them have won numer ous other awards. It is the first festival in parallel with the Cannes Film Festival, which it exceeds in one or two aspects while being surpassed by it in one or two areas. One point is that its film selection process is more diverse and accepts films that are not necessarily related to marketing policy.

Years Old and Still Young

47 02/09/22 film titled “Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” a 1931 version by the American Robin Mamoulian. The film is an outstanding classic work of its kind, and was deemed a work of art by standards of that time. Among the films shown at the festival’s inaugural session was “Us la Liberté” by French René Clair, which won the Audi ence Award for best comedy film because there was no jury nor official awards at the Amongtime. the films shown at the festival, “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” by Ameri can Edgar Selwyn took first place. This film won the Audience Award for “Most Touching Film,” and Helen Hayes was nominated for Best Actress. Frederic March, the lead actor in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was named Best Actor. The festival was not held in 1933, but it was reinstated as an annual event in 1934, this time with official awards, the most im portant of which are the Best Italian Film and the Best Foreign Film, which was “Man of Aran,” a British documentary film about the people of the Irish island of InAran.that edition, the Americans and Sovi ets competed, with the Russians showing “Petersburg Nights” by Grigory Rochia and Vera Stroyava and “Three Songs for Lenin” by Dziga Vertov, while Hollywood packed ten of its best films, including “Lit tle Women” by George Cukor.

The truth is that the motivations for estab lishing the Venice Festival and the Fes tival de Cannes were purely political, or rather, political responses to a reality that was steadily dragging the world into a new world war. Even the Berlin Festival, which debuted in 1951, was inspired by the Al lies’ desire for the West German capital to have its own festival.

Political crises and wars disrupted and in terrupted the Italian festival several times in the first half of the 1940s. However, the war ended and the festival returned in 1946 with unusual force. This success was confirmed the following year, when com petition began between the world’s two most important film festivals, Venice and Ana de Armas plays Marilyn Monroe in “Blond”.

A WAR ON MULTIPLE FRONTS Mussolini decided in 1935 to take the fes tival management away from the Biennale Foundation and gave it to the Ministry of “Popular Culture,” allowing the new administration to decide which countries could show its films in the midst of the po litical confrontations that began to heat up prior to the outbreak of World War II. Three years later, France decided to have its own festival, and thus the Cannes Fes tival was born out of the Venice Festival, and for good reason – the Italian festival had excluded anti-German and anti-Italian films from consideration, and in 1938, the jury even withheld an award that had been given to a French film and replaced it with a German one. However, Cannes first edi tion, which began in 1939, was interrupted by Hitler’s invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II, so it took place over a few days and then ended.

À Nous la Liberté, one of the performances of the first session.

TOWARDS THE FUTURE Barbera’s term is as important today as it was in previous days when the Festival rose and fell multiple times. It was neces sary for the festival to expand in the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, particu larly that it was returned to the Biennale Foundation decades ago. The festival was undeniably successful at the time. It had excellent films and was well-organized, and a large audience, but its global scale had not grown since Barbera took over, not because of the previous directors’ in action. These included Moritz de Hadelen, who had contributed to the restoration of the Berlin Film Festival to its great role when he took over its management before taking over the Venice Film Festival for only two years (2002-2004). Venice festi val had not grown because it needed a new boost of connections with the commercial and industrial cinema stakeholders around the Priorworld.toBarbera’s appointment, the Hon orary Golden Lion Award (Italian: Leone d’Oro) was not as significant as Cannes’s Palme d’Or. For most producers and film makers, only two international awards are deserving of recognition: the Academy Awards and the Cannes Film Festival (not for all of the awards, but especially those awarded to the best film in the first place).

Barbera made an important shift in realiz ing that, while he must maintain all impor tant artistic traits, he must also strengthen his connection to Hollywood, its compa nies, and directors, and direct the rudder so that his awards continue to be relevant in all of these circles. When the Cannes Film Festival (due to protests by National Association of The atre Owners) failed to engage with the technological progress that created plat forms like Netflix, Amazon, and others, the Italian festival took advantage of the opportunity and nodded to those platforms by agreeing to show their films in its home Thecountry.competition between Cannes and Ven ice is fierce right now. Of course, you will not find either of them speaking positively or negatively about the other. But they are closely watching each other, which is a different kind of war. Films screened in each of the two festivals are in a race for gold, i.e the Oscar nomi nations and awards. This is due to the fact that each festival is directly linked to the Academy Awards. If a festival’s film wins an Oscar, filmmakers will attend that festi Walter Hartwell’s movie, “Dead for a Dollar’s”.

48 02/09/22

But,Cannes.in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Venice experienced a different kind of cri sis, though it was also political. The con flict between the right and the left, as well as the exchange of access to the presidency between both groups’ parties and the parti san and political affiliations of successive governments, resulted in withholding priz es in more than edition. In the years 1973, 1977, and 1978, it was decided not to hold the festival at all. When the Festival returned in 1979, it was led by Carlo Lisani until 1983, then by the Italian critic Gian Luigi Rondi for four years. Gillo Pontecorvo (director of “The Battle of Algiers”) took over in 1992 and managed the annual event until 1996. Alberto Barbera, the current direc tor, took over twice, the first time in 1998 until 2002, and the second time from 2011 until today.

Art

Cate Blanchett, who stars in Todd Field’s “Tar,” and Ana de Armas, who plays Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominic’s “Blond,” will draw a crowd. Even Adam Driver and Timothée Chalamet, two of this critic’s second-rated actors, have fans.

Additionally, the oldest director to at tend the festival is Walter Hill (80 years), whose films include “48 Hours,” “The Last Man Standing,” and “Jeroni mo.” He did not attend many European film festivals, which could imply that hosting him will be a tribute to his long career. 49 02/09/22 Cate Blanchett as she appears in “Tarr.”

NEW MOVIES With the start of the 79th Venice Film Fes tival, the Festival appears to be younger than it has ever been. One cannot discount the competition with Cannes, which has evolved from a film festival into what some describe as a “mass cinematic cir cus,” where there is no relationship be tween the attendees and its management team. Everything is getting closer to being a business and imposing a slew of condi tions and demands. The heavy presence of producers, distribu tors, and Festival officials ensures good in terviews and meetings, but there is a sense that everything in the market corners (be hind and in front of the palace and inside its two halls) is purely commercial and a proof of presence to complete the terms of Althoughdominance.some press cards give access to all of the shows, if the festival decides that the films which a critic wants to see will not be available, no one will listen to your Cannescomplaints.films are French. The competition and much of what is shown outside of it either fully or partially received French funding. This drew criticism, but the fes tival’s management has never admitted that its commitment to encouraging and promoting everything French has become one of the festival’s most negative aspects. On the other hand, Venice is free of these consequences. Its films are more open, without any conditions. It presents a wide range of films that have nothing to do with Italy or Germany, as well as distribution policy, which contributes to the successful diversity of films. What a festival promotes in the media is not films as topics and issues, but rather how many star-studded productions it shows. Berlin, Cannes and Venice used to achieve this goal. This year Venice has many famous faces who will capture the attention of photographers and be sur rounded by interviewers.

Dafoe from “Dead for a Dollar,” Casey Affleck from “Dreamin’ Wild,” and Sigourney Weaver from “Avatar 3,” which is currently filming in New Zealand, will also attend a screening with Joel Edgerton. Their films include “Master Gardener” by Schrarder, who, along with Darren Aro nofsky and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarette (who will present his awaited film “Bar do”), are among the most important artists working in American cinema today, often with excellent results.

The former is the protagonist of “White Noise,” and the latter is in Luca Gua danino’s new film “Bones and All.” They both rose to prominence after appearing in Guadanino’s previous film, “Call Me Your WillemName.”

val. As said in old Western movies: “This town is too small for both of us.”

Final Judgment: It will pass through the tunnel of forgotten

◆ Final Judgment: Overall, it’s good and unique. ★★ Directed by Zack Cragger Genre: Horror [US] Gulf and International Screenings

◆

Art

The film draws passing attention from time to time, and there are a few small surprises at the end that will please some. On the other hand, one character is primarily written as a combination of intelligence and na ivety.

Another woman, more secrets, and the same nightmare. Tess arrives at a house she had rented online on a rainy night to find that something 50 02/09/22 weekly roundup of screenings at movie theaters around the world NEW MOVIES

Barbarian

◆

Nathalie Emmanuel, a New Yorker, seizes the opportunity to unravel the family tree via mysterious DNA, opening the door to horrific events, characters, and a history filled with things that should not have been returned to.

★★★

◆ Genre: Wars (Russia)

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Despite director Thompson’s efforts to break free from the cycle of re peated horror films in which events occur after the heroes of those films visit a place or time that he should not have visited, the “Invitation” is unable to break free from the circle of expectations. Yes, there is a desire to broaden the discussion by addressing class and racism, but these two issues, in particular, have become as commonplace as table salt.

Achromefilms.

Directed by: Jessica M. Thompson Genre: Horror [US] Screenings: Cinemas.

◆ Selected Screenings.

The Invitation ★★

He is a man who lives in a small house in an eastern European village with his brother and his brother’s wife. During World War II, his brother takes him to join the warriors serving in the German army. Maris doesn’t mind because, like chrome, his emotions are colorless.

No political culture forces or dissuades him from joining the occupiers.

◆

“Achrome” finds a different voice among the many treatments offered by the films that take place during WWII, thanks to sound planning and execution. I want them to make a film that is based on reality and facts, but is poetic. Maris, the hero, enters the war naive and emerges in revolt.

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◆ Directed by Maria Egnatenko

He later imitates the events Maris witnesses by giving him facial expres sions that reflect his emotions. After his involvement in the extermina tion of refugees (Christians and Jews), it is an emotional treatment with a slow pace, though the film is always interesting.

By Mohammed Rouda

Directed by Peter Flinth

Against The Ice ★★★

Final Judgment: A distinct classic film.

All that is required to save our planet from Mars is the hero of this film, Paul W.R. According to the story, he is the only astronaut who will be able to face the red planet’s invasion, and he sets out to complete this mission before vanishing (as this same movie will do after a while).

◆ Directed by James Cameron

◆

The limited budget prevented a boring man from carrying the film (and some of the other actors are even worse!). The music used is plagiarized. The story required better execution because it was a good idea in and of itself. 51 02/09/22

★★★:

Avatar ★★★★

This iconic film is being re-released 13 years after its initial release in order to lay the groundwork for the new film Avatar 2, which will hit theatres before the end of the year. Everything about this film is new and exciting, from the design to the directing and character writing. A military expedition sent a spy to inves tigate the intentions of the planet’s inhabitants, but the young man falls in love and adopts a different understanding of the reality of the military presence on that peaceful planet. Director Cameron took great care in drawing wonderful and unusual designs for a planet in which the reasons for comfort and beauty are distributed until the conflict between the owners of the country and the invaders begins. This, of course, reminds us of the white man’s invasion of the United States and the entire Latin continent, as well as what hap pened to the indigenous owners of the country.

◆ Directed by Romain Quirot

◆ Genre: Sci-Fi [US]

◆ Commercial Screenings.

| ★★★★★:

Ratings: ★ Weak or average Mediocre with merits| Good Excellent A masterpiece

has gone wrong and that there is a young tenant living in it. She has no choice but to spend the night with him, but the house is cursed with murderous spirits.

◆

◆ Genre: Adventure [Denmark-English-Speaking]

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◆ Gulf Screenings.

| ★★:

The makers of the film “If” successfully re-hit the target, relying on a believable story as a starting point before venturing into fantastical di rections with inexplicable motives. One of the viewers’ questions is why she insists on going underground despite the fact that she is naturally afraid of unpleasant surprises and is aware of the dangers of what she is Thedoing.concept is good (a homeless woman in the rain at night), but in the end, it’s just another story that stumbles before finishing.

| ★★★★:

◆ Genre: Science Fiction [US]

◆

Final Judgment: Definitely worth watching. Last Journey of Paul W.R.★★

Final Judgment: It was lifted from a video game, and it was best to leave it there.

“Against the Snow” is a Danish film by Peter Flinth based on true events that began in 1910 and lasted more than two years, resulting in a diffi cult life experience that is not often repeated. The story of two men who set out on an arduous journey to the North Pole on the first of the third month of that year. The trip was supposed to last a few months, during which they would establish Danish ownership of some of the continent’s snowy regions. But then the difficulties begin, and the two men find themselves defend ing themselves from predatory animals and falling from high mountains, and one of them enters a temporary state of insanity. Narratively and artistically, the film is almost faultless, save for the fact that the scenes of madness (which take the form of hallucinations) appear to lengthen the story slightly.

◆ Screenings: Netflix.

02/09/22 Po

Doctor-Turned-ActorEgyptian

Jeannette Khouri Egypt will host its first Cairo Drama Festival in September, headed by re nowned actor Yehia El-Fakharany, to evaluate the annual season of Egyp tian drama during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, in the presence of a large group of the brightest stars of Egyptian drama. The Festival is scheduled to be held in September of each year as part of sup porting Egypt Vision 2030, which fo cuses on the interest in arts and culture as one of the pillars of Egyptian soft power, reflecting the state’s apprecia tion of art and its enlightening role in El-Fakharanysociety. expressed his happi ness at holding this huge event, which aims to enrich the artistic field, espe cially drama production, and seeks to encourage all distinguished talents to serve the industry as a whole, under the supervision of a group of critics specialized in all fields related to the drama El-Fakharanyindustry. is an Egyptian doc tor and actor, born on April 7,1945, in Dakahlia city. He received his bachelor’s degree in Medicine and Surgery from Ain Shams Univer sity in Cairo in 1971 and was a fa mous cast member of the college drama club. At that time, he received an award for the best actor at the level of Egyptian universities. After that, he turned pro fessional in acting and performed in many series, plays and films.

In 1973, El-Fakharany’s artistic career began as he started performing in the series “Al Farah wal Dukhan” (Joy and El-FakharanySmoke). also participated in many works based on religious sto ries, including the stories of women in the Qur’an and other stories of the Holy Qur’an. El-Fakharani also pre sented more than 16 plays, includ ing “Al-Bahlwan” (The Clown) and “Saadoun Al-Majnoun” (Saadoun the DuringCrazy). his artistic career, El-Fakhara ny won many artistic awards, includ ing the Carthage Festival award after presenting the film “Kharag Wa Lam Yaaod” (He Came Out And Did Not El-FakharanyReturn). was appointed as a member of the Egyptian Senate. In his personal life, El-Fakharany married his colleague at the Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Lamis Jaber, whom he met for the first time at the university theater where he was presenting a play by Bernard Shaw. He later proposed marriage to her. They have two sons, Shadi and Tarek, and three grandchildren - Yahya, Adam, and Lamis. Shadi graduated from the Film Insti tute and now works as a director. He acted with his father in the movie “Ali Baba’s Trial.” Tarek also works in the field of directing. 52 rt ra it

Yahya El-Fakharany:

By IllustratedMajallaby

By Sarah Gamal

QOSM’S GALLARY SPACES TELL STORIES

The Museum, which is located in the Khalifa International Stadium (one of the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qa tar), aims to inspire and engage its local community, as well as encourage the public to participate in sports and physical activities, through participatory spaces and programs.

The JW Marriott operates the café and restaurant at 3-21 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, with menu concepts designed by Chef Consultant Tom Aikens, a UK-born Michelin star chef and avid marathon runner. Naua, the Museum’s restaurant, is located on the fourth floor. The restaurant promotes mindful, healthy eating and is named after the Arabic word for the nucleus of the seed. The menu features refined dishes made from fresh, seasonal ingredients. This casual fine-dining establishment is poised to become Doha’s premier destination for diners seeking the ultimate fusion of healthy and gourmet fare.

54 02/09/22 The Middle East’s First Museum Dedicated to Sporting Achievements port sAninspiring

16-year-old idea to document the history of Olympics and sports

The effort and creativity of the Spanish architect Joan Si bina, as well as the interconnected halls that used the latest interactive technology methods to express the global history of sports, the emergence of the Olympics, and the culture of sports in Qatar, were on display during a tour of the Mu seum by Majalla.

QOSM’s seven gallery spaces tell inspiring success stories from sports history and athletes’ lives. The first gallery space is World of Emotion, which also houses the Museum’s reception area and lobby. It provides an overview of the Museum’s themes and the significance of sports in Qatar. It features some of the late leader Nelson Mandela’s most famous quotes about youth and sports, and visitors are transported to a large stadium complete with two

3-2-1 The Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, with its in teractive exhibitions, inspiring collectibles, and innovative activities that instill the spirit of participation in the hearts of visitors, arose from HH The Father Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s 16-year-old idea which was inspired during the 2006 Asian Games, officially known as the XV TheAsiad.Sports Museum takes visitors on an inspiring journey through the history and legacy of sports all over the world, as well as the Olympic Games, and combines a collection of items with cutting-edge technology, as well as documenting the importance of sport in the State of Qatar.

The Museum exhibits highlight the role of sport as one of the most important cultural developments, the history and significance of the Olympic Games in this era, the stories of sports champions from around the world, and the inspiring story of sport’s development in Qatar, as well as the tremen dous impact of major sporting events organized by Qatar in recent decades.

The Museum is made up of two structures: the main struc ture, which follows the arc of the Stadium, and an attached round access building inspired by the Olympic rings.

Aspire Zone, also known as Doha Sports City, is a 250-hec tare (2.5 sq. km) sporting complex located in Doha’s Baaya district that also includes the Aspire Academy for Qatar’s youth, Hamad Aquatic Centre, Aspire Tower, and Doha’s largest park, Aspire Park.

The Museum has an area of approximately 19,000 square meters, making it the world’s second largest sports museum after the Museum of America.

This hall is divided into four sections, the first of which sim plifies the context of the cultural and philosophical factors that led to the establishment of the ancient Olympic Games, which lasted approximately a thousand years, and the popu larity of the Games in ancient Greece, as well as Olympia’s location as a center of sporting, religious, and cultural activ Inity.the second area, inside the Olympic Theater in the show room, there is an immersive video show that tells the story of the modern Olympic Games’ birth in the late 18th century, and it presents the geopolitical, social, and technological fac tors that enabled figures such as French Baron Pierre de Cou bertin to contribute to the Olympic Games’ revival.

This hall was divided into five wings based on geographi cal distribution and themes, and contains nearly 100 original holdings and copies dating from the eighth century BC to the early twentieth century. It is divided into historical periods in Europe, Asia, Oceania, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. Sport has evolved throughout the world as a result of the similarities that prompted societies to develop sports in response to deep human needs. While the third gallery space, Olympics, takes visitors on a journey from Greek antiquity to the present day, mixing his tory, archaeology, and contemporary sources, it explores the ancient games that began in 767 BC with the one sport of running, to the birth, prosperity, and growing importance of the modern Olympic Games in our time.

The Museum exhibits highlight the role of sport as one of the most important cultural developments, the history and significance of the Olympic Games in this era. Five horizontal rings surround the tubular structure. (Courtesy Qatar Museums).

The second gallery space, A Global History of Sport, begins with a panorama depicting the practice of sports in various civilizations and cultures, most notably those of ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece. The images show 12 sports, and visitors can click on any sport to give themselves more infor mation about each sport through audio, visual, and interac tive digital screens.

The third region displays every torch from the Summer and Winter Olympics since their inception in Germany in 1936.

The final region highlights the modern Olympic Games his tory, legacy, and three moral values - friendship, respect, and excellence - as represented by Qatari runner Mutaz Barshim who shared the high jump gold with his Italian colleague Gi anmarco Tamberi, and the ways in which the spirit of the Games can be preserved.

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massive screens and a panorama above it. This informative space, which includes a dome, video wall, and an electrify ing audio recording, provides an overview of the museum’s themes as well as the central role of sport in Qatar.

This region contains 23 torches from the beginning of the Summer and Winter Olympics until 2016, as well as the his tory of the Olympic cauldrons, including the presentation of the first Olympic cauldron in Amsterdam in 1928, the first Olympic cauldron in Asia in Tokyo in 1964, and the cauldron of the London Olympics in 2012.

THE THREE OLYMPIC VALUES

QATAR- HOSTING NATION

The fifth gallery space, Qatar – Hosting Nation, discusses how major sporting events hosted by the State of Qatar in recent decades have become a source of global interest and national pride. The 2006 Doha Asian Games were the first major sporting event organized by a Gulf country, and they were one of the most successful Asian Games ever held.

Qatar hosted 45 countries for 424 events and 39 sports.

The fourth gallery space, The Hall of Athletes, is a tribute to sporting legends from around the world. Visitors can meet old and new heroes and be inspired and amazed by their journeys and accomplishments. This gallery features 90 ath letes from around the world and the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries, representing a wide range of international sports on three floors. A series of eye-catching displays will be included, each focusing on a different athlete and includ ing informative text as well as intriguing or awe-inspiring objects (both authentic and replicas). These displays include world champion offshore racer Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor Al-Thani, Sheikh Ali bin Khalid al-Thani, the best Asian horse rider in 2017, and Nasser Al-Attiyah, the world champion in rally, and Mutaz Bar shim, the world champion and gold medalist in Tokyo 2021, weightlifter Fares Ibrahim Saed Hassouna El-Bakh, Qatar’s first Olympic gold medalist, sprinter Mohammed Suleiman, Qatar’s first medalist at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, and Bahia Mansour Al Hamad, the first Qatari athlete to compete in the Olympics.

The stories of the athletes broadcast and ignite feelings of passion, motivation, and determination, in addition to stories told by the pioneering men and women who were the first to compete and win for their country, religion, gender, age group, or race, most notably Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first veiled Muslim American athlete to compete in the Olympic Games in Rio 2016. This gallery serves as a platform for athletes who have over come enormous obstacles to achieve success, and whose reputation has transcended the boundaries of sports, and whose public image has become a powerful symbol.

“A Global History of Sport” gallery begins with a panorama depicting the practice of sports in various civilizations and cultures, most notably those of ancient Egypt, Rome, and Greece.

Olympic and Sports Museum, inaugurated on March 30 in Doha. (Photo: AFP/VNA/CVN). ports Hey’Ya Arab Women in Sports features photographs by Brigitte Lacombe (Courtesy Qatar Museums).

Visitors will learn how the Asian Games accelerated Qa tar’s development as a host nation, as well as how the event has accelerated the country’s urban transformation, creat 56 02/09/22

This section included a wall of memorabilia which were ac quired by athletes who participated in the 1896 Olympics to the 2021 Olympics, as well as Olympic medals and em blems, and amulets that first appeared in the Olympics in 1972 in Munich, Germany, with the “dog” amulet.

This gallery features informative video presentations that trace the history of Khalifa International Stadium from its inception in 1976 to the launch of the World Athletics Championships in 2019 and its renewal to host World Cup matches in 2022.

ing a world-class sports infrastructure worthy of hosting su perstar sports and their global audiences.

Also displayed are the birth of football in Qatar and the construction of the Doha Stadium, the country’s first sta dium, the most important sporting events hosted by Qatar, the history of Qatari clubs, and Qatar’s participation in the

This gallery also depicts events that are still etched in the collective memory of the country, such as the first Arab Gulf Cup championship in 1970 and visits by sports champions Muhammad Ali and Pele, as well as the construction of the famous Khalifa Stadium in 1976, which was a watershed mo ment in Qatar’s sports history.

The Museum has an area of approximately 19,000 square meters, making it the world’s second largest sports museum after the Museum of America. One of the jerseys worn by Brazilian Pelé is on display at the new The museum is comprised of two sections. (Courtesy Qatar Museums).

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Finally,Olympics.the seventh hall, Activation Zone, is the museum’s final stop for visitors, encouraging the adoption of healthy and active lifestyles and promoting physical activity through out Qatar. Visitors are invited to walk through six spaces inspired by Qatar’s landscape. Visitors will take part in a va riety of fun challenges as they explore the park, the market and desert, the beach, the city, and finally the arena. This interactive experience begins with the inspiring stories of people who made the decision to live a healthy and ac tive lifestyle, most notably Ghanim Al Muftah, a Qatari boy prodigy born with caudal retraction syndrome.

This gallery contains seven display cases that showcase a variety of experiences such as motorsports, equestrian, ten nis, athletics, handball, football, and AASAD 2006. Each case evokes the most memorable moments of Qatar’s global events in this sport, as well as its enduring legacy.

The sixth gallery space, Qatar Sports, tells the inspiring story of Qatar’s sports development, from traditional games to the arrival of international sport and the growth of interna tional competitions. Looking ahead to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, the gallery examines how sports have been and continue to be important to Qatar’s development.

Visitors will ride a virtual school bus that will take them on a journey exploring how sport has become central to the cur riculum, and they will also be able to experience the drama of important sporting events and hear the stories of their heroes through a series of interactive digital installations.

The gallery also brings to life Qatar’s long-established sports activities, such as falconry, pearl diving, and camel racing, by investigating how these sports are reflected in Qatar’s oral traditions and demonstrating how they are linked to Qatar’s heritage and landscape.

VARIOUS HEALTH PROBLEMS

In comparison, refined sugar is what’s added to food products to improve taste (which is why it’s also known as “added” sugar).

The top food sources of added refined sugar include soft drinks, fruit-flavored drinks, flavored yogurts, cereals, cookies, and cakes. But refined sugar is also found in most processed foods, including products you might not associate with sweetness, like soups, bread, cured meats, and ketchup.

A study by Harvard researchers found an association between a diet high in refined sugars and a greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. Over 15 years, people who got 17% to 21% of their calories from refined sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who consumed only 8% of their calories as refined sugar.

unhealthy? It depends

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When you eat a food that naturally contains sugar, your body digests that sugar slowly because whole fruits, vegetables, milk, and grains also have plenty of other components -- particularly fiber and protein -- that slow the digestion process. Foods high in refined sugar typically don’t have as much of these helpful nutrients, so the body digests the sugars faster.

HealthByMatthewSolan

amount

Consuming these kinds of whole foods is smart -- current guidelines recommend you eat about two cups of fruit and two to three cups of vegetables per day, and six ounces of whole grains, like brown rice, oats, and quinoa.

Another study, published online March 21, 2022, by Cell Me tabolism, found that consuming excess refined sugar over a long time is linked to an increased risk of developing an au toimmune disease, such Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, or some kinds of thyroid disease.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise that all Ameri cans limit refined sugars in their daily diet to less than 10% of total calories. The American Heart Association is more spe cific and suggests that men consume no more than 150 calories (about the amount found in 9 teaspoons of table sugar) from refined sugar per day. Unfortunately, the average daily intake of refined sugar is the equivalent of about 17 teaspoons, providing 270 calories. Keeping track of numbers like this isn’t easy. Dr. Sacks says a more straightforward approach to curbing your intake of refined sugar is to cut back (or cut out) the following food sources: - regular soda - juice drinks, like fruit punch and juice “cocktails” - energy drinks sugar on the and the food source

“Whole fruits, vegetables, and grains also contain fiber, phy tochemicals, antioxidants, and various vitamins and minerals you need for optimal health,” says Dr. Sacks. “People need to eat more of these foods, not less, so don’t shun them to curb sugar intake.”

Refined sugar comes from cane, sugar beets, and corn, which are processed to isolate the sugar. Added refined sugars include sucrose (table sugar), glucose, and high-fructose corn syrup.

“Sugar is a carbohydrate that provides the body with energy, so it has an important role in nutrition,” says Dr. Frank Sacks, a professor of cardiovascular disease prevention at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “The problem people have with sugar is they often consume too much of the wrong kind.”

Sugar has a complex relationship with health. On one hand, many healthy whole foods contain natural sugar. But the greater concern is the abundance of refined sugar often added to pro cessed foods.

HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

A healthy way to think about sugar is to consider its source.

A TALE OF TWO SUGARS

Natural sugars are found in whole fruits, vegetables, milk prod ucts, and grains. Fruit and some vegetables contain forms of sugar called fructose, glucose, and sucrose, while milk contains lactose, and grains have maltose.

“This is why you often don’t feel full after eating foods high in refined sugar, no matter how many calories you consume, and why people have a tendency to overeat processed foods,” says Dr. Sacks. A diet high in refined sugar is associated with numerous health issues. For example, multiple studies have linked consuming added sugar to a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, and unhealthy blood triglyceride levels.

One study found that about two-thirds of coffee drinkers and one-third of tea drinkers add sugar or sugary flavorings to their drinks, accounting for more than 60% of the bev erages’ calories. Try to use half the amount of your usual sugar or sweetener. (It doesn’t take long for your taste buds to adjust to the change.)

Added sugars are identified on a product’s ingredient label. They often are called by names other than “sugar.” Here are the ones you should look for, according to the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2015-2020: < agave nectar < brown sugar < cane crystals < cane sugar < corn sweetener < corn syrup < crystalline fructose < dextrose < evaporated cane juice < fructose < fruit juice concentrates < glucose < honey < invert sugar < lactose < malt sugar < malt syrup < maltose < maple syrup < molasses < raw sugar < sucrose This article was originally published by Harvard Men’s Health Watch. 59 02/09/22

Another strategy is to be savvier about reading food labels.

- sports drinks - sweet tea - sugared coffee drinks - sweetened water

But don’t be overzealous about your sugar cutting, adds Dr. Sacks. “There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a choco late chip cookie or scoop of ice cream,” he says. “But eat them in moderation -- a cookie or two instead of a dozen or a single scoop of ice cream in a small bowl.”

LOOK CLOSER AT FOOD LABELS

“Checking products for the kinds of refined sugar and the amounts per serving can help you make healthier grocery selections,” says Dr. Sacks. (See “Look closer at food la Also,bels.”)keep tabs on the sugar you add to foods or beverages.

Photo credit: Wikimedialatehealth.comformuviaCommons

A healthy way to think about sugar is to consider its source. Natural sugars are found in whole fruits, vegetables, milk products, and grains.

If one thing is true, it is that everything comes to an end. Before the USA became the world reserve currency, the British pound facilitated most trades. However, after WWII, the USA became the leading supplier of weapons and goods, allowing it to accumulate large amounts of gold. However, owing to the war, European countries could not return to their fundamental monetary system. As such, an agreement (Bretton Woods Agreement) came about and was signed by 44 allied nations in order to manage foreign exchange. They decided that their currencies would be pegged to the USD, which was pegged to gold. This led to countries storing their money in US treasuries. However, the pegging didn’t last long. This is because the USA›s reckless behavior led governments to be concerned about the dollar›s stability. They started converting their dollars to gold, but the USA couldn’t allow that. As a result, President Richard Nixon unpegged the dollar from gold. Even after such events and periods of stagflations, recessions, and inflations, the USD miraculously is still the world reserve currency and central banks hold %59 of their reserves in USD. However, concerns are rising again, especially security-related concerns on the overreliance on the USD. This is leading to discourse about whether it is even possible for other currencies, especially the Renminbi, to become the world reserve. To answer such a question, we must explore what is needed to be a world reserve currency and whether it is a good thing. It is hard to give a conclusive answer, but preliminarily, the currency will need to be stable and accepted by most countries. Furthermore, it needs to be widely circulated by either running a current account deficit and/or widely reinvesting overseas. Also, there must be a large market of low-risk asset market such as treasury, bonds etc., to store the currency. Lastly, the currency must be withdrawable at demand. China meets such basic requirements except for the last one. After fulfilling these basic conditions, topped with much political and economic strategic planning, the country will start to reap the advantages of being a world reserve currency. This begins with reduced exchange rate risk as contracts will be in their own currency. This will make the countries more attractive to FDI as there is more liquidity in that currency. In addition, access to loans is more easily provided. This will help allow the country to have easy access to capital. Although never explicitly mentioned, China seems to be striving to become the world reserve currency, especially with its many benefits. Many Chinese actions don’t primarily strive to increase the Renminbi reserves. However, they indirectly lead to that. For instance, the Belt and Road initiative, primarily financed by the Chinese Renminbi, must be paid in that way as such countries that borrow from China have Renminbi reserves. Furthermore, the war has strengthened the trade between BRICS countries. Hostile political behavior has made such countries less dependent on the USA in trade and loans. Both factors have increased China›s presence in the export and financial market, making the Renminbi reserve more attractive.Criticsof the Renminbi and the possibility of its becoming a world currency love to point out how China is a currency manipulator. This is past news as it is not deemed a manipulator anymore.

Furthermore, the Renminbi has been relatively more stable than the USD due to its fixed currency system making it more attractive. Another criticism is that China tends to sanction assets without any valid justification, as seen with Australia’s sanction, while the USA only imposes sanctions against terroristic behavior. However, in reality, such normative values are mere rhetoric - both countries abuse all their means for political and economic gains. In conclusion, will the Renminbi become the world currency? Well, it ticks many conditions needed to be a world currency reserve. As such, contrary to many opinions, it›s very possible.

60 02/09/22 pinion oWilltheRenminbibecometheworldcurrency?Well,itticksmanyconditionsneededtobeaworldcurrencyreserve.Assuch,contrarytomanyopinions,it›sverypossibleBySaifAl-Abri Is China becoming the world currency reserve? .