American Voices Emerge in Support of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance

Can the West Prevent the Slow Strangulation of Ukraine?

Is Libya Finally Ready for Peace?

A Weekly Political News Magazine

The Foreign Policy Genius of George H. W. Bush

Issue 1725 - December 07/12/2018

American Voices Emerge in Support of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance www.majalla.com

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Issue 1725 - December 07/12/2018

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American Voices Emerge in Support of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance Amid Severe Challenges to the Historic Relationship, a Range of Prominent Figures Emerge to Defend it 8

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Even in this trying period for U.S.-Saudi relations, independent voices in a democratic society are standing up for continuity and partnership later, on November 27, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo elaborating on the spirit of these sentiments in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled, “The U.S.-Saudi Partnership Is Vital.” He noted the importance of Saudi efforts to “secure Iraq’s fragile democracy and keep Baghdad tethered to the West’s interests, not Tehran’s”; “manag[ing] the flood of refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war;” and “cooperating closely with Egypt.” But going further, Pompeo faulted critics of the U.S.-Saudi alliance for hypocrisy: “Is it any coincidence that the people using the Khashoggi murder as a cudgel against President Trump’s Saudi Arabia policy are the same people who supported Barack Obama’s rapprochement with Iran — a regime that has killed thousands world-wide, including hundreds of Americans, and brutalizes its own people?”

U.S. President Donald Trump (left 3) is welcomed by Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (R) during their arrival at the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May ,20 2017. (Getty)

Two days later, veteran Mideast peace envoy Dennis Ross, who has served senior foreign policy roles in Democratic as well as Republican administrations, published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling on Americans to transcend partisan politics in formulating a smart policy toward Saudi Arabia. On the other hand he signaled the importance of maintaining the anti-Iran alliance of which Saudi Arabia is a crucial component.

by Joseph Braude While American media criticism and political challenges to Saudi Arabia have continued in recent weeks, a countervailing trend has also emerged: In the wake of the Khashoggi killing, a variety of American voices from both parties have been standing up for the U.S.-Saudi alliance.

The most powerful of these voices are naturally those that emanate from the White House. President Trump’s November 20th statement in support of the U.S.-Saudi alliance noted that Saudis "have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country and all other partners in the region. It is our paramount goal to fully eliminate the threat of terrorism throughout the world!” One week

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A more staunch defense of the Saudi-American alliance appeared in the New York Times in an article by the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran, formerly a senior director in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush; and Tony Badran, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. They concluded that Trump’s critics, in counseling aggressive punitive measures against the Kingdom, are “long on abstract morality but lacking in strategic wisdom.”

These and a variety of other statements in favor of the alliance include elements that may be discomfiting to those who would expect to see full-throated support for Saudi Arabia. But they are also indicative of the fact that, even in this trying period for U.S.-Saudi relations, independent voices in a democratic society are standing up for continuity and partnership.

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George HW Bush Embodied Values of Decency, Humility, Courage, and Empathy Dennis Ross Reflects on Time with President George HW Bush 10

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He made America first not by proclaiming it but by ensuring that others saw the benefit of identifying with us and supporting our goals.

He was a politician, a statesman, and a leader, and I was lucky enough to see him wear each of those hats. As a member of the National Security Council staff at the White House, I would travel with him when he was Vice President and made a trip to the Middle East in the summer of 1986. He was not interested in making a purely symbolic trip; like always he wanted to do something with purpose. When I suggested that he use the visit to produce a statement of common principles on peace between Israel, Egypt and Jordan, he accepted my recommendation over the objection of all the other senior foreign policy aides on the trip who felt such an objective was not possible.

Why, they argued, would Jordan join such a statement when Egypt was still ostracized by other Arab countries for having made peace with Israel? And, why risk trying and failing.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Secretary of State Colin Powell (C) and former military officials from the Gulf War salute the casket of the late former President George H.W. Bush as he lies in state at the U.S. Capitol, December 2018 ,4 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

by Dennis Ross* No one who ever assumed the presidency was more prepared for the job than George H.W. Bush. He had been the head of our mission to China, ambassador to the United Nations, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and then Vice President. Prior to his service in the executive branch of government, he had been an elected congressman. He knew something about the separation of powers—and his experience gave me a perspective about how governing should work.

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My argument was that with Israel’s national unity government about to rotate the prime minister and foreign minister (with Shimon Peres turning the premiership over to Yitzhak Shamir), there was an opening. With both Mubarak and Hussein perceiving Peres as far more flexible than Shamir, they had a stake in establishing principles that would bind Shamir as he took the reins—and Peres had a reason to create guidelines that would allow him to push peace as the foreign minister. Bush accepted the argument and said “let’s go for it.” And, we would succeed in producing such a statement on his trip.

I would see him often after the trip and he would ask me to leave the NSC staff and become the Foreign Policy Advisor to his presidential campaign. I would join the campaign the same time that Jim Baker took it over. Even though I was a democrat, I liked Bush and Baker— and my party registration was irrelevant to

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them. After Bush won, I would join Baker at the State Department. As one of Baker’s close aides, I would see President Bush often as we dealt with issues related to the Soviet Union, Europe and the Middle East. He had an image of being cautious—but that does not capture who he was. Yes, he was careful, and as he might say “prudent.” But being prudent required taking calculated risks—as he did in pursuing a statement of common principles between Egypt, Israel and Jordan when the safe bet for his 1986 trip as Vice President was simply be ceremonial.

Deciding when the Berlin Wall came down to mobilize the world behind unifying Germany in NATO was a risky move, especially when the Soviets, British and French were all certain to be opposed—and, indeed, the experts on Europe in the administration and pundits on the outside all felt this was simply not achievable and should not be pursued.

However, Bush saw the bigger risk of not having a unified Germany in NATO: he felt its unification was a certainty because Germans wanted it and would resent those who sought to prevent it; a unified Germany not in NATO would become an object of competition between the blocs and a Germany that was not in NATO would feel it had to ensure its security on its own—and that would lead it to feeling it must have an independent nuclear weapons capability.

That was a far greater danger than the risk of not being able to overcome Soviet, British and French opposition.

Bush embodied values of decency, humility, courage, and empathy— and he exhibited those in dealing with international leaders as well as those who worked for him.

Bush and Baker succeeded in producing a unified Germany in NATO because they framed the issue, worked intensively to address the concerns and problems of each party, met or were in touch with Gorbachev, Thatcher, and Mitterand—as well as Kohl and Genscher— reassuring and providing inducements where necessary but also making clear this outcome could not be prevented. Their exercise of statecraft was extraordinary in making our objectives appear acceptable to all parties. Here was America leading, mobilizing and guiding a process from start to finish.

He and Baker would do the same in putting together the Gulf war coalition. It took finesse, and a recognition of how to build a coalition of diverse countries with very diverse needs, and,

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William J. Perry , of the Hoover Institution and former secretary of Defense, and Dennis B. Ross, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former adviser to presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, during the Senate Armed Services hearing on U.S. policy in Iraq. (Getty)

Bush was a leader of consequence who knew how to react to sweeping changes geopolitically but he retained humility and wanted all those working for him to reflect that as well. we forced Saddam’s army out of Kuwait, the King took the president at his word—he knew it was good. When Bush resisted pressures to go to Baghdad, it was, in no small part, because that was not one of the objectives he had mobilized the world to support and he was not going to go back on his word.

as importantly, an understanding of what it would take to sustain it. They would succeed at this again, because they took the lead, and they succeeded in getting the international community to accept the objectives that the US identified.

Bush led, but he also understood that America was more effective when its objectives were shared by the international community and our aims gained broader legitimacy as a result. He made America first not by proclaiming it but by ensuring that others saw the benefit of identifying with us and supporting our goals.

It helped that his word was trusted. When he said Saddam Hussein’s aggression would not stand, he acted and proved it. When he told King Fahd our forces would be in Saudi Arabia only until

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Bush was a leader of consequence who knew how to react to sweeping changes geopolitically but he retained humility and wanted all those working for him to reflect that as well. He made clear there would be no gloating in the aftermath of the collapse of the Berlin Wall—and not simply because it might cause far worse political damage to Gorbachev but also because change brought uncertainty and we had to know how to manage it. He certainly put America first but also saw us as part of a global commons with responsibilities to others. He was a believer in global norms and reacted to Saddam’s aggression because he saw us on the cusp of a new era and he wanted it characterized by the rule of law not by the law of the jungle.

Bush embodied values of decency, humility, courage, and empathy—and he exhibited those in dealing with international leaders as well as those who worked for him. His thank you notes and shows of kindness were legendary. He believed pubic service was an honor and a duty, and it was an honor to have worked for him. *American Middle East envoy Dennis Ross has served in the Administrations of Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, and is counselor and Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington.

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The Foreign Policy Genius of George H. W. Bush How He Changed the Policy Process Forever 14

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The essential foreign policy process established by Bush and Scowcroft has endured for nearly 30 years and stands as a grand testament to their wisdom and foresight of conflict among senior officials that had tarnished the Nixon, Carter, and Reagan administrations.

That process has stood the test of time. Every president after Bush has embraced the formal process that Bush set out in a memorandum on his first day in office, and every national security adviser has explicitly sought to model his or her tenure on Scowcroft’s example. None, however, has lived up to the brilliance of Bush and Scowcroft.

BUSH IN THEORY

George Bush waves to a crowd of supporters November 1988 ,5 in the USA. (Getty)

By Ivo H. Daalder, I. M. Destler George H. W. Bush entered the presidency better prepared to lead the United States’ relations with the world than any U.S. president before or since. Like Richard Nixon, Bush had served in Congress and as vice president for two full terms. But he had also been the United States’ envoy to China and director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

That experience allowed him to reimagine the way the U.S. government created and implemented its foreign policy. Together with his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, Bush fashioned a national security process that maximized internal cooperation and avoided the kind

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Bush’s long service in government meant that when he was elected president, he knew a lot about the world and, crucially, how important it was to appoint the right people to deal with it. He knew he wanted James Baker, his close friend and political partner in Texas, in a senior role. Baker had brought order to the Reagan White House and, as Treasury secretary, defused a major crisis in trade policy. The day after the 1988 election, Bush named Baker as his secretary of state.

He knew he didn’t want Donald Rumsfeld, President Gerald Ford’s brilliant but irascible defense secretary, who had fought with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and would later help get Bush’s son George into deep trouble by mismanaging the Iraq war. Bush avoided appointing Rumsfeld to anything.

Above all, Bush wanted team players who would respect one another and work together to manage a fast-changing world. He knew that cooperation would not come automatically; it would have to be nurtured. To make that happen, he knew he needed to craft an effective process for managing national security policy. And he knew whom he wanted to help him do it: Brent Scowcroft, Ford’s quietly effective national security adviser.

Bush knew from firsthand experience that a bad process could kill even good policies. For much of the Reagan administration, feuds between top advisers, especially between Secretary of State George Shultz and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, stymied effective policymaking. A string of national security advisers proved unable to bring the two giants together and decided that the best way to serve the often inattentive Reagan was

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to make policy on their own. The result was the disastrous Iran-contra affair, the attempt to trade arms for hostages that nearly brought down Reagan’s presidency.

Bush learned from this debacle. In Scowcroft, he found the right man to lead a national security process that would avoid the excesses of prior administrations.

Scowcroft had served on the Tower Commission, which investigated the Iran-contra affair. He had drafted the commission’s recommendations on how to establish a well-functioning National Security Council (NSC) and decision-making process. The key was to empower the national security adviser as an honest broker who would bring well-developed options to the president for him to consider and decide on. He would still advise the president, but, Scowcroft wrote in the Tower Report, he “should generally operate offstage” and not “try to compete with the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense as the articulator of public policy.”

Bush and Scowcroft turned those words into reality.

They proved that an administration could have a strong secretary of state and a strong national security adviser— and a president clearly in charge of both. As the familiar Cold War world of the past 40 years began to disintegrate, they found they needed just that kind of cooperative process.

BUSH IN PRACTICE After the Berlin Wall fell in autumn 1989, the future of Germany became the central European question. It had long been said, only half in jest, that the role of NATO was, as Lord Ismay, the institution’s first secretarygeneral, once quipped, “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” Now, fears of a unified Germany reemerged. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand were particularly anxious. In 1990, realizing that reunification was inevitable, the Bush administration set out to maximize confidence and minimize fears. The first task was to deal with the serious tensions within West Germany between Chancellor Helmut Kohl and

Every president since has adopted the Bush-Scowcroft model for cabinet-level and interagency foreign-policy making.

Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher. Bush worked with Kohl, and Baker with Genscher, in a “four plus two” negotiating process (four occupying powers plus two Germanys). The result was a German republic within, and constrained by, NATO, an outcome Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev accepted as the least bad option available. Throughout the year, with Bush and Baker doing the public diplomacy, Scowcroft drew on NSC staffers and and a collegial interagency process to develop policy ideas to achieve the overriding goal of winding down the Cold War with a reunited Germany anchored in the West.

Then, in the summer of 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein shocked the world by invading Kuwait. “This will not stand,” Bush declared at Scowcroft’s urging. Baker traveled the world, building an unprecedented coalition to reverse Saddam’s actions. He won military and diplomatic support and extracted funds to help finance the U.S. war effort. Once again, Bush’s cooperative policy process triumphed as international sanctions were followed by military action and the liberation of Kuwait. Options

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U.S President George H.W. Bush and staff brief the press in the Rose Garden at the White House about the visit of Cheney and Powell who had just returned from the Middle East prior to commencement of Desert Storm, the 1991 ground war with Iraq, February 1991 ,11 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

were examined and debated; all views, including those opposed to military action, got a full and fair hearing.

Scowcroft managed the process from the inside, while key cabinet members and officials acted on the outside.

Bush was met with thunderous applause in Congress when he reported the coalition’s success in March 1991.

His approval rating hit 89 percent in a Gallup opinion poll. It was not to last. Burdened by a weakened economy and a perceived failure to address it, Bush experienced a steady decline in support throughout that year and into the next. He lost reelection to a foreign policy neophyte, Bill Clinton, and departed office as a one-term president.

But the changes Bush brought would endure.

Every president since has adopted the Bush-Scowcroft model for cabinet-level and interagency foreign-policy making. That model includes committees at multiple governmental levels, from the Principals Committee, which is made up of cabinet secretaries and chaired by the national security adviser, down to a large number of interagency committees made up of assistant secretaries addressing regional and functional issues.

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Bush and Scowcroft proved that an administration could have a strong secretary of state and a strong national security adviser—and a president clearly in charge of both, The membership of the committees has evolved, as have the issues that the different interagency groups address, and different administrations have followed the formal process in their own ways. But the essential system has endured for nearly 30 years and stands as a grand testament to Bush and Scowcroft’s wisdom and foresight.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Is Libya Finally Ready for Peace?

The Palermo Summit and the Case for Optimism

by Frederic Wehrey, Jalel Harchaoui Pity Libyans for the pageantry of their international summits.

Over the years, at palaces, resorts, and hotels across several continents, the country’s factional leaders have met, shepherded by earnest-looking Western ministers and heads of state. Action plans are laid out and deadlines set. The participants emerge with verbal promises of consensus, a photo op, sometimes even a hug. Meanwhile, back in Libya citizens languish under warring militias, economic misery, and aloof elites. Invariably, after each summit, vows pronounced in remote locales disintegrate on contact with these more proximate realities.

On November 13–12, Italy’s populist government played host to the latest such event, this time in the city of Palermo, Sicily. The meeting occurred in the shadow of intense Italian rivalry with

France over Libya. Last May, at a largely unilateral summit in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron had obtained from four Libyan leaders a verbal commitment to hold general elections by December of this year—a deadline that the UN quietly shelved earlier this month as untenable. Palermo was meant as Italian revenge. By forging a new local and international consensus on Libya, a successful summit would have bolstered Italy’s claim to being the most relevant and credible Western power broker in the embattled North African country.

This is not what happened, as no clear message emerged from Palermo. The Libyan participants—most crucially Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj, who heads the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli; and his rival, the military leader Field Marshal Khalifa Hafar, who rules the so-called Tobruk government in the country’s east—emerged

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with yet another UN-backed pledge to hold an election, now slated to take place by June 2019. Libyan delegates held side working groups on security and the economy. But beyond this, the summit produced no breakthrough agreement.

What Palermo did produce was a somewhat abstract roadmap to guide Libya toward free and fair elections. Yet even if elections are successful, they won’t suffice to produce unity or lasting stability—it remains an open question, for instance, how the outcome can be peacefully enforced across a country split between rival governments. The UN seems to be counting on an ambitious National Conference in January, which will include representatives from Libya’s opposing factions as well as mayors, tribal leaders, civil society, and ordinary citizens, to resolve all these issues. But although the conference may indeed help, it could also engender further controversies and delay elections once again. And the unification of Libya’s economic and security institutions, currently divided between east and west, will require painstaking and difficult work.

Despite these obstacles, however, there have been encouraging developments in Libya over the past few months. These include progress reining in Tripoli’s militias and economic reforms by the GNA. Taken together, these developments offer, for the first time in years, reason for guarded optimism about Libya’s future.

The international community must capitalize on this momentum while mitigating a number of looming risks.

POSITIVE CHANGES IN LIBYA

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte (L) greets self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) Chief of Staff, Khalifa Haftar upon his arrival for a conference on Libya on November 2018 ,12 at Villa Igiea in Palermo. (Getty)

The Palermo conference took place under the lingering shadow of intense militia fighting in Tripoli, which left 115 dead over the summer. The clashes were predictable. A clique of Tripoli militias had captured state institutions and economic resources, using their association with the GNA to secure fraudulent letters of credit from the Central Bank. This allowed them to swap Libyan dinars for dollars at the official exchange rate and then sell the dollars on the black market, while also exploiting the shortage of banknotes for profit. In August, militias based in the capital’s periphery, which felt left out of the scam, used violence to disrupt the status quo. The clashes this summer were only the latest example of a pattern that has recurred since the fall of Tripoli to anti-Qaddafi rebels in 2011: militias compete for the capital’s assets, including airports, banks, ports, and fuelsmuggling networks. This produces winners and losers in Tripoli and in two powerful neighboring towns, Zintan and Misrata.

From time to time, the losers in this struggle launch attacks to shift the balance of power.

In late September, a UN-brokered ceasefire halted the latest round of fighting by getting the main armed actors in the greater Tripoli area to agree to new security arrangements, overseen by a “joint operations center” meant to protect citizens and property and pave the way for the replacement of militias with regular police. (The model is meant to be replicated in other Libyan cities but faces enormous hurdles—previous militia “coordination” mechanisms have ended up entrenching militia power.) To help

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The most lasting and durable way to deny ISIS space in Libya is to build inclusive Libyan state institutions, bolster the economy, and, above all, end the country’s endemic political divide. implement these arrangements, the GNA appointed a new interior minister, the Misratan businessman Fathi Bashagha.

Despite supporting a Misratan attack on Tripoli in 2014 known as the Libyan Dawn, Bashagha has a reputation for pragmatism and efficiency. He is also a known quantity to Western governments, especially on military and counterterrorism matters: he interfaced with Western ground advisors during the 2011 revolution and again in 2016, during the Misratan-led campaign ISIS in Sirte.

He has also proven more amenable than other Misratan elites to compromise with eastern Libya and its foreign backers, such as Egypt, whose officials he held peace talks with in July 2017.

Bashagha alone cannot guarantee lasting peace in Tripoli, but there have been some positive signs since the start of his tenure.

Breaking with typical cronyist practice, he has made his new security appointments without favor to his fellow Misratans. He has also set up a human rights section in the Interior Ministry; called for the withdrawal of heavy weapons outside Tripoli; and emphasized the need for vetting and training regular police forces while disbanding militias. The persistence of entrenched militia interests in the capital—all too apparent from the fighting in midNovember—could quash the best of his aspirations, but at least Western countries now have a credible partner in training and assisting Libya’s police.

The GNA has also made some headway on economic reforms, which, had they been implemented earlier, could have staved off the fighting in Tripoli. Under UN pressure, the GNA and the Central Bank governor have agreed on exchange rate reform (to include a 183 percent fee on dinar-to-dollar conversion), greater access to hard currency for citizens, and some small reductions in fuel subsidies. These actions have slightly curtailed the militias’ ability to steal from the public treasury, especially by means of fraudulent letters of credit.

More important, such measures are alleviating humanitarian suffering: the price of commodities has gone down as the dinar has strengthened against the dollar. By making the dinar officially cheaper and by ensuring a larger supply of dollars at that new rate, the GNA effectively caused the dinar to appreciate in the black market. Still, many additional measures must be taken, including a full-blown devaluation of the dinar; an independent audit of both the Central Bank in Tripoli and its challenger in Bayda; a tangible plan to depoliticize and unify Libya’s financial institutions; and a decentralization of the latter to allow an

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equitable distribution of Libya’s oil wealth to municipalities.

The UN must also help Libya transition to an electronic banking system.

The political and economic progress in the west raises another of Libya’s perennial questions: that of Haftar and his aspirations for national power. By changing his mind about attending Palermo several times over, Haftar managed to cast himself as an indispensable powerbroker, if not a savior of his country.

Yet the limits of his military and political influence have come increasingly into view as conditions on the ground have changed.

For years, Haftar waged military campaigns against Islamist militants in the east—in Benghazi from 2014 to 2017 and then in Derna earlier this autumn. But these campaigns have come to an end, leaving Haftar without a new “battle” to fortify his identity as a security figure and unify the increasingly fractious coalition of tribes, towns, economic interests and Salafists that back him.

Over the summer, Haftar recaptured central Libya’s oil facilities from the militia leader Ibrahim Jadhran, then blocked exports from the internationally recognized National Oil Company while demanding the ability to sell directly to the international market from his base in the east. He quickly gave in after Washington expressed its disapproval. More recently, he has positioned himself as fighting the growing anarchy in southwestern Libya, but this remains a logistically and militarily difficult task.

All in all, the events of the past half-year have steadily eroded any notion that Haftar is the only leader strong enough to unify the country. At Palermo, the septuagenarian general seemed to recognize this when he expressed his interest in seeing Serraj staying in his post until elections. Indeed, if the GNA is revamped into a slimmed-down transitional government with a brand-new prime minister at its helm— and manages to be more functional and less corrupt—Haftar could lose his last hope of becoming a national leader. Paradoxically, a rush into early elections next year, before the groundwork for success has been fully laid, may be the military commander’s best chance for realizing his national ambitions.

BUILDING ON PALERMO

Despite periodic clashes and a deepening de facto partition of Libya, the above developments reveal a country that has become more stable and more difficult for spoilers to disrupt. In order

For the first time since 2011, progress is being made along three parallel and mutually reinforcing tracks: economic, security, and political.

to take advantage of this fragile trend and help promote lasting peace in Libya, the various foreign powers with sway in the country must display collective pragmatism now, before the situation deteriorates.

Unfortunately, many countries at Palermo seemed uninterested in such a course and remained wedded to their preferred Libyan faction’s exclusivist instincts. This has allowed these rival Libyan actors to carry on seeking maximal victory without fear of being constrained by their external backers. Put differently, part of the divisiveness fueling the Libyan conflict has roots abroad. The historical rivalry between Paris and Rome over Libya—France has supported Haftar while Italy has backed the GNA—has recently been amplified by the liberal-vs.-populist chasm within the EU, which pits Macron against the right-wing government in Italy.

These exogenous dynamics added noise to the summit and deflected attention from broader structural problems that still remain in Libya, among them the question of how to hold free and fair national elections in which neither candidates nor voters feel at risk. The announcement at Palermo that general elections should take place by June 2019 implied that the French plan from May was still in progress, just with a few months’ delay. Yet Paris’ push for rapid elections met resistance from the first, and the obstacles remain. Namely, eastern Libyan factions remain determined to manipulate any attempt to adopt a constitution ahead of national elections. The only opportunity to resolve this impasse is at the UN’s National Conference early next year.

Meanwhile, there is still a risk that the violence that engulfed Tripoli in the final weeks of summer could resume. The UN, France, and Italy consulted several armed-group leaders during

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Libyans wave national flags as they attend a celebration marking the seventh anniversary of the Libyan revolution which toppled late leader and strongman Moamer Kadhafi, in the capital Tripoli›s Martyrs Square on February 2018 ,17.

(Getty)

Because European and Middle Eastern rivalries carry on fueling the Libyan crisis, the United States should also consider playing a more assertive role.

AN OPENING FOR THE UNITED STATES

that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had in mind. Yet the recommendations it produced are not doomed to fail. For the first time since 2011, progress is being made along three parallel and mutually reinforcing tracks: economic, security, and political. To that end, the UN mission, whose formal mandate has been mainly political, is more actively guiding Libya’s economic reform and is especially present in the security realm. More overtly than before, it is seeking to isolate rejectionist armed actors—most notably the Misratan militia chief Salah Badi, who was the target of recent UN sanctions— while engaging with more moderate and pragmatic groups. As the UN takes on this new, ambitious role of security architect, member states must help it succeed while ceasing their own unilateral outreach to armed groups.

Because European and Middle Eastern rivalries carry on fueling the Libyan crisis, the United States should also consider playing a more assertive role. Realistically, Washington is the only actor capable of deterring external interference. The firm, public engagement of a cabinet-level official, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, could go a long way toward forging a regional consensus, particularly between Egypt, the Gulf states, and Turkey. The Pentagon in particular can make a difference, by taking on a greater role in talks on Libyan army unification and in offering assistance, especially in ministerial-level reform and training, once a political compact is reached.

Engagement in Libya would serve a major U.S. foreign policy objective: fostering lasting political unity in Libya would go a long way toward preventing the resurgence of ISIS. Although ousted from its Libyan territorial bases in 2016 and 2017, the group has conducted more than a dozen attacks in Libya this year, some against institutions vital for the country’s recovery, such as the state oil company and electoral commission. And ISIS also appears to be regrouping and pooling its fighters— estimated at between 400 and 750, according to the United States Africa Command—into more capable cells. Air strikes and assistance to Libyan counterterrorism forces (in effect, friendly Libyan militias) can help, but they are not enough.

The most lasting and durable way to deny ISIS space in Libya is to build inclusive Libyan state institutions, bolster the economy, and, above all, end the country’s endemic political divide.

The Palermo summit certainly was not the smooth success

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

the lead up to the Palermo event but did not bring the most polarized adversaries together around one table On the day after the peace conference, two militias behind much of the violence in August took the international airport in southern Tripoli by force. The incident was a reminder that the leaders of armed groups, who wield far more power on the ground than political elites, must be part of the negotiating process, without sacrificing accountability and justice.

There have been some positive international efforts to rebuild Libya’s military and security establishments. In recent weeks, Italy and several other states offered security-forces training programs to Tripoli authorities. But in order for these programs to succeed, Libyans must reach a political consensus about the ultimate structure of the country’s security sector and the steps that will be necessary to build it. Outside assistance should focus on broader structural reforms, not just on training soldiers and small units. Last year, Egypt launched a top-down attempt to reunify Libya’s scattered military structures by mediating an entente between Haftar’s mostly eastern-based coalition and other groups led by professional army officers, some of them aligned with the GNA. The effort stalled in the spring, and when Cairo tried to revive it in October, some western-based officers objected on the basis of Egypt’s partiality toward Haftar. The UN could inject more neutrality—and thus momentum—into this project by taking an active role in it.

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Can the West Prevent the Slow Strangulation of Ukraine?

Creeping Russian Aggression Cannot Go Unchecked

By Peter Dickinson Recent events in the Black Sea have thrust Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine back into the international headlines, but for ordinary Ukrainians, it never went away. Over the past four and a half years, Ukrainian society has grown grimly familiar with a unique brand of creeping Russian aggression that has been carefully calibrated to cause maximum damage

while avoiding the crippling costs implicit in a more conventional campaign. Russia’s hybrid hostilities have extended far beyond the country’s thinly veiled military intervention in eastern Ukraine, with Moscow also making use of targeted assassinations, cyberattacks, trade embargoes, and disinformation campaigns to keep Ukraine permanently destabilized and to prevent the country’s final escape from the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. Throughout it all, the one constant has been a desire to disguise Russian involvement. This emphasis on

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If unchecked, Russian control of the Sea of Azov would set the stage for the nightmare scenario of amphibious landings to seize an overland corridor along the Ukrainian coastline connecting Russia with Crimea. ports. Ukrainian officials also saw the naval attack as a deliberate escalation in the conflict and a potential precursor to a full-scale land offensive, coming as it did amid reports of a significant buildup of Russian army units along the Ukrainian border. The country’s National Security and Defense Council was duly convened and called for the imposition of martial law. A watereddown version of this proposal was then confirmed by parliamentary vote, allowing for martial law in ten border regions for a -30day period. Ukraine has since barred most military-age Russian males from entering the country while martial law is in place.

Inevitably, this interpretation of events has been vocally contested by Russia. Moscow has labeled the Black Sea clashes as a reckless provocation staged by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in order to improve his chances of reelection in a spring 2019 vote that he is widely expected to lose. According to the Kremlin narrative, Poroshenko hopes to boost his flagging approval rating by playing up the Russian threat as a distraction from his domestic shortcomings.

Ukrainian servicemen on armored personal carriers (APC) take part in brigade tactical exercises with combat shooting near Goncharivske willage, Chernihiv region, not far from the border with Russia on December 2018 ,3.

(Getty)

plausible deniability made Russia’s November 25 naval attack on three Ukrainian vessels a watershed moment.

For the first time since the start of the conflict in spring 2014, Russian forces operating under the Russian flag had openly attacked Ukraine.

The reaction in Kiev reflected the perceived broader significance of the incident. The immediate issue at stake was access to Ukraine’s Sea of Azov coastline, home to some of the country’s most economically important

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Moscow’s explanation conveniently ignores months of hostile Russian actions in the Sea of Azov zone preceding the November 25 incident. Ever since the early 2018 completion of a much-trumpeted Russian bridge across the Kerch Strait connecting occupied Crimea with the Russian mainland, Ukraine’s Sea of Azov ports have experienced mounting difficulties. The bridge itself is too low to accommodate around 30 percent of the shipping that previously plied the Azov Sea route to Ukraine’s ports, while Russian officials have regularly restricted remaining maritime traffic, either by closing the bottleneck Kerch Strait or intercepting and delaying merchant shipping in the Sea of Azov itself.

The resultant semi-blockade conditions have imposed significant costs on the Ukrainian economy while also

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expanding the erosion of Ukrainian sovereignty beyond Crimea into the surrounding waters. If unchecked, Russian control of the Sea of Azov would set the stage for the nightmare scenario of amphibious landings to seize an overland corridor along the Ukrainian coastline connecting Russia with Crimea. Few in Kiev regard it as coincidental that Russian military exercises have recently included a significantly enhanced emphasis on amphibious operations.

THE WEST’S WEAK RESPONSE Prior to the late November Black Sea escalation, Ukraine had responded to the slow strangulation of its Sea of Azov ports by boosting its naval presence in the area and beginning construction of a new naval base. With this in mind, a small Ukrainian naval flotilla passed through the Kerch Strait in September and reached the country’s southeastern coastline safely. This was also the stated objective of the ships seized in November, making the Kremlin’s provocation claims difficult to square with the chronology of rising Azov Sea tensions. As many commentators have wryly observed, Ukraine’s attempt to pass through the Kerch Strait on November 25 was only a “provocation” if the country’s entire presence in the region can itself be deemed provocative.

Far more concerning from Kiev’s point of view is the lack of a robust international reaction to Russia’s naval attack. Western leaders such as European Council President Donald Tusk initially led a chorus of official condemnation, but their statements have yet to lead to the kind of increased costs that might make the Kremlin sit up and take notice. On the contrary, the effect has been to highlight the toothlessness of the entire Western response to Russia’s hybrid war in Ukraine.

The West’s failure to adequately counter Russia’s naval escalation makes it clearer than ever that Ukraine desperately needs stronger diplomatic support in its unequal struggle against the Kremlin. Poroshenko certainly appears to recognize this. He is now calling on NATO member states to increase their presence in the Black Sea and has even invited them to visit the Sea of Azov port city of Mariupol, a move that would involve NATO warships putting Russian resolve to the test by passing directly through the contested Kerch Strait.

Given the West’s demonstrable lack of appetite for any form of military confrontation with Russia, Poroshenko’s proposals seem somewhat fanciful and primarily serve to underline Ukraine’s lack of better options. Nevertheless, appeals to international law and Western solidarity are the only cards the Ukrainian leader has left to play in his struggle to prevent the Sea of Azov from becoming a Russian lake. Without forceful international intervention of one kind or another, Kiev has no way of forcing Moscow to relax its stranglehold on the Kerch Strait or abide by its treaty obligations to share the Azov Sea with Ukraine. At present, this intervention looks unlikely. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already effectively deprioritized the issue by agreeing to discuss it within the framework of the so-called Normandy Format of Germany, France, Russia, and Ukraine, a platform that has achieved nothing of note since its inception in summer 2014.

Mobilizing the international community toward greater engagement will remain one of Poroshenko’s top

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Protesters hold torches and smoke flares during a march in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on November 2018 ,29, to ask for justice for protesters killed on Kiev›s Maidan square in 2014 during the ‹Maidan› revolution, which ousted a proMoscow government but sparked war in the east of the country and led to Russia annexing Crimea. (Getty)

Russia is far more likely to continue along its current path of slowly strangling Ukraine’s southeastern ports while plotting further disruptive measures ahead of what promises to be a fateful year of Ukrainian elections. often since 2014, Ukraine’s own compelling struggle for independence has been drowned out by geopolitical grandstanding and talk of a new Cold War. Poroshenko now needs to return Ukraine’s national narrative to the center of the international debate and remind Western leaders of the need to defend the values that define their societies.

NEW UKRAINE VS. OLD RUSSIA

priorities over the coming months. There is clearly much work to do. Media coverage of the recent naval confrontation has illustrated the enduring influence of Kremlin narratives on international understanding of events in Ukraine, while also emphasizing Ukraine’s own communications failures since 2014. Despite almost five years of relentless Russian aggression, much of the reporting surrounding the conflict remains stuck in the realm of “he said, she said” equivalence, leading to a degree of ambiguity that obscures Ukraine’s victim status. This will have to change if Kiev is to secure the support it desperately needs. Above all, Poroshenko must counter attempts to portray the Russian-Ukrainian conflict as part of alleged Western efforts to encircle Russia. He must forcefully remind potential Putin appeasers that Russia is being deserted, not surrounded.

This is a recurring problem when dealing with the postSoviet world, where the natural inclination of former Kremlin vassal states to seek the protective embrace of the Euro-Atlantic community has regularly been misconstrued as Western imperial expansionism. All too

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As he attempts to change the tone of the international dialogue around Ukraine, Poroshenko’s domestic strategy will focus on the nation-building project that lies at the heart of Ukraine’s struggle with the Kremlin.

With no viable military options open to the Ukrainian leader either on land or at sea, his most realistic scope for progress in the hybrid conflict lies in strengthening Ukraine’s sense of national identity as a way of distancing the country from its historic ties to Russia.

This is a key front in a confrontation that echoes across the centuries and carries immense implications for Russia’s own self-image. Moscow likes to argue that modern Ukrainians and Russians constitute a single people, making Ukraine’s bid for westward integration both a betrayal and an existential threat to the future of the Russian Federation itself. The emergence of a demonstrably democratic and European Ukraine would expose the illegitimacy of long-standing Kremlin claims to authoritarian exceptionalism, which goes a long way toward explaining why Putin is prepared to pay such a disproportionately high price in order to prevent Ukraine’s successful defection.

Poroshenko’s nation-building credentials will be considerably enhanced in the coming weeks if, as expected, the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, home to the global spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians, grants Ukraine an independent Orthodox Church of

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its own. In late November, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate announced that it had drafted a constitutional charter for a self-governing Ukrainian church. Ukrainian clergy are now scheduled to meet at Kiev’s St. Sophia’s Cathedral on December 15 to officially establish an independent Orthodox Church and elect its leader.

challenge his positions without risking toxic accusations of Kremlin sympathies. This is doubly so given Putin’s recent G20- statements that the war in Ukraine would continue as long as Poroshenko remains in power.

Instead, we are likely to see the leading candidates attempting to outdo one another in their opposition to any accommodation with Russia.

Ukraine has one of the largest Orthodox congregations in the world, but the country’s parishes have been split since independence, primarily between the internationally recognized Moscow Patriarchate and the unrecognized Kiev Patriarchate. (There is also the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which is much smaller than the other two.) Achieving Orthodox independence would in many ways complete the work of 1991, creating an important but thus far missing ingredient of Ukrainian statehood while dealing a devastating blow to Russian influence in the country. Poroshenko has been intimately involved in the push for an independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church and will seek to capitalize on this potential historic success. Meanwhile, Russiawill likely try to exploit religious tensions and could use the specter of church seizures to initiate a new wave of violence. With adherents of the unrecognized Kiev Patriarchate already in the ascendancy and many within the Moscow fold quietly accepting the need for a truly national church, this looks set to become a key victory for Poroshenko. For now, however, the stakes could hardly be higher and the potential for bloodshed remains grave.

This makes the prospects for an end to the de facto Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine dimmer than ever.

The only realistic possibility for a breakthrough in the east of the country lies in the emergence of a consensus on the need for compromise, but that looks impossible in the current climate. Indeed, as Russia’s grip on the rest of Ukraine continues to loosen, there remains a danger that the east could erupt once more. For the time being, however, Russia is far more likely to continue along its current path of slowly strangling Ukraine’s southeastern ports while plotting further disruptive measures ahead of what promises to be a fateful year of Ukrainian elections.

Ukraine will hold presidential and parliamentary votes in 2019 that will determine the outcome of the country’s bid to turn decisively westward. Russia still hopes it can exert enough pressure on Ukrainian society to force a change in course and prevent the historic loss of Moscow’s most important imperial appendage. The Kremlin will continue its hybrid war accordingly, with the partial blockade of the Sea of Azov only one aspect of destabilization efforts that will likely escalate considerably as the presidential election campaign gathers momentum in the first three months of the coming year.

Poroshenko’s patriotic posturing will make it increasingly difficult for his presidential election opponents to

Poroshenko’s response to this pressure will be to adopt an increasingly strident anti-Russian stance at home while working to energize international opposition to the Kremlin. Much will therefore depend on the West’s collective readiness to confront Russian aggression in Ukraine. After almost five years of half measures, few are expecting any dramatic changes. This leaves the way open for a potentially disastrous military escalation should Russia fail to secure favorable election outcomes and sense looming defeat in the struggle to prevent the loss of Ukraine. In the months ahead, it will likely be left to the West to collectively determine whether Putin’s hybrid war transitions into more conventional carnage.

Western leaders initially led a chorus of official condemnation, but their statements have yet to lead to the kind of increased costs that might make the Kremlin sit up and take notice.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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How to File Complaints in Saudi Arabia When Facing Poor Service Saudi Consumers Silent Over Inadequate Service 28

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Saudi Arabia has tens of governmental bodies and departments that regulate public and private sectors, improve the rules for competition and enforce strict policies that safeguard the quality of service presented to the consumer.

If these means fail, what other institutions can you go to in Saudi Arabia to file such complaints? More importantly, which institutions give you the opportunity file such complaints in a coherent and serious fashion?

Below is a complete guide in how to do just that, however it will require some patience on your part as to protect your consumer rights.

WHY STAY SILENT? The biggest reason why public service providers in Saudi Arabia get away with bad service is because consumers stay silent on said service. As such, these consumers do not get the service that should be guaranteed to them based on the company’s terms and conditions. It is high time to right this wrong.

When analyzing the reasons for consumer silence, one would find that consumer ignorance toward their rights and on complaint institutions they can rely on is the primary one.

Also there’s consumer laziness toward following up on these complaints. Furthermore, there is a misconception that filing complaints will be a costly venture, while there are those who just don’t want to be a nuisance toward these companies or employees.

By Moatassem El Foulo Jeddah: What would you do if you woke up one morning to find that your bank charged you for a service you never requested? Or if your phone company sent you a backbreaking bill despite not often using your phone or rarely making long phone calls?

Naturally your first reaction would be to call the company’s customer service to try to rectify your problem. But what if the customer service advisor doesn’t take your problem seriously or worse yet, completely ignores your problem?

Would you storm into the company offices and argue with the company’s employees?

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That isn’t to say that the problems are entirely the consumers’ fault since many service providers within the banking, airline, telecommunications, hospitality, health and retail sectors provide consumers with poor means of filing complaints.

Public and government sectors are no better as they often linger with the complainant’s problems for weeks to make him or her tired and fed up, as a result the consumer would forget about the issue all together.

This presents a never ending cycle since the services these companies provide will only grow poorer with time, and the worse they become the more people will complain. This is an inevitable outcome since no one can live a day without relying on at least one of the above institutions.

Moreover, as the consumer population grows it has become

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necessary to provide a clear procedure on how to file complaints for poor service, or to request refunds for faulty products.

HOW CAN YOU SUBMIT YOUR COMPLAINT? In recent years, Saudi institutions have undergone major operational changes, and one of said changes was their launching of supervisory or regulatory bodies. The function of these bodies is to handle consumer complaints and to ensure that he or she gets back rights without any fights or arguments from both parties.

Saudi Arabia has tens of governmental bodies and departments that regulate public and private sectors, improve the rules for competition and enforce strict policies that safeguard the quality of service presented to the consumer.

These bodies and departments have two advantages; first of all they provide consumers with many channels to file their complaints. Consumers can go to these departments in person, or they can call, fax and send post to said departments.

More importantly, consumers can contact the departments through more widely used means such as email and even social media platforms. The second advantage is the fact that the departments set deadlines to reply to your complaints, on average the departments will see to your concerns in no longer than 10-5 days. As a matter of fact many departments have shortened these deadlines. Just a few weeks ago, the Dual Electricity and Distribution Authority shortened the period of response to customer complaints received by the Saudi Electricity Company to 10 days rather than 15 days.

The table below is a concise list of the most frequent consumer complaints and the authority bodies they can contact for complaints.

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HOW TO FILE WRITTEN COMPLAINTS No matter what kind of complaint you have, it’s imperative not to initiate immediate communication with your service provider. Instead, be patient and follow these steps: 1. Write down the date in which your problem started, for instance your problem may have started after receiving your phone bill for the month of December.

2. Gather all the documents that can help you with your complaints such as bills, receipts or contracts. You can also take a phone screenshot of the document if digital copies of the files are required.

3. Do not write the complaint in a single paragraph or block, as it could potentially make the recipient of the complaint confused and lost as to what your problem is. Instead write your complaints in bullet points based on a chronological order of the events.

4. Clearly and concisely introduce your complaint. For example: On X date, I was unexpectedly charged with a bill of X amount by company X for the duration of X period to X period. I called customer services on X day. My problem has not been addressed yet, despite the fact that I was told that my issue would be resolved by X date at the latest.

5. In the last sentence of the complaint, write down the action that you want the company to take, and do not let the company decide for you. For example: I demand a cancellation of the credit card issuance fee and that I only be charged the usual

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annual fee of X amount.

6. Whether you’re complaining through email, phone calls or various social media channels, be prepared to provide as much details as you can and to follow specific procedures.

Alternatively, if you don’t have the patience to deal with the service provider directly, then you can contact the company’s supervisory body. Please note, however, that many problems can be easily and quickly solved by the company’s customer service team. Moreover, if you choose to contact the supervisory body then you would also need to provide the necessary documents and a chronological order of events.

After completing the above steps, you are now ready to submit your complaint, which should be sent directly to the supervisory body of the service provider.

EDUCATING YOURSELF During your free time you could read up on the consumer rights listed by service providers, or you could stay upto date with government bodies that regulate these providers through their various social media pages, that way you could educate yourself on your rights and responsibilities as a consumer.

The more aware consumers are, the more likely that service providers will present the best possible product to the market.

It is paramount that you don’t ignore your consumer rights, since you’re the one that’s, literally and figuratively, paying the price in the end. As such, you have the undeniable right to receive the finest service.

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Climate Shocks and Humanitarian Crises Which Countries Are Most at Risk?

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Having discriminatory political institutions increases the risk of instability and humanitarian emergencies by making governments less responsive to segments of their population in the event of a climate shock particular emphasis on whether it causes internal conflict. Connections are complex, leaving policymakers to talk about climate change vaguely as a “threat multiplier” when combined with other forces. But saying that climate change is a threat multiplier isn’t all that helpful unless we know something about the characteristics that make countries more likely to experience instability.

In fact, several risk factors make some countries more vulnerable than others to the consequences of climate change. Three stand out in particular: a high level of dependence on agriculture, a recent history of conflict, and discriminatory political institutions. Research suggests that in countries that display some or all of these risk factors, climate extremes are especially likely to lead to disastrous outcomes, including violence, food crises, and the large-scale displacement of populations.

An Indian man walks over the parched bed of a reservoir on the outskirts of Chennai on May 2017 ,17. (Getty)

By Joshua Busby and Nina von Uexkull Wildfires in the western United States and hurricanes on the East Coast captured media attention this summer and fall. But throughout 2018, weather events also had devastating humanitarian consequences in developing countries, from immense floods in the Indian state of Kerala to an intense drought in Afghanistan that affected millions.

Over the past decade, academics and policymakers have vigorously debated the question of whether climate change poses a security threat, with

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We have used these factors to identify the countries that are most at risk from climate-related instability and humanitarian crises in the coming years. In doing so, we hope to provide an early warning to policymakers about where climate impacts are likely to prove most destabilizing in the short term, and where efforts to minimize their effects are most needed.

WHICH COUNTRIES ARE AT RISK? The map below displays the countries we consider to be at major risk of climate-driven instability.

A sizeable number of countries—20, in total— combine the first two risk factors, agricultural

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dependence and a recent history of conflict.

Countries facing these two risk factors are shown in orange. A further nine countries (Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Pakistan, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, and Yemen) have the first two factors, as well as high levels of ethnic political exclusion. These countries are displayed in red.

attractive. And governments in these countries tend to extract a considerable portion of their revenue from agriculture, mostly from taxes on exports. Using data from the International Labor Organization, we defined a country as having a “high” level of agricultural dependence if at least 40 percent of its population worked in agriculture—a threshold that 66 countries met.

Why are these specific risk factors so important?

High agricultural dependence means that a particularly large proportion of citizens’ livelihoods are bound up in farming. Since climate shocks such as droughts or floods tend to disrupt farming, they often translate, in countries that depend on agriculture, into widespread reductions in income and high levels of food insecurity.

Reduced farming income makes alternative sources of income such as rebel activity more

In some countries, such as Malawi and Somalia, over 80 percent of the workforce is employed in agriculture.

The second risk factor, recent violence, can also combine with climate shocks to produce crises: more than 40 percent of countries experiencing a food crisis in 2017 carried this double burden.

More important, recent conflict is probably the best predictor that a country will have more

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A soldiers checks the area where a suicide bomber from Somalia›s Shebab insurgents killed at least 12 people and wounded 27 others, on September 2014 ,8, by ramming a vehicle packed with explosives into a convoy of African Union troops in Mogadishu. (Getty)

conflict in the future, since these countries are likely to still have leaders and groups that can access weapons and mobilize people to fight. We used data from Uppsala Conflict Data Program to identify the more than 40 countries that had recorded conflicts (defined as a conflict to which the state was a party) in the five years prior to 2018.

The third factor, discriminatory political institutions—those that marginalize certain social groups or exclude them from power—increases the risk of instability and humanitarian emergencies by making governments less responsive to segments of their population. For instance, in the event of a food shortage, marginalized groups in these countries are less likely than others to receive government aid, increasing the likelihood of a humanitarian crisis and creating grievances

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against the state.

The political scientist Judith M. Bretthauer defines “high” political exclusion as occurring in countries where at least 20 percent of the population is formally excluded from political power. Using her criteria and information from the Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) dataset, we calculated that 35 countries currently have highly discriminatory institutions. Nine of those countries, indicated on the map, also had high agricultural dependence and a recent history of conflict. (At least two more countries, Cameroon and Ethiopia, had high levels of discrimination not captured by the EPR dataset.)

MAPPING DROUGHTS Countries facing the three aforementioned

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risk factors will struggle to deal with climate shocks. And one of the most serious of these shocks—especially in countries that depend on agriculture—is likely to be drought and water shortage. By looking at which of our at-risk countries are either currently facing water deficits or are projected to face them in the near future, we can identify not only the countries that are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the future but those that are already threatened by serious climate shocks.

Although water deficits are hard to measure globally, one approach is to model water balances by combining rainfall, temperature, geography, evaporation rates, and other factors to estimate water anomalies, where amounts of surface water will be higher and lower than normal. The consulting firm ISciences has developed a Water Security Indicator Model (WSIM), which uses both historical data and forecasts to produce a composite index of water surpluses and deficits. At our request, ISciences aggregated its subnational data and ranked all the countries in the world in terms of both the share of their population and the proportion of their territory that experienced water deficits between October 2017 and September 2018, as well as a similar list including projected water

deficits until June 2019. The firm identified countries suffering a ten-year deficit, or a drought rare enough to occur on average once every ten years, and those with a more extreme -30year deficit, which occurs on average once every 30 years.

We examined the 25 percent of countries with the worst water deficits according to ISciences’ data and cross-referenced them with our list of 20 at-risk countries. On the map below, at-risk countries without water deficits are displayed in light blue. Those that appeared in the top 25 percent of ISciences’ historical or projected lists for ten-year droughts are shown in medium blue, while those that appeared in the top 25 percent for -30year droughts appear in dark blue.

As climate change continues unabated, countries already at risk of instability will see more extreme consequences, and fragile governments will become even more hard pressed to manage violence and feed their populations 36

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Among the countries with both high agricultural dependence and a recent history of conflict, a few stood out in ISciences’ historical data for the twelve-month period from October 2017 to September 2018. In Afghanistan, 64 percent of the population had been exposed to a thirty-year drought; in Yemen, the figure was 43 percent, and in Somalia, 34 percent. Looking only at a share of the population, however, could mask the problems in less densely populated rural areas. Eighty percent of Afghanistan’s territory and 38 percent of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s territory had undergone a ten-year drought, while 36 percent of Sudan’s territory suffered a -30year drought. India was not among the top 25 percent of states in terms of exposed share of population or territory, but about 95 million Indians, or 7.2 percent of the population, had weathered a -30year drought over the past year.

Since climate shocks tend to disrupt farming, in countries that depend on agriculture they often translate into widespread reductions in income and high levels of food insecurity

Promising efforts are under way to further increase our ability to forecast political violence and food crises. The World Bank recently rolled out a pilot of its Famine Action Mechanism, which tries to anticipate famine locations using machine learning. And the Uppsala University’s Violence Early-Warning System (ViEWS) Project has been developing subnational conflict forecasts for Africa. Before such systems reach their full potential, however, our list can help detect which countries are likely to become hot spots of climate instability and humanitarian crises.

The risk factors we identify are, naturally, not the only conditions that can contribute to instability and humanitarian crises. But unabated climate change is likely to amplify the challenges of these high-risk countries in decades to come. They will see more extreme consequences, and their already fragile governments will become even more hard pressed to manage violence and feed their populations. Understanding where instability is most likely to occur is an important first step to reducing risk.

What should policymakers do with this

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

information? In countries enduring large-scale violence, such as Yemen or South Sudan, the key priority clearly must be dampening armed conflict. Countries where violence has ceased, however, can benefit from building their capacities to detect and respond to crises, and from improving job opportunities. Here the kinds of interventions that food policy experts have developed to prevent famines—including food and income support and crop insurance—can be of ISciences projects that Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen help. When a major drought hit Ethiopia in 2015, will continue to face water deficits through June its government was able to use similar policies to 2019. But an additional six countries not included ward off famine, although even this success did in the top 25 percent for ten-year or -30year not fully insulate it from protests. And given the deficits in the 2018–2017 list—Chad, Cameroon, particular susceptibility of agriculture to changes the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Mali, and in the climate, governments and international Niger—are projected to rise into the top quartile institutions need to urgently consider how

by June 2019. agricultural practices can be adapted to meet these changes and prevent large declines in crop WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? yields.

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Zahi Hawass: Artefacts are Stolen to Fund Terror Renowned Egyptian Archaeologist Speaks with About the Smuggling of Artefacts and His Time as Minister of Antiquities

by Soha Al Sharqawi World-renowned archaeologist Zahi Hawass is the former Egyptian Minister of Antiquities and Director of Excavations at Giza, Saqqara, Bahariya Oasis, and the Valley of the Kings.

Dr Hawass received his PhD in 1987 from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied as a Fulbright Fellow. He has written numerous scholarly articles and books, and is a highly respected Egyptologist. Known for his charisma and ability to reach out to the public, for more than thirty years he has been raising awareness of archaeology and the preservation of Egypt’s precious heritage.

Tell us about the book you are currently writing.

The book is entitled "Zahi Hawass and the Egyptian Artefacts" and is a guide to all of Egypt’s artefacts; Islamic, Coptic, Judean and Roman, and all Egyptian museums. The book contains an important message especially for visitors to Egypt from abroad, that they can visit again and again and will never run out of archaeological sites and so it is to encourage everyone who has visited Egypt before, to come back again. There is also a guide to all the restaurants and places I love in Egypt and I want people to visit. The book is in English, and there is no Arabic version because there is no publisher. The cost is high especially as it includes images and therefore there are difficulties in distributing

and selling the book. I am also preparing an opera called The Tutankhamun Opera with an Italian musician. I hope that this will be ready in time for the opening of the Grand Museum in 2022 which will coincide with the 100th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Recently there was a case concerning Egyptian artefacts that were smuggled into Italy and seized in the city of Naples? How do you view the issue of artefact smuggling?

These seizures date back to May 2017. The Italian authorities notified Egypt only a few months ago. I saw these artefacts and I did not find that they were important, meaning that there were no pieces of great value. It is a collection of pottery and masks from the Roman era.

We have a problem here. Modern Egypt is built over ancient Egypt, so many citizens dig in their homes, especially in some areas of Aswan and al-Matareya, which is a big problem.

The theft of artefacts happens in every country in the world. In Vienna, for example, the world's rare artefacts have been stolen from the museum there and the problem started here after the January 2011 revolution. Many of the pieces were taken abroad during the revolution.

Which Arab countries are the biggest victims of artefact theft?

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Zahi Hawass

While I worked with the Ministry of Antiquities in Egypt, the US National Security Department was cooperating with me in returning the stolen artefacts but I found them to have a building full of hundreds of monuments, whether Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi or others. And there is no doubt that the Arab Spring destroyed artefacts in the Arab region, especially in 2011 and 2012.

What is the purpose behind stealing the artefacts of any country?

The reason behind stealing artefacts isn’t to steal the country’s heritage, but in practice, terrorists steal artefacts to sell them in order to buy weapons to kill people. Artefacts from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya are now sold everywhere in the world in an unnatural way. Thankfully Egypt is under control and there is security in the country so the monuments have been preserved and there is an intention to bring back tourism because of the presence of these monuments in great Egypt.

Why is there a focus on stealing Islamic monuments specifically?

The main reason is that the Islamic monuments are intertwined between the Ministries of Antiquities and Endowments. We renovate the mosque and give it to the Ministry of Endowments.

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Terrorists steal artefacts to sell them in order to buy weapons to kill people. Artefacts from Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya are now sold everywhere in the world.

This resulted in there being no control over these monuments.

It is possible that the guard of the mosque is the one who steals the monuments and the Islamic monuments inside and therefore they are easy to steal. There are international gangs that know what you want. Therefore, I believe that in conjunction with the Ministries of Antiquities and Endowments, there must be a full security company to guard all the monuments that come under the Ministry of Endowments and the Ministry of Antiquities.

Before the January Revolution, we already worked on this idea but it was not completed, but I hope that we will return to this idea.

What percentage of Egypt’s artefacts have been stolen?

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We cannot determine the exact percentage because most of the artefacts that were stolen were unregistered were smuggled in secrecy. Therefore, we do not the number of stolen artefacts or the percentage, but after the revolution I began working on returning the artefacts during my time with foreign archaeologists. That is the reason that I was selected as one of Time 100 most influential people as I created a state of fear of artefact theft among people.

a tax that every famous official in this country must pay. The enemies of success are many and I have experienced a very important example. If you stack the books I have written, it would be taller than me, this is the legacy that I own and I am proud of.

Despite all the success you have achieved, you have encountered some attacks, criticisms and accusations, including the theft of special artefacts after the revolution of January 25?

A person who does his work with love, away from routine, leaves a footprint. When I was a minister I did not wear formal clothes or a tie and I was always travelling without a lot of security. I did my job as an employee, and therefore I did not seek the positions, but the positions sought me. But young people are now in a hurry and want to get positions quickly and effortlessly. This is a mistake. A person must do things that they can relate to in order to be creative, influential, remembered and known by people all over the world.

The problem in Egypt is that there are enemies of success, and anyone who succeeds, there will be people that want to break them, especially the losers who feel hatred. This exists in all fields without exception, so during the attack on me after the revolution of January 25 I did not care about anything and I did not respond to anyone. I wrote more books and made more trips during that time than I had done before because I trust myself and my integrity. I am not afraid of any accountability as I have a receipt for every dime I have earned, whether that is for a book or a lecture; I have bags full of receipts and have submitted them to the relevant departments. All the things that I have done for this country exist, for example, I organised an exhibition of King Tutankhamun which made $ 120 million, and I was accused of stealing artefacts and money. A committee was set up to investigate this matter which continued for over two years and they did not reach any conviction against me. Thank God none of the accusations against me were turned into cases and the issue ended and the investigation proved that my hands were clean of everything.

Do you mean that the attack against you was orchestrated?

Certainly. The other thing that saddened me was that I served my country with the utmost love and honesty and in the end I was met with this attack because of failures, without mentioning their names, including those who work in the Egyptian Museum.

They spread rumours that I am a thief and made other false accusations. They were definitely hired. But I know that this

Saudi Arabia is witnessing an archaeological and tourism renaissance that has never been seen before.

What is the secret behind the association of the name Zahi Hawass with Egyptian artefacts?

How did you assess your time at the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities?

The most important period of my career in artefacts was when I was Secretary-General (of artefacts) and it is difficult to replicate that. I had a lot of achievements. But the time I spent as a minister was not good and I accepted the position unwillingly. I do not wish to be a minister in my lifetime and the “position� is the least of my interests and I have removed this period from my life. The most important time of my life was the 9 years that I spent working with artefacts during which I built more than 22 museums as well as the Grand Museum, which is also known as the cultural project of the 21st century.

I also built the Civilization Museum, which is considered more important than the Grand Museum, and the Suhaag and Sharm al Sheikh museums. We opened museums everywhere and we managed archeologically sites.

We also built 60 warehouses for artefacts throughout Egypt which saved the artefacts after the revolution and we appointed qualified guards. Also, we changed some of the articles of The Antiquities Act but we have not been able to change it completely. We also created a database of the monuments of Egypt and we retrieved 6 thousand artefacts. We also raised awareness of archaeology though a program I produced and presented on artefacts and their importance, as well as delivering training to young people. I have documented all of this in my book.

Is there a difference between the Pharaonic civilization and the Nubian civilization as some say?

The two are one civilization. Nubia is part of Egypt from the beginning to the end, and therefore the Nubian monuments

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The time I spent as a minister was not good and I accepted the position unwillingly. I do not wish to be a minister in my lifetime. started last season with some universities, most notably Cairo University, Helwan, Menoufia and Sohag Universities, as well as private universities. The lectures achieved great interaction and success with the students so I will complete the project in the new season and will complete the rest of the universities.

In the past, you were referred to an "archaeological renaissance" in Saudi Arabia. What drew your attention to this?

Saudi Arabia is witnessing an archaeological and tourism renaissance that has never been seen before. The reason for this renaissance is Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz. This man has made a comprehensive change and has played a role in the return of the stolen antiquities both from the citizens and from abroad. He has also established museums at the highest level. He has worked on restoration works in historic Jeddah and in Diriyah. His achievements are clear for all in Saudi Arabia. I wrote in Ashaq Alawsat newspaper for more than fifty weeks about my impressions of Saudi Artefacts. For example, I consider the exhibition “The Masterpieces of The Kingdom" unique and unconventional because it toured the whole world and introduced them to the history and importance of Saudi Arabia. What I want to say is that there is a lack of Arab media coverage about what is happening in Saudi Arabia and we haven’t given the developments the attention it deserves because there are comprehensive changes happening in everything and a renaissance I have not seen anywhere in the Arab world so far What is your opinion of historical dramas?

have a special character as do the Bahariya Oasis monuments, as well as those in the Delta and Upper Egypt, but some foreign scientists try to create this “destabilization. “ Tell us about the lectures you give at Egyptian Universities?

I made an agreement with the Education Ministry and some coordinators to deliver a series of lectures within the universities to familiarize the youth with their history and civilization. We

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I think that they are creative works by the writer and not based on history or facts so we can only judge them as such. The creator can write anything but it is important to say at the beginning that this work is not based on history or artefacts as the director Sharif Arafa did in the film “Al Kinz” (The treasure). This is respectful because we cannot prevent someone from writing a Pharaonic story and from writing what they want in the films or dramas which are not documentary works. Therefore, when I am presented with a series or film I say to them to write what they like because it is a drama, a creative work of art by the author, but that it must be stated that this work has no connection to history or artefacts, and does not adhere to Pharaonic clothing or the old environment.

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‘Creed II’ Challenges How Russians are Depicted in Movies The Movie is More Than Just a Story of America Versus Russia, but One of Fathers and Sons

By Ashley Lee* In the new movie “Creed II,” the titular fighter faces a new opponent. He speaks Russian. His name is Drago.

Wait, wasn’t that a plotline in the “Rocky” films?

Yes, this summary sounds familiar — those of sequels and reboots often do, and “Creed II” is a sequel of a reboot, after all. In the follow-up to the

2015 hit, legacy boxer Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) can’t resist going toe-to-toe with Viktor Drago, the son and trainee of Ivan Drago, the former Soviet heavyweight who fatally knocked out Apollo Creed.

“Creed vs. Drago, Round 2: It is, as various onscreen sports pundits breathlessly remind us, the matchup the world has been waiting to see,” wrote

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“Especially given modern times, it’s low-hanging fruit to play into the xenophobia and hypernationalism. We knew we’d be doing ourselves a disservice if we were gonna shoehorn some political commentary when, really, it’s all about these characters.” - coscreenwriter Juel Taylor presidential election. It’s a strategic storytelling move that paid off at the Thanksgiving weekend box office (it was No. 2 at the weekend box office with 35.3$ million, E3).

“People go to the movies, especially a movie like this, to escape the news headlines,” MGM Motion Picture Group President Jonathan Glickman told The Times. “This wasn’t just a commercial decision but also an artistic one.”

“Creed II” only faintly echoes the sentiments of 1985’s “Rocky IV.” Released in the midst of the Cold War, it boasted a political agenda as loud as the flashy, star-spangled blazer that Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) donned in the ring. Ivan Drago was introduced as an indestructible, superhuman contender, equipped with steroids and state-ofthe-art technology and, therefore, impossible to defeat.

Florian Munteanu attends the 'Creed II' New York Premiere at AMC Loews Lincoln Square on November 2018 ,14 in New York City.

(Getty)

Times critic Justin Chang in his strong review of the film, which opened in theaters Wednesday.

“But ‘Creed II’ seems well aware that, despite the resurgence of Russian hostilities in recent headlines, the world’s enthusiasm may not be shared by the wider moviegoing audience.”

Indeed, the sequel steers clear of simmering tensions between the U.S. and Russia, which have dominated the news cycle since the 2016

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Played by Dolph Lundgren and often dressed in a Soviet military uniform, Drago was robotic, expressionless and incapable of remorse after Apollo died in their fight. Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa then headed to Moscow to avenge the loss of his friend — and America’s honor.

“Here is a flag-draped, David-and-Goliath scenario pitting boxer Rocky Balboa, America’s rugged individualist, against Ivan Drago, a Soviet, collectivist, steroid-induced human killing

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machine,” wrote Michael J. Strada and Harold R. Troper in “Friend or Foe?: Russians in American Film and Foreign Policy, 1991-1933.”

“Having it out in the ring represents even more than the United States versus the Soviet Union,” their analysis continued. “The boxers represent rugged individualism versus collectivism, religious faith versus atheism, the human spirit versus mindless technology, honesty versus duplicity, and freedom versus control.”

The heavy-handed message didn’t quite land with film critics at the time. “‘Rocky IV’ says that Soviets are simplistic animals, incapable of loyalty or of decent human behavior,” wrote Times critic Sheila Benson in 1985. “Stallone adds an interesting codicil: They may be far superior technologically, but not to worry — technology is no match for a pure heart.”

Nevertheless, “Rocky IV” became the highestgrossing installment of the five-film “Rocky” franchise, raking in 300$ million worldwide.

Drago has been referenced in everything from “Family Guy” and “Chuck” to a John Kerry interview in 2014, and it helped set the stage for decades of Russian villains on screen.

All of this fades far, far into the background in “Creed II,” which presents its once-robotic

‘Creed II’ seems well aware that, despite the resurgence of Russian hostilities in recent headlines, the world’s enthusiasm may not be shared by the wider moviegoing audience.

Russian rivals in a much more empathetic, humanizing light. Directed by Steven Caple Jr., the sequel takes a moving moment to zoom in on Ivan Drago who, upon losing to Rocky Balboa at the end of “Rocky IV,” was banished to Ukraine and has spent three decades in shame and regret.

“Under the old USSR, everything was given to them by the state, and once you failed them, it’s liable to be taken away,” explained coscreenwriter Juel Taylor. “What happens when everything is contingent on you being successful, and you’re not? How does that affect the next 30 years of your life?”

Drago tells Balboa that he’s spent that time staging a comeback through the training of his son, Viktor (played by Florian “Big Nasty” Munteanu). Yet for this second generation of Drago, the motivation to chase victory is personal, not patriotic. Unlike the “Rocky” films, the only flag-waving imagery in “Creed II” are the boxers’ respective garb in the ring. Not a single national anthem is ever played in this movie.

“In this case, the Russian background is really just a plot device to bring these people together, and it’s not the major centerpiece it was in ‘Rocky IV,’” said Irwin Winkler, who produced all of the “Rocky” and “Creed” films. “I think all of us grew up a little bit since then — it’s been -30something years since that movie.”

The initial idea to revisit the Drago character was Stallone’s, just after “Creed” was released in late 2015. However, he never entertained the thought of leaning into the political messaging that “Rocky IV” flaunted.

According to MGM Motion Picture Group’s Glickman, that decision wasn’t necessarily made to pacify any box-office prospects, as Russia has become a major film market since the “Rocky” movies wrapped.

Instead, the new film reflects what cemented the

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'CREED II' Star Michael B. Jordan Surprises Youth At Toronto Sport For Development Facility, MLSE LaunchPad, To Unveil New Boxing Program (getty)

original franchise as a crowd-pleaser. Just as the “Rocky” movies inverted the audience’s initial evaluation of Balboa’s first opponent, Apollo Creed, the line between “hero” and “villain” disappears. Viktor Drago and Adonis Creed are not opposites; they’re almost kindred spirits whose fates were sealed by their fathers’ match.

“Especially given modern times, it’s lowhanging fruit to play into the xenophobia and hyper-nationalism,” Taylor added. “We knew we’d be doing ourselves a disservice if we were gonna shoehorn some political commentary when, really, it’s all about these characters.”

“Steven wanted to tell a very intimate story — you know, as best you can in a movie where people are punching each other,” said co-screenwriter Taylor.

“Hopefully what you see is more than just America versus Russia, but the story of fathers and sons,” added Winkler. “Stories about families always resonate.”

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New Face, New Life California Man Unveils New Smile After Most Advanced Face Transplant Surgery Ever

By Michael McGough* After struggling with depression since adolescence, California native Cameron Underwood spent a June 2016 day drinking, placed a shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

The blast destroyed much of his face — and began a journey that led to the most advanced face transplant surgery ever performed.

More than two years later, Underwood’s priorities are to return to work and start a family of his own someday.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” the -26year-old Yuba City man said to loved ones and family Thursday during a

news conference at New York University.

After his attempted suicide and conventional surgical repairs left him disfigured and required five months of skin grafts just to make reconstructive plastic surgery a possibility, Underwood underwent a successful face transplant at the start of 2018. On Thursday, almost 11 months later, Underwood made his first public appearance, speaking at NYU Langone Health center.

Addressing media and dozens of surgeons, therapists, nurses and other medical staffers whom he called “incredible,” Underwood smiled and told them they’d given him a second chance at life.

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After his attempted suicide and conventional surgical repairs left him disfigured and required five months of skin grafts just to make reconstructive plastic surgery a possibility, Underwood underwent a successful face transplant at the start of 2018.

(L-R) Bev BaileyPotter, Cameron Underwood, and Sally Fisher attend the 2018 NYU Langone Face Transplant Announcement with patient Cameron Underwood at NYU Langone Medical Center on November 2018 ,29 in New York City. (Getty Images)

“It hasn’t been easy but it has been worth it,” he said in the news conference, which was streamed live to Facebook.

The procedure took 25 hours, from the morning of Jan. 5 into Jan. 6. Two teams of surgeons worked concurrently in adjacent operating rooms, lead surgeon Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez explained: one for the donor and one for the recipient.

Less than a year later, Underwood can speak intelligibly. He is restoring an old truck he recently bought. He’s golfing. And, as Rodriguez showed in a slideshow presentation, the outdoorsy Underwood has even gone skydiving. (No, he did not ask his doctor’s permission first).

“There have been so many amazing advances in surgery. I’m living proof of that,” Underwood said. “But it only happens because of special people like Will and his family.”

On Jan. 4, New York City writer Will Fisher died at age 23 after a lengthy battle with mental illness. An organ donor, Fisher was Underwood’s perfect match.

The two were connected by LiveOnNY, New York City’s federally designated organ procurement organization, ahead of Fisher’s death. LiveOnNY is a nonprofit that provides eye, organ and tissue donation; it has connected 20,000 donors to

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recipients, according to its website.

“It’s like finding a needle in a haystack,” Helen Irving, LiveOnNY’s chief executive since 2011, said in Thursday’s news conference. “We want the perfect patient for Cameron.”

The first successful, complete face transplant involving a living recipient happened in 2010 in Spain. Fewer than 50 face transplants have been performed worldwide, and fewer than 10 total or near-total operations have been performed in the United States.

A significant portion of the surgery’s cost was covered under Underwood’s insurance through his employer, according to a news release by NYU Langone Health. Rodriguez said this was the first U.S. case in which third-party insurance covered any part of the procedure. Face transplant surgeries are usually funded by research grants, often from the Department of Defense, according to the release.

With just 18 months between the initial injury and the surgery, Underwood’s procedure represented the shortest wait time for a face transplant in the U.S. “We’re often asked about identity crisis following a face transplant,” Rodriguez said. “As Cam defined it, his life was in pause” while he lived with a disfigured face.

Here is a more in-depth look at what happened.

Before the 2016 suicide attempt, Underwood was employed as a welder and machine worker in Yuba City, as told by family members in an exclusive story earlier this month in People magazine.

The self-inflicted shooting followed a day of drinking. His mother, Bev Bailey-Potter, told People that she knew her son was unhappy, but did not think him suicidal.

Underwood was airlifted to the University of California, Davis Medical Center for his gunshot wound, which had disintegrated the bottom of his face.

An emergency room doctor told Bailey-Potter her son wouldn’t survive, that his face was “dust,” but he still had his eyes and forehead.

But he did survive. Underwood remained under heavy sedation for more than a month, requiring a feeding tube.

Months after initial medical treatment, Bailey-Potter read a story in a December 2016 issue of People about NYU’s Langone

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center and its revolutionary face transplantation program.

She booked an appointment with Rodriguez almost immediately.

The distance wasn’t a deterrent. At 2,800 miles, Underwood traveled the farthest anyone has ever gone for a face transplant surgery, according to a news release by NYU. The plastic surgeon’s resume is impressive to say the least.

With a single-digit total of successful face transplants having been done in the United States prior to Underwood’s, Rodriguez was lead surgeon on two of them — one with NYU Langone in 2015 and one with the University of Maryland Medical Center in 2012.

In the March 2012 transplant, Rodriguez and his team gave a new face to a -37year-old man, Richard Norris, who suffered a ballistic injury in 1997.

In August 2015, Rodriguez repaired the face of Patrick Hardison, a retired firefighter who had been badly burned.

The exact circumstances of Fisher’s death have not been publicly disclosed, but Irving said that Will’s mother, Sally Fisher, first met with LiveOnNY on New Year’s Eve. “While the world was celebrating, a family was being consoled, and a mother was facing the loss of her only child,” Irving said.

Underwood — whom Irving, Rodriguez and others call Cam — was “waiting and waiting, as all our families do,” for word of a donor match, Irving said.

As Rodriguez pointed out, poor luck with the weather almost made it impossible to proceed on schedule.

A devastating “bomb cyclone” struck the Northeast in January. Intense storms hit the region, including New York.

Air travel was mayhem the week of Underwood’s scheduled surgery, but he made it on time thanks to advance planning between NYU and air ambulance teams.

“Through the generosity of pilots, they were able to get Cameron here in the nick of time,” Rodriguez said.

A camera crew with NYU Langone’s communications department followed the process for months, leading up to the operation and through his recovery phases.

On Jan. 4, the same day Will Fisher died, Sally Fisher asked to meet and thank Underwood.

Rodriguez called this type of meeting between a donor’s parent and a face transplant recipient prior to the surgery “unprecedented.”

“Welcome to New York,” Sally told Cam during a hugging embrace. “Thank God for you.”

Underwood’s procedure was monumental in terms of its use of advanced technology and novel in other facets.

The two-room operation required a team of more than 100 total surgeons, nurses and other staff, according to a news release by NYU Langone Health.

It used techniques that had never been used before,

Rodriguez said.

“We’re able to take advantage of the most advanced technological procedures that exist, and we can do a lot of computerized planning before we do the operation,” Rodriguez said in Thursday’s news conference. “Not everything is perfect and it will require a little bit of interoperative manipulation.”

Three-dimensional printing was among the new technologies used. The guiding frames that assisted surgical tools in place were -3D printed, Rodriguez said. And for the first time ever in a face transplant, a -3D printed mask was grafted onto the donor’s face following extraction, done out of respect to the Fisher family.

The surgery itself required taking mid-face structures, soft tissues and facial nerves from the donor faces, as well as Fisher’s teeth and jawbone. Both donor and recipient operations included an incision surrounding the whole face, from eye-level to mid-neck.

Advanced computer systems helped Rodriguez’s team navigate via what he called “interoperative” maneuvers to make the graft fit as well as possible.

Titanium plates were inserted at the middle of Underwood’s face. Screws were used to set his new jaw in place.

Underwood benefited from the closeness of the match and the strong features of Will Fisher.

“Willie had beautiful teeth,” Rodriguez said.

A world-class orthodontist has assisted in straightening those teeth, Rodrgiuez said. Underwood wore braces for several months following the procedure, but his teeth appeared bare during Thursday’s news conference.

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Cameron Underwood, his mother Bev Bailey-Potter (C), and family attend the 2018 NYU Langone Face Transplant Announcement with patient Cameron Underwood at NYU Langone Medical Center on November 2018 ,29 in New York City. (Getty Images)

Though 25 hours may seem long, the procedure was nine hours shorter than the previous face transplant undertaken

by Rodriguez’s team, though that one required forehead reconstruction as well.

Though 25 hours may seem long, the procedure was nine hours shorter than the previous face transplant undertaken

by Rodriguez’s team, though that one required forehead reconstruction as well.

The moment Underwood first saw his new face was also captured on camera. Rodriguez gave him a mirror, and the patient paused a moment before flipping it around.

“It was a few weeks,” until he could see it, “but it kind of felt like it was almost overnight,” Underwood said in Thursday’s news conference. “It was still a rough sketch, but you could see it there. It was overwhelming, with excitement.”

Healing is a gradual process with many stages. As Rodriguez said during Thursday’s news conference, it’s not instantaneous as it appears in some action movies, like “Face/Off.” Nerves and blood vessels need time to restore their normal function. Bruises and swelling are immediate and last weeks or months.

But monthly photos taken of Underwood’s face show noticeable reduction in swelling and a gradually improving appearance as time goes on.

It took five months for Underwood to regain facial movements, and until that point, the outdoorsman had to breathe through a tube in his throat. Seven months after the surgery, he could eat again.

Underwood’s road is still long. Rodriguez estimated about three to five years until his face is “pristine.”

Now 11 months later, Rodriguez said Underwood’s body has shown no signs of rejecting the transplanted face so far.

“There was no way we could have ever taken him back to a normal life without a face transplant,” the surgeon said.

Underwood still lives in California but must continue to travel monthly to New York City to see the surgeon.

Irving, the LiveOnNY CEO, said that there are currently about 9,000 hopeful organ, tissue and eye donor recipients on New York City’s waiting list.

She asked residents of all states to take the lifesaving step of becoming an organ donor. Will Fisher registered as an organ donor when he was a teenager.

Cameron Underwood (L) and Eduardo D. Rodriguez, MD, DDS pose during the 2018 NYU Langone Face Transplant Announcement with patient Cameron Underwood at NYU Langone Medical Center on November 2018 ,29 in New York City. (Getty Images)

*Michael McGough is a freelance reporter at The Sacramento Bee. This article was originally published in The Sacramento Bee.

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Do You Overcompensate?

How to Build Your Confidence and Start Valuing Yourself Again 50

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In today’s world, it’s very common to feel the huge pressure to both acknowledge and satisfy or exceed high expectations.

In today’s world, it’s very common to feel the huge pressure to both acknowledge and satisfy or exceed high expectations. You may even feel the pressure to match or outshine the competition posed by others and of course the biggest competition you face, which is of course yourself!

Often you may also overcompensate if you’ve grown up to be a high-achiever or to exceed expectations, yet your vulnerability is hidden by the expectation to be ‘perfect’. Alternatively, perhaps you’ve always been a rescuer and have always prioritised everyone else’s needs except your own?

So what happens when you still find yourself frequently overcompensating in any area of your life? What is it saying about how you feel about yourself? And what are the detrimental side effects?

Here are 8 tips to help you to start to overcome the need to overcompensate.

ASK YOURSELF HOW ARE YOU OVERCOMPENSATING? Initially, it’s important to recognise how you overcompensate?

Do you burn the midnight oil and work longer hours than needed so you then experience a lack of work/ life balance, or feel burnt out and stressed?

by Samantha Morris Do you ever find yourself undervaluing yourself and overcompensating for either yourself or others?

If you do, it can be a big sign that you’re experiencing low confidence and self-doubt.

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Do you feel the need to be ‘perfect’ or to deliver incredible high levels of work or to give too much in friendships, relationships or family life but find yourself spinning round and round?

Do you feel far from ‘good enough’ or doubt

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yourself in relationships?

Do you overcompensate with time, money, energy or emotional support?

Perhaps you start off with good intentions, but find yourself still procrastinating, perfecting and worrying hours or even days later, only to end up re-living the old self-prophecies of not feeling good enough.

WHAT ARE YOU OVERCOMPESATING FOR? Everyone will have a different reason why they are overcompensating so it’s important to be honest with yourself. Do you feel good enough? Are you genuinely happy with your career, relationships or yourself? Do you compare yourself to others or feel inferior? What are you looking for when you overcompensate? and What do you hope to achieve? If you find this difficult seeking help from either a coach (if it’s an issue that you can move on from) or from a therapist (if it’s an issue which overwhelms you) will support you to clarify why you overcompensate.

HOW TRUE IS IT THAT YOU’RE NOT OFFERING ENOUGH OR YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH? Our thoughts can be incredibly powerful and of course can help to keep us safe and to survive.

However, more often than not, we can either be living an outdated story of ourselves, or we tell ourselves something, which isn’t necessarily true, or we have blown out of proportion. Alternatively, we can be living according to other people’s beliefs or stories about ourselves or their own insecurities and experiences.

On a scale of 1( 10-1 being unlikely) (10 being the most likely) ask yourself how true is it that you’re not offering enough or you’re not good enough? Think of yourself here and no one else.

WHEN WERE YOU LAST TRULY PROUD OF YOURSELF? Think back to a time when you didn’t feel the need

to overcompensate? Has there ever been a time? If there has, when was this? Who was around you?

How did it feel? What helped?

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU TRIED TO NOT OVERCOMPENSATE? Firstly, consider how overcompensating is affecting your health, wellbeing, confidence and even your success? Are you using all your energy and experiencing stress and burnout?

Start with one small step every day, challenge yourself to gradually overcome the need to overcompensate. Perhaps you could try to write an email or report without checking it 10 times. Or perhaps you could try to prioritise your needs by setting yourself and others boundaries?

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Think of the bigger picture here. How might life be different if you didn’t overcompensate? How would you feel? How might things improve? Start to visualise a more confident you!

WHAT ONE THING CAN YOU DO TODAY TO TAKE BACK YOUR POWER? One thing can you do today to take back your power and reign back your need to overcompensate?

This can be done in smaller or larger steps. How can you start to reign back your need to overcompensate today?

BE KIND TO YOURSELF Of course we all need a good balance between being kind and more assertive with ourselves. However,

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Everyone will have a different reason why they are overcompensating so it’s important to be honest with yourself. overcompensating often walks hand in hand with overwhelm and a harsh inner critic.

Remember, part of the work is being kind to yourself so practice this daily.

How can you be kind to yourself? What do you enjoy doing? What helps you to relax and let go?