Jared Kushner to Majalla: “If Palestinians Come to the Table, the U.S. Will Be Flexible”

So Much for Iranian Retribution

A Weekly Political News Magazine

It’s time for the UK and EU to Discover what Brexit Really Means

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Mikhail Mishustin: From Little-Known Tax Chief to the Second Most Powerful Politician in Russia

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Jared Kushner to Majalla: “If Palestinians Come to the Table , the U.S. Will Be Flexible“ www.majalla.com

Editorial

A Weekly Political News Magazine

After months of delay, the Trump administration has finally revealed the political component of its Middle East peace plan or the Peace to Prosperity Plan. In spite of the current political deadlock in Israel, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz were united in their praise for the plan calling it a positive step forward for both Israel and the Palestinians. Nevertheless, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has never been keen on the plan and rejected both before and after it was announced in its entirety. This week’s cover story by Ali El Shamy explores the aspects of the plan and what it offers to Israel and the Palestinians and what concessions both sides would have to make, it also cites the reasons why both sides had contrasting reactions to the plan.

To complement the cover story, Mostafa El-Dessouki interviews Jared Kushner, the Senior White House advisor and one of the architects of the Peace to Prosperity plan. In the interview, Kushner praised the plan for uniting the Israeli political establishment in support of the deal and said that the US would be flexible towards the Palestinians if they decide to come to the negotiating table. He further stated that the plan would grant Palestinians their own state, and would, therefore, cause jihadist elements on the Palestinian side to lose their appeal since they would no longer have an argument to rally for.

After three and a half years of deadlock, negotiations and general elections, Brexit day has finally arrived and the UK is at last officially out of the European Union. While Britain might be out of the EU’s political institutions, the process of the UK-EU divorce is far from settled. The UK will still remain in the customs union and single until the end of 2020, and will still follow EU laws until that transition period ends. In the next 11 months, the UK will negotiate a new trade deal with the EU. Yasmine El-Geressi writes on the next period of negotiations and cites that many EU officials think that an extension to the transition period would be necessary to get a comprehensive deal in place, something that Boris Johnson has promised not to do.

Joseph Braude writes on the challenges Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is facing at home and abroad. First of all, the US has urged him to have bilateral talks, but he has refused to engage in any negotiations without the presence of the other 1+5 nations. Meanwhile, in another interview, he claimed that he was willing to negotiate with the US regardless of who is at the White House, which triggered protests in front of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, US-Iraq relations seem to be getting tighter as both Trump and Burham Salih, who met at the sidelines of Davos, agreed on the vitality of the continuing economic and security relations between both nations.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

30 Striking Oil Ain’t What It Used to Be

Issue 1785- January- 31/01/2020

24 Al-Azhar and Cairo University Clash

over Religious Discourse

09 Basketball Legend Kobe Bryant Dies in Helicopter Crash

26 The Twilight of America’s Financial Empire

34 Capitalism Must Reform to Survive

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If the Oscars Aren’t Going to Change, Is it Time to Walk Away 3

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44 ?What›s the Beef with Red Meat

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napshot

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A giant mural of former NBA star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, painted hours after their death, is seen at a basketball court in a slum area on January 28, 2020 in Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines. Bryant, who is hugely popular in basketball-obsessed Philippines, perished in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020 in Calabasas, California. He died together with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others. (Getty)

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A Chinese police officer wears a protective mask as he stands guard next to an ad before the annual Spring Festival at a Beijing railway station on January 2020 ,23 in Beijing, China. (Getty)

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eekly news

Trump Reveals Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan

US President Donald Trump unveiled his longdeferred Israeli-Palestinian peace plan on Tuesday as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz at the White House. «Together we can bring about a new dawn in the Middle East,» said Trump, who also called it «the toughest deal ever to make.» He thanked the governments of Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates for their assistance in the peace process. Trump called the deal a «realistic two-state solution.» He also said that Jerusalem would remain Israel›s «undivided capital» under the proposed plan. However, he went on to say that a future Palestinian state›s capital should be made up of parts of East Jerusalem in a kind

Trump’s long-delayed Israel-Palestinian peace plan when Israel’s attorney-general filed the charges in a Jerusalem court. The immunity bid seemed doomed to fail from the beginning since Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing, lacked sufficient votes in the legislature for approval.

The request for protection from prosecution had effectively blocked the filing of the indictment until now. As proceedings move towards trial the timeline remains unclear and it could take months or years. In addition to his legal battle, Netanyahu is fighting for his political life in a March 2 election, Israel’s third in less than a year after inconclusive ballots in April and September. of joint-territory agreement, which corresponded more closely with briefings from officials at the US State Department prior to the release. Although the outline makes several concessions to the Palestinians, including doubling their currently controlled territory, it does ask them to cross what has previously been described as a red line by accepting the previously constructed West Bank settlements as Israeli territory.

Syrian Government Forces Enter Town South of Idlib City

Netanyahu Formally Indicted in Court on Corruption Charges

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was formally indicted in court on Tuesday on corruption charges after he withdrew his request for parliamentary immunity from prosecution. Netanyahyu was in Washington for meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of the release of

Syrian government forces entered a town south of Idlib city on Tuesday in a significant advance for President Bashar al-Assad as he seeks to recapture rebel-held territory in the country’s northwest, a war monitor and state media said. Assad’s campaign to regain Idlib province, the last rebel bastion in a nearly nine-year-long civil war, has sparked a new exodus of thousands of civilians towards the border with Turkey, which backs some insurgent groups fighting Assad. People were fleeing towns in southern Idlib, a Reuters witness said. Some headed towards camps for internally displaced persons or rebel-held towns near the Turkish border. Heavy clashes broke out between rebels and government forces in Maarat al-Numan after the forces entered the town south of Idlib city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, after earlier reporting that the troops backed by Russian air strikes had taken full control.

Rockets Hit US Embassy in Baghdad Amid Protests

At least three rockets struck the US embassy

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China Virus Deaths Rise to 170 as Hit to Global Economy Looms

in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on Sunday. One rocket hit the embassy cafeteria while two others landed a short distance away, a source told AFP. At least three people were injured, security sources told Reuters. This would be the first time in years that staff have been hurt in such attacks. No group has claimed responsibility but the US has blamed Iran-backed military factions in Iraq in the past. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi condemned the attack, stating that the continuation of such acts could «drag Iraq into becoming a battlefield». The US State Department said: «We call on the Government of Iraq to fulfil its obligations to protect our diplomatic facilities.» Recent attacks have targeted the embassy or Iraqi military bases where American troops are deployed. Iraq has been dragged into a rapid deterioration in relations between Iran and the US in recent months.

White House Objects to Bolton Book; Trump Impeachment Trial Starts New Phase

The White House on Wednesday objected to the publication of a book written by President Donald Trump›s former national security adviser John Bolton that depicts Trump as playing a central role in a pressure campaign on Ukraine,

Hundreds of foreign evacuees from the Chinese city of Wuhan entered quarantine on Thursday as deaths from a fast-spreading virus rose to 170 and markets shuddered at the impact of an inevitable big hit to the world’s No. 2 economy. All eyes were on the World Health Organization (WHO), which has held off declaring the flu-like coronavirus a global emergency but was to reconsider that later in the day. Such a declaration would trigger tighter containment and information-sharing guidelines, but may disappoint Beijing, which had expressed confidence in defeating the “devil” virus. It could also potentially spook markets further. The day after a state economist forecast the crisis would lop a percentage point off China’s first quarter growth, global stocks tumbled, the yuan hit its lowest this year, oil prices slid again and safe haven assets like gold gained. as the Senate impeachment trial entered a new phase. A letter from the White House National Security Council to Bolton›s attorney said the manuscript based on a preliminary review appeared to contain «significant amounts of classified information» and could not be published without the deletion of this material. Some of the material was considered top secret, according to the letter. Democrats view Bolton as a key figure who could help them solidify their case against the president, and reports about the book›s contents appear to boost their arguments in the trial.

Democrats want to call Bolton, a foreign policy hawk in several Republican administrations, and a small number of other officials to testify but many Republican senators have so far resisted the idea of having any witnesses.

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Basketball Legend Kobe Bryant Dies in Helicopter Crash

US basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna were among nine people killed in a helicopter crash in the city of Calabasas, California. Bryant, 41, and Gianna, 13, were travelling in a private helicopter when it came down and burst into flames. The LA county sheriff said there were no survivors. Bryant, a five-time NBA champion, played for the LA Lakers throughout his career and is considered one of the greatest players in the game›s history. Tributes from celebrities and fellow sports stars have been pouring in, many expressing shock at his sudden death. Moments of silence have been observed at basketball games across the US.

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Trump’s Peace Plan Receives Conflicting Reactions From Both Sides Washington Finally Reveals the Political Component of the Mideast Peace Plan 10

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The announcement made it clear that the Trump administration is still committed to a two-state solution with a Palestinian state based within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. revelation of the political component of the plan. Now that Trump and Netanyahu have announced details pertaining to the plan, Abbas was quick to reject the plan in its entirety stating that the “conspiracy deal won’t pass”. The “Deal of the Century” has been contentious from the very start, and the Trump Administration’s decision to move the US embassy from Israel to Jerusalem in 2017 has caused the PA to cut diplomatic ties with the US. Nevertheless, there has been much fanfare among Israeli political leaders, as both Prime Minister Netanyahu and his opponent Benny Gantz (who was also present at the White House during the event), praised the plan and saw it as a positive step towards peace and reconciliation.

THE TWO STATE SOLUTION IS STILL EXISTENT

U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participate in a joint statement in the East Room of the White House on January ,28 2020 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

by Ali El Shamy Last summer, Jared Kushner, one of President Trump’s Senior Advisors, went to Manama, Bahrain to present the economic component of the administration’s Middle East peace plan. While many Israeli businesspeople and entrepreneurs attended the workshop, there was a noticeable lack of participants from the Palestinian enterprises despite their invitation. This showed early on that the Trump administration was going to find difficulties in encouraging Palestinian leadership to accept the peace plan, and this has proven to be true as some reports indicate that Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been refusing to accept a call from President Trump in the run-up to the

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During the past year, the secrecy of the political component of the plan paved the way towards many unfounded conspiracy theories which ended up being incorrect. One example was that the US had abandoned plans for a two-state solution in favor of a one-state solution in which the West Bank and Gaza are absorbed into Israel. Needless to say, the announcement made it clear that the Trump administration is still committed to a two-state solution with a Palestinian state based within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While fears of a one-state solution were lifted, many Palestinians still expressed dissatisfaction with the plan as they are still committed towards a two-state solution based on pre1967- war borders.

Another point of contention is the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which many in the international community view as illegal, while the Trump administration thinks otherwise. The plan recognized Israeli sovereignty over these settlements but called for a four-year freeze on new settlement construction during which the Palestinians and Israel can sit together and further negotiate a future comprehensive peace plan. Furthermore, the plan gives Israel sovereignty over more land with the West

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Bank mostly from the strip of land that is situated west of the Jordan River. To compensate for this loss of land, the Palestinians will be given land in the Negev Desert which would be developed as a high-tech industrial area and a residential and agricultural area.

JERUSALEM: AN UNDIVIDED CAPITAL SPLIT ?BETWEEN TWO STATES During the announcement, Trump seemed to make two contradictory statements that confused some spectators. At first, he emphasized that Jerusalem would become the undivided capital of Israel, while also stating that the Palestinian state’s capital would be in eastern Jerusalem. This seemingly contradictory plan for the Holy City is made clearer in the actual plan which states Israel would have Jerusalem as its capital. Since the border between the Palestinian state and Israel will be based on the security barrier that the latter built during the Second Intifada, meaning that the capital of the proposed Palestinian state would be made of the sections of East Jerusalem that fall outside the security wall. Palestinians living on either side of the security barrier in Jerusalem will have the option to become either Palestinian citizens or Israeli citizens.

Such a proposal did not bode well with the Palestinian leadership, hours after Trump and Netanyahu announced the key components of the plan, Mahmoud Abbas declared live on television that “Jerusalem wasn’t for sale”. This did not come as a surprise to many observers since the controversy surrounding the status of Jerusalem was what triggered the Palestinian Authority’s cut from diplomatic ties with Washington as it has previously stated that it would only accept a peace plan that granted it East Jerusalem in its entirety as its capital. Also under the plan, Jordan would maintain its status quo authority of Al Aqsa Mosque and Temple Mount.

If the Palestinians accept the plan, then the Gaza Strip must be demilitarized and Hamas must be stripped from its power in the region.

SECURITY, DEMILITIRIZATION AND REFUGEES If the Palestinians accept the plan, then the Gaza Strip must be demilitarized and Hamas must be stripped from its power in the region. Furthermore, terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad must handover all their arms, and Palestine would need to stop financial compensation to such groups.

Though Palestine would have its own security forces, Israel would be responsible for border and crossings security. Another issue that the plan addressed is the right of Palestinian refugees displaced during the 1948 War to return to former Palestinian lands. The plan rejected any prospects of Israel absorbing any Palestinian refugees but stated that they had the right to Palestinian citizenship or citizenship of the countries they reside in. The US would also give the refugees

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds a press conference on Trump›s peace plan in Ramallah, West Bank on January 2020 ,28.

(Getty)

some sort of monetary compensation in the future.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR PALESTINE Although most details regarding the economic component of the plan were revealed last summer, Trump’s announcement gave further insight into what’s in store for the Palestinians should they accept the plan. First of all, the US will negotiate a freetrade agreement with the State of Palestine and will encourage allies in Europe and the Middle East to do the same. Trump would further announce in the White House plans to provide Palestine with 50 billion dollars geared towards development aid. The plan also calls for the establishment of a free-trade zone between the Kingdom of Jordan and the proposed Palestinian state and goods from the free-trade zone will be exported via an airport in Jordan. Of course, this free-trade zone

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can only be established after the Kingdom of Jordan gives its greenlight.

Crucially, the plan calls for the development of an industrial zone in the Negev Desert which aims to help the State of Palestine become a new center for the high tech industry in the region. The Palestinians will be provided with tax incentives and on the site training to help make their industry competitive. Furthermore, the plan aims for the establishment of similar facilities in the neighboring countries in the region which will further help the proposed Palestinian high-tech industry take flight and soar.

ISRAELI OFFICIALS PRAISE PLAN As previously stated, both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz have commended the plan and view it as a positive

Trump’s Mideast plan Main developments

November 2016

Just-elected US President Donald Trump says he "would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians"

May 2019

February 2017

May 2017

December 2017 Recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, effectively ignoring Palestinian claims on the Holy City and breakingwith previous US policy

Says a two-state solution is not the only option to end the conflict

Warns both sides that making peace "will not be easy"

March 2019

May 2018

Trump recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights

US embassy is transferred from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the day is marked by deadly clashes in Gaza Strip

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, says US will pull back from long-standing mentions of two-state solution with the Palestinians

June 2019 Kushner launches economic part of US initiative, which calls for $50 billion in international investment in Palestinian territories, neighbouring Arab countries over 10 years

November 2019

January 28, 2020

US no longer considers Israeli settlements in West Bank a violation of international law

Trump unveils his Mideast plan, proposes "two-state solution" with concessions to Israel including recognizing Jerusalem as "indivisible" capital. Plan rejected by Palestinians

step for both Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu was especially delighted over the fact that the plan recognized Israeli sovereignty over settlements in the West Bank, something that previous administrations have often drawn a red line over. He was also pleased that Jerusalem would remain as an undivided capital for Israel, while still retaining people of all faiths the right to access religious sites.

He later appeared on Fox and Friends, where he repeated his approval of the plan but also warned the Palestinians against rejecting it stating that it

There are speculations that the PA will attempt to wait out till the next US presidential election in November, in hopes that Trump will be voted out and a new president would then renew efforts towards a different peace plan.

might be the most generous offer they will get. He emphasized that the plan requires both sides to make compromises and that Israel is willing to make these concessions.

A FINAL OPPORTUNITY FOR THE PALESTINIANS ?

During the announcement of the plan, President Trump warned the Palestinians against rejecting it as he believes that it might be a final opportunity for them to achieve two vital goals, peace with Israel and statehood. Nevertheless, the PA still rejected the plan since it did not accept the prospect of losing land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It is still unknown what course of action the PA plans to take, there are speculations that it will attempt to wait out till the next US presidential election in November, in hopes that Trump will be voted out and a new president would then renew efforts towards a different peace plan. However, this plan might prove to be fruitless since there is little reason to believe that Trump will not remain president in the next four years. As such, the Palestinians’ current hopes for statehood seem to be either the Trump peace plan or bust.

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Trump unveils Middle East peace plan Proposed Palestinian state Palestinian major road

Bridge or tunnel Port access

Mediterranean Sea Ashdod

Tulkarm Qalqilya Pre-1967 ceasefire line

Rafah

JORDAN Jericho

Jerusalem

ISRAEL West BankGaza Tunnel

GAZA

WEST BANK

Ramallah

Hebron

Gaza City

Nablus

Bethlehem

Dead Sea

Israeli enclave

Jordan River

Israeli access road

Jenin

High-tech industrial KEY PROPOSALS area BORDERS: U.S. to recognise Israeli sovereignty over Jordan Valley and vast majority of Israeli settlements on occupied West Bank

20km 12 miles

Palestinian state to receive land, mostly desert, to compensate for loss of 30% of West Bank

EGYPT

Residential and agricultural Source: White House

JERUSALEM: Israel to be granted sovereignty over Jerusalem – long rejected by Palestinians – with potential Palestinian capital to east and north of city, outside Israeli security barrier Holy sites to be open to all worshippers, with status quo governing flashpoint sites preserved REFUGEES: “Right of return” rejected for Palestinians who lost homes to Israel in previous conflicts SECURITY: Israel to “maintain overriding security responsibility” over “fully demilitarized” Palestinian state GRAPHIC NEWS

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Jared Kushner to Majalla: “If Palestinians Come to the Table, the U.S. Will Be Flexible” The Senior White House Adviser Added that U.S. and Arab Interests in Ending the Israeli-Palestinian Stalemate are “Largely the Same”

by Mostafa El-Dessouki Speaking in a private, on-the-record briefing Wednesday, Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to President Donald J. Trump, described aspects of the newly released White House peace plan as an “amazing step to break a logjam” in IsraeliPalestinian relations.

“We unified Israel around a serious proposal,” Kushner said — referring to the fact that both Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his electoral rival, Benny Gantz, had endorsed the plan. The two leaders had come together, he said, “both in terms of agreeing to negotiate on the basis of a plan, and also on getting a map, which has never been put out in the history of

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“This conflict has been used for radicalization. … This deal, or even just the offer of it, takes away those arguments from the jihadis, because now the Palestinian people have the opportunity to have a state,” things the U.S. would be flexible on.”

Kushner noted that U.S. and Arab interests in ending the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate are “largely the same,” in that “this conflict has been used for radicalization. … This deal, or even just the offer of it, takes away those arguments from the jihadis, because now the Palestinian people have the opportunity to have a state,” including “a capital in east Jerusalem” and economic development opportunities. The advisor attached special significance to the plan’s call for international freedom of religious pilgrimage to all of Jerusalem’s holy places, notably the AlAqsa mosque.

Kushner distinguished the peace plan from the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative in that the latter was “a major breakthrough but … not a detailed document. … Since then you’ve had people wordsmith -3-2page conceptual documents trying to get a breakthrough.” He said that the Trump plan, by contrast, is an -80page operational document.

White House US Senior Advisor Jared Kushner attends the conference on Peace and Security in the Middle East in Warsaw, on February 2019 ,14. (Getty)

this conflict.”

But while “President Trump obviously has a lot of trust with the people of Israel and leadership of Israel,” Kushner added, that does not mean the United States will respond unfavorably to Palestinian political engagement. “If Palestinians would come to the table,” he said, “there are

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In response to a followup question by Majalla concerning Palestinian “days of rage” protests following the release of the document, Kushner indicated that those demonstrations had been organized by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The Palestinian people have been “lied to for a long time and promised false things,” he observed. But the longest-standing refugee problem in history has been diminished in the twenty-first century, Kushner said, as “now we have 70 million refugees throughout the world.”

Of the Palestinian leadership, he said, “It will be very hard for them to play the victim card going forward and continue to raise money … when they have a real offer on the table.”

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So Much for Iranian Retribution Washington is Further Entrenching its Military Presence on Iran’s Doorstep as Momentum for a US Exit from Iraq Breaks

by Joseph Braude As January draws to a close, the Iranian leadership has become increasingly preoccupied with internal

power struggles and the stresses of coping with a tightening campaign of Western pressure. Iran’s effort to dislodge the U.S. from Iraq appears to have stalled and Washington, if anything, appears

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to be further entrenching its military presence on Iran’s doorstep.

ZARIF UNDER PRESSURE AT HOME AND ABROAD On Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to reject bilateral talks with the United States, declaring that Iran would only accept renewing negotiations within the multilateral 1+5 framework of the 2015 nuclear agreement signatories. On January 26, Zarif tweeted that President Trump “is still dreaming about a bilateral meeting—to satisfy HIS lust for a ‘Trump deal,’” and labeled Trump’s approach “wishful thinking.” Tehran’s chief diplomat also demanded that Trump “compensat[e] Iran for damages.”

If this caustic approach was meant to assuage hardline sentiment in the streets, it did not have the desired effect. Indeed, the next day hundreds of Iranians protested in front of Tehran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs over remarks he made about the possibility of talks with the United States in an interview last week with Der Spiegel.

There, Zarif had said he would “never rule out the possibility” of negotiating with the United States and added that “for us, it doesn’t matter who is sitting in the White House. What matters is how they behave. The Trump administration can correct its past, lift the sanctions and come back to the negotiating table... We have a lot of patience.”

US President Donald Trump speaks with Iraqi President Barham Salih during a bilateral meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 2020 ,22.

(Getty)

The demonstrators, apparently organized by Iranian hardliners, labeled Zarif an “opportunist” and demanded his resignation. One cleric who spoke at the rally called Zarif›s remarks «humiliating» and declared they «undermined Iran›s power.” Several protesters also expressed dismay that President Trump’s dismissal of Zarif’s demands — expressed in both English and Farsi — added to Iran’s humiliation.

IRAN FAILS TO DISLODGE U.S. MIDDLE EASTERN DEPLOYMENTS After an initial period of confusion following the killing of Qods Force commander Qassem

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After an initial period of confusion following the killing of Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani and a non-binding vote by the Iraqi parliament calling for the end of the U.S. troop presence, it appears that momentum for an American exit has broken.

Soleimani and a non-binding vote by the Iraqi parliament calling for the end of the U.S. troop presence, it appears that momentum for an American exit has broken. Last week, President Trump and Iraqi President Barham Salih met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. According to a White House statement, «The two leaders agreed on the importance of continuing the United States-Iraq economic and security partnership, including the fight against ISIS.” And indeed, according to Israeli reporting, the U.S. is building at least three “semipermanent” new bases very close to the Iranian border in northern Iraq.

It was perhaps, then, in frustration that Tehran instructed its proxies in Iraq to stage another attack on America’s embassy in Baghdad. This incursion was considerably weaker than the attempted breach of the embassy’s perimeter

by Kata’ib Hizballah militiamen on December 31, however. Five rockets were fired by proIranian militias at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, wounding three people. The incident came amid anti-government protests primarily centered on popular dissatisfaction with government corruption and a lack of economic opportunity.

As if to underscore the limits of Iran’s reach, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi swiftly condemned the attack in a statement re-affirming Iraq›s commitment to “protecting all diplomatic missions.”

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It’s time for the UK and EU to Discover what Brexit Really Means The Question of What Shape Brexit will Actually Take is Far from Settled

by Yasmine El-Geressi Brexit day is finally here. At 23:00 GMT on Friday 31 January the UK, including Northern Ireland, will legally end their 40-year marriage with the EU

nearly 4 years after the referendum. Britain’s departure from the EU will transform its relationship with the continent, shift the country’s position in the world and usher in a new era in international relations. But the question of what shape Brexit will

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actually take is far from settled.

WHAT CHANGES ON FEBRUARY Nothing. At least initially. Although everyday life will remain the same and the UK will remain in the single market and the customs union until the end of the year as part of transition arrangements, the withdrawal agreement will be a legally binding international treaty.

During this period all parts of the UK will continue to follow EU rules and contribute to the EU budget but will be ejected from the EU’s political institutions while the long-term relationship, including a trade deal can be negotiated. This standstill period will last until the end of 2020 and the prime minister has promised not to extend it. The trading relationship between the EU an UK, and between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK will remain unchanged during the transition period.

British and EU citizens will continue to benefit from free movement during the twilight period. After this period, Britons living in the 27 EU member states will have their residency rights safeguarded, subject to completing whatever administrative procedures are imposed by the national government.

But the divorce deal does not grant British expats full freedom of movement rights within the union.

It guarantees rights for UK citizens in the EU27 country where they reside. But the European Parliament has urged that UK citizens living in the EU should be granted free movement rights after the transition period has ended.

Time is short. Many EU officials have said that they do not believe that 11 months is not enough time to settle all the detail of this future EU-UK cooperation. After all, it took about three years just to get to this point and this next phase could be even tougher. that from 2021, travelers will need to apply for an ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorisation System) visa waiver. Similar to an American ESTA, this is expected to cost around £6 and will be valid for several years.

NEGOTIATING A POST-BREXIT TRADE DEAL

For the 3 million EU citizens resident in the UK, they have until June 2021 to register for Britain’s settled status scheme, which allows them to stay in the UK with existing rights after Brexit, The scheme is open to people who have been living in the country for at least five years. Those who have not been there long enough can apply for pre-settled status, which grants the right to live and work in Britain for up to five years.

The Brexit Department will be abolished and a new Taskforce Europe Team within No10 will lead the UK›s trade talks - headed by the PM›s chief Europe adviser David Frost. The highly complex and potentially extensive set of negotiations on the UK’s post Brexit relationship with the EU will start on 3 March, the Guardian reported this week.

While business has been clamouring for the government to reveal its Brexit vision beyond the joint aspiration of a tariff-free, quota-free deal, little is known about Boris Johnson’s specific goals. The starting point of these negotiations will be something called the political declaration, which sets out broad principles – “establishes the parameters of an ambitions, broad, deep and flexible partnership across trade and economic cooperation with a comprehensive and balanced Free Trade Agreement at its core” – but lacks details on how these goals will be achieved.

Travel arrangements and holidays between January 31 and December 31, 2020 will be unaffected.

British citizens will not need a visa to travel to EU countries, but the European Commission has said

Time is short. Many EU officials have said that they do not believe that 11 months is not enough time to settle all the detail of this future EU-UK cooperation. After all, it took about three years

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just to get to this point and this next phase could be even tougher. The Brexit deal allows the possibility of an extension to this period until the end of 2022, but Johnson has ruled out any form of extension to the transition period, and he eliminated that possibility from the Brexit legislation that just became law. If no trade deal has been agreed and ratified by the end of the year, then the UK faces the prospect of tariffs on exports to the EU. The EU wants to guarantee a “level playing field” with the UK in any free-trade agreement, basically to prevent the UK from so drastically changing their economic regulations (such as giving huge tax breaks or subsidies to companies) or environmental or labour standards that it could undercut the EU. The EU sees state aid as the most sensitive parts of the “level playing field” of common rules and standards that it says Britain must adhere to if it wants any trade deal – and it plans to impose requirements that go far beyond those demanded of other trading partners in this area.

Some have argued the EU is guilty of the accusation often levelled at the UK: trying to cherry pick bits of the UK-EU trading relationship, without accepting the consequences of Brexit. The EU, however, says that it has made the UK an exceptionally generous offer. The EU does not have a zero-tariff, zero-quota, traditional free-trade agreement with any country in the world, so wants equivalent assurances in return.

Northern Ireland remains the single most contentious part of the Brexit trade deal because of the checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea. After Brexit, Northern Ireland will be outside the EU while the Republic of Ireland will remain inside. The UK and EU agreed this should not lead to new checks or controls on goods crossing the border between the two parts of Ireland. To achieve this, Northern Ireland will continue to follow EU rules on agricultural and manufactured goods, while the rest of

the UK will not. This will mean some new checks and processes for goods moving between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK. The UK and EU now have to negotiate the nature and extent of those checks. During the election campaign, the prime minister insisted that for goods moving from NI to GB, there would be «»no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind». But the EU has said there will have to be new checks, particularly on food products. Northern Ireland businesses have urged the

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Hungary›s Prime minister Viktor Orban, Cyprus› President Nicos Anastasiades, Britain›s Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Germany›s Chancellor Angela Merkel speak during an European Union Summit at European Union Headquarters in Brussels on October ,17 2019. (Getty)

government to set up the working group urgently so that the detail of the checks can be determined quickly.

If no trade deal is reached by the end of the transition period, this will affect Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK differently. England, Scotland and Wales would face tariffs and other trade barriers with the UK while Northern Ireland will not. This is because the withdrawal deal guarantees friction-

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less trade with the Republic of Ireland.

It›s not just a trade deal that needs to be sorted out. The UK must agree how it is going to cooperate with the EU on security and law enforcement. The UK is set to leave the European Arrest Warrant scheme and will have to agree a replacement. It must also agree deals in a number of other areas where co-operation is needed.

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Al-Azhar and Cairo University Clash over Religious Discourse

Road to Renewed Religious Discourse Runs Towards Bumpy Highway

by Ali El Shamy Ever since he was elected President of Egypt, Abdel Fatah El Sisi has had an objective of renovating Islamic religious discourse to combat extremist religious teachings which have become widespread in the wider Arab-Islamic world. As this is an ongoing and difficult process, the President has called on various religious leaders, experts and intellectuals in the country to take on a concerted effort towards this end goal. As this is a delicate topic, the president has noted that a renewal of Islamic discourse, should not happen at the expense of Islamic values.

On January 2020 ,28, Al-Azhar, a historic and widely prestigious Islamic institution based in Egypt, hosted the International Conference on the Renovation of Islamic Discourse as part of the government’s wider efforts. A number of religious scholars from 41 Arab and Islamic countries attended and one of the notable attendees included was Mohamed Othman Elkhosht, the President of Cairo University. ElKhost is a professor in Philosophy of Religion and has written 24 academic books on

During the conference, Elkhosht argued that the way the current scholarship of Islamic jurisprudence is outdated and needed updating to appeal to modern times.

Islamic heritage. As such, his background would qualify him as a valued contributor to discussions pertaining to Islamic discourse, however, during the conference he clashed with Sheikh Ahmad El Tayeb the Grand Imam of Al Azhar who has a career spanning 50 years studying Islamic jurisprudence.

DEBATE OVER THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION During the conference, Elkhosht argued that the way the current scholarship of Islamic jurisprudence is outdated and needed updating to appeal to modern times. “It is necessary to renew the science of Usul al-Deen (Roots of Religion) by returning to the pure sources of the Quran and what is true of the Prophet’s Sunnah”. Elkhosht stated. He would then go on to say that AlShafi‘i, one of the founders of the four Islamic schools, would seek to renovate jurisprudence had he existed during these present times. Elkhosht would also state that modern scholars rely too heavily on the Ash’ari theology which he states relies on Hadith Ahad. Hadith are sayings and quotes from Prophet Mohamed that pertain to how Muslims should act and behave in certain situations. Along with the Quran, it forms an important backbone for which Islamic laws are based upon. However, unlike the Quran, which has been written down from the Prophet’s dictation during his lifetime, and compiled in book form during the third Caliph’s Uthman Bin Affan’s reign, the Hadith were written down 300-200 years after the Prophet’s passing. This has created some controversy regarding which Hadith are valid, and which are not. However, it is commonly accepted that Hadith with a long chain of narrators who passed it on to each other are more valid than those that have a short chain of narrators. In his argument, Elkhost said that Asha’aris relied too heavily on Hadith Ahad, Hadith narrated by only one

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The Grand Imam of the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, during the ceremony in the city›s Central Mosque commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Islamic community of Lisbon on March 2018 ,15 in Lisbon, Portugal.

(Getty)

individual, which would serve as a reason why scholars should steer away from this school of thought.

For his part, Sheikh El Tayeb rebutted most of Elkhost’s arguments claiming that Elkhost was seeking abandonment of Islamic teachings rather than a renewal of Islamic discourse. He compared Elkhost to a person who seeks to renovate his father’s home but opts to buy a new one rather than repairing the old one. He also argued that Islamic teachings weren’t as medieval as Elkhost claims, but admitted that some areas, such a marriage, and divorce laws and inheritance laws, needed to be reviewed.

Finally, he said that most Ashari scholars base their teachings on Hadith Mutawatir (Hadith with a long chain of narrators) and not Hadith Ahud.

Elkhost would then write on a Facebook post that part of his speech was cut off from the televised broadcast of the conference.

The post also included the full lecture that he was meant to deliver, and the parts he claimed were removed from the broadcast.

Government officials chose not to get involved in the argument

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For his part, Sheikh El Tayeb rebutted most of Elkhost’s arguments claiming that Elkhost was seeking abandonment of Islamic teachings rather than a renewal of Islamic discourse. between both men and instead emphasized the importance of quickly renewing Islamic discourse. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli, attended the conference and gave a speech on behalf of President El Sisi who was not present: “President Sisi urges accelerating efforts to renovate religious discourse, warning that procrastination would give the opportunity to those who claim knowledge to brainwash youth into adopting wrong beliefs and misconception of religion”.

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The Twilight of America’s Financial Empire Washington’s Economic Bullying Will Erode Its Power

by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman

would freeze Iraq’s accounts at the U.S. Federal Reserve.

When Iraqi lawmakers voted to expel U.S. forces from the country earlier this month, the Trump administration’s response was swift and forceful: it refused to withdraw and, for good measure, threatened financial retaliation, saying it

The threat seems to have been effective. Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has said that his caretaker government lacks the authority to push for a U.S. withdrawal, and American troops have resumed joint operations with their

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Iraqi counterparts.

But that sense of normalcy is deceiving. U.S. forces were in the country at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help in the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS. By refusing to withdraw them, the Trump administration is turning a relationship of choice into one of coercion. Just as alarming, Washington is doing so by threatening to starve its ally of critical funds, a step that could set off a financial crisis in Iraq, perhaps even economic collapse.

Washington’s stranglehold over the Iraqi economy is an extreme example of a broader, worrying trend: more and more often, the United States is using its privileged role as custodian of the global financial system to coerce and punish those who object to its methods, be they friend or foe. It has slowly usurped a system intended to provide benefits to the world at large and made of it an instrument for its own geopolitical goals.

In turning financial relationships into a tool of empire, the United States follows in the footsteps of ancient Athens.

The experience of this predecessor does not augur well for Washington. Athens used its financial power to abuse its allies and in doing so precipitated its own ruination. The United States risks doing the same.

THE PRICE OF ARROGANCE

The Federal Reserve building is pictured on Tuesday August ,6 2019. (Getty)

Scholars of the realist school of international relations tend to think of the Athenian general and writer Thucydides as one of their own: a believer in power politics who grasped the harsh realities of statecraft. They interpret his Melian dialogue, in which Athenian conquerors tell their foes that the strong do what they will while the weak suffer as they must, as a statement of the eternal truth of international politics—great powers make war against one another to gain or to protect empires, while weak states try to survive as best they can. Yet Thucydides was not an international relations theorist—he was a historian. He was interested less in arguing that leaders had limited options to choose from than in discovering why they often chose poorly. The speeches of the victorious Athenians that he recounts should be read as a testament to the arrogance that eventually tripped the city’s leaders up.

In Thucydides’ telling, Athenian imperialism and hubris went hand in hand. After fending off a Persian invasion, Athens and its allies formed an association of city-states, the Delian League, to defend themselves against any Persian reprisals. To this end, each member of the league contributed funds to a shared treasury based on the island of Delos, to be administered for the common benefit. But Athens, the alliance’s most influential member, did not

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Washington’s stranglehold over the Iraqi economy is an extreme example of a broader, worrying trend: more and more often, the United States is using its privileged role as custodian of the global financial system to coerce and punish those who object to its methods, be they friend or foe. take long to abuse its power. The Athenian statesman Pericles moved the treasury from Delos to Athens, where it was used for the city’s sole benefit. The league, designed as an alliance based on shared interests, became an empire, with Athens demanding tribute from its former allies and threatening to occupy or destroy them if they failed to pay.

Athenian leaders, according to Thucydides, knew that they were alienating former allies and turning neutral states into enemies, but they saw unpopularity as the price of power.

Arrogance would have its price, too. Pericles› successors, including the belligerent Cleon, faced revolt from Athens’s disgruntled allies as the Peloponnesian War went on. The enemies of Athens triumphed, leading to its downfall.

WEAPONIZED FINANCE Like Athens, the United States and its allies have created a shared treasury of sorts: the global financial system and the complex institutional arrangements that underpin it. Among them are the financial messaging network SWIFT, the dollar clearing system, and the willingness of the U.S. Federal Reserve to provide international liquidity in times of crisis. Together, these arrangements allow states to manage their wealth with unprecedented levels of coordination and safety. And like Athens in the Delian League, the United States has been the first among equals, reaping enormous benefits from its central role in global finance and from the supremacy of the dollar.

Other countries, too, have benefited, including the 250 states and government financial institutions that trust the U.S. Federal Reserve to hold their money safe. The United States has provided goods for the general benefit, including a stable clearing system for financial transactions and the extraordinary “swap lines” that the U.S. Federal Reserve put in place after

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the global financial crisis, allowing foreign central banks to provide dollars to their weakened domestic financial institutions.

Over the last decade, however, the United States has been more and more willing to use its vast power in the global financial system for its own ends. No longer does Washington try to coerce its adversaries simply by cutting off access to U.S. firms and markets; instead, it often imposes so-called secondary sanctions, which cut off access to the global financial system itself.

International banks cannot do their job without access to the dollar clearing system, which the United States controls. As a result, they are terrified of displeasing U.S. regulators, who can fine them billions of dollars or effectively shut them down. That has allowed the United States to press financial institutions around the world into service as proxy regulators who will refuse to deal with individuals, businesses, or even states that have been designated by U.S. sanctions. Weaponizing global finance in this way has become the tool of choice for the U.S. government in pursuing goals as diverse as nonproliferation, human rights, and regime change.

Adversaries such as Iran have seen their economies crippled. But even European firms perceived to have flouted U.S. sanctions have had to pay billions of dollars in penalties to U.S. authorities to avoid becoming untouchable pariahs in the world economy.

In the early stages of building this financial empire, the United States at least consulted with its allies and gave them the chance to speak out against measures that affected their firms. As of late, however, Washington has been unwilling even to pretend to defer to allies, who receive little if any advance warning of coming sanctions that might hurt their companies or stymie their foreign policy

The European Union’s new executive is coldly and carefully considering how best to protect the continent from both U.S. and Chinese economic aggression.

objectives. In a growing number of cases, U.S. allies are actually the objects of U.S. economic coercion.

THE REAL THUCYDIDES TRAP The US administration believes that countries the likes of Iraq have no choice but to bend to its will: the all-important role of the dollar means that America is strong while others are weak. Of course, the weak will complain—that is what they always do—but the complaints of the powerless are irrelevant.

Yet Washington’s arrogant belief in the inevitability of its power may end up creating the conditions for that power to crumble. Much of the United States’ economic and political influence rests on the trust of foreign states and firms in the global financial architecture that it dominates.

If the country is clearly not administering that system

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A picture shows the Huawei logo and signage at their main UK offices in Reading, west of London, on April 2019 ,29. (Getty)

The more domineering the United States becomes, the more incentives its allies will have to resist its domination or defect just when they are needed most. And as the trust of U.S. allies erodes, so will Washington’s ability to project power around the world.

U.S. financial coercion is vastly milder than the terror inflicted by Athens, which massacred and enslaved the populations of cities that rebelled against it. But Washington’s methods become far more problematic if they serve to impose a de facto military occupation, as they now do in Iraq. Friction with host governments, in Iraq and elsewhere, may force the United States to deploy more troops in order to protect those already on the ground.

Even for a superpower, power projection on such a scale will be too expensive to sustain.

in the interests of all nations, and instead uses it as a straightforward tool of coercion, its influence will wilt away.

In fact, that process has already begun. Turkey—a NATO member and U.S. ally that in recent years has come to fear the sting of American sanctions—is working with Russia to build payment channels that allow international trade flows to circumvent the U.S. financial system. The European Union’s new executive is coldly and carefully considering how best to protect the continent from both U.S. and Chinese economic aggression. Even close allies, such as the United Kingdom, are considering rejecting the U.S. demand that they block the Chinese tech behemoth Huawei from building their telecommunications networks.

The dollar clearing system is unlikely to collapse, but states and nonstate actors may dig alternative tunnels of exchange that could gradually undermine and replace it.

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Powerful states can build extraordinary collective goods that benefit their allies and themselves: a jointly funded defense league in the eastern Mediterranean, in Athens’s case, or the vast network of relationships that underpins the U.S.-led global financial system today. Great powers also face the pitfall of hubris. They are prone to assuming that their power is a given and that they can therefore treat lesser states with contempt. As these states become more secure and arrogant in their supremacy, subtle forms of imperialism can turn into cruder ones. The missteps of a Pericles can open the way for gross and dangerous demagogues like Cleon, whose recklessness led Athens into disaster. Recent U.S. administrations built far-reaching tools for economic coercion. They never imagined a president who would use those tools to threaten to destroy the economy of a NATO ally or who would revel in how the “tremendous economic power” of sanctions allows him to do far more than “playing around with having a few soldiers shooting each other at the border.”

The chronicler of Athens’s downfall has given his name to the “Thucydides trap”—the idea, popularized in recent years by the political scientist Graham Allison, that war is likely whenever a rising power confronts an established one. Such was the fate that befell Athens and Sparta, Allison has argued, and it may play out today between China and the United States. But the real Thucydides trap facing Washington is less about the inevitability of great-power conflict than about the persistent temptation of imperial power. Athens’s decision to turn a common treasury into a system of tribute and subjugation alienated its former allies and precipitated its fall from power. The United States may be starting to recapitulate this dismal history.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Striking Oil Ain’t What It Used to Be Poor Countries Find Fossil Fuels Just as the Rich World Swears Them Off

by Amy Myers Jaffe On January 7, the oil and gas companies Apache Corporation and Total SA announced a major oil find off the coast of Suriname, not far from enormous offshore deposits in neighboring Guyana discovered by ExxonMobil last year. The size of the Suriname discovery is yet to be determined, but it could be large enough to transform the small South American country, where per capita income

is less than 6,000$. Just three months prior on the other side of the Atlantic, the British oil major BP announced the largest natural gas discovery of 2019: the energy equivalent of 1.3 billion barrels of oil lies waiting to be extracted off the coast of Mauritania, more than enough to support a liquefied natural gas (LNG) hub. And the same year in Mozambique, Total acquired a 3.9$ billion stake in an LNG project whose total cost will likely dwarf that country’s national economy.

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At a time when many countries are finally trying to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, the world is suddenly awash in oil and gas discoveries. But for the countries with the newest finds, many of them in Africa and South America, mineral wealth may not be the bonanza it was in decades past. natural gas markets, in particular, face a huge glut of resources and projects that must compete against the falling price of renewable energy technologies. As a result, Suriname, Guyana, Mauritania, Mozambique, and a handful of other developing countries with recent fossil fuel finds are in a desperate race against time.

GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE

Workers observe on a driling rig in Loma Campana at Vaca Muerta on September 2014 ,15 in AĂąelo, Argentina. (Getty)

At a time when many countries are finally trying to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, the world is suddenly awash in oil and gas discoveries. But for the countries with the newest finds, many of them in Africa and South America, mineral wealth may not be the bonanza it was in decades past. Large oil and gas companies see long-term prices trending downward. As a result, they are investing in fields that can be brought into production quickly instead of developing expensive, far-flung reserves. Global

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The party hasn’t ended yet, but for the world’s newest petrostates it may be last call. To preempt a possible price slump, many oil and gas companies are pursuing aggressive timelines for new projects to lower costs and return cash quickly to nervous shareholders. ExxonMobil has pulled out all the stops to get its Guyana find online as fast as possible: its discovery-to-extraction timeline is the shortest ever for a greenfield project of its scale. In Mozambique, Total appears to be fast-tracking development of the LNG project, after other investors dragged their feet for years. (Anadarko Petroleum discovered the gas reserves in 2010.) The Suriname and Mauritania finds may well be developed, but the former is still in the exploration phase and the latter will have to overcome a number of financing and other obstacles.

Even on accelerated timetables, however, these recent discoveries may not yield the same windfalls that previous finds did. New oil and gas states will have to compete with surging fossil fuel exports from the United States, which absorbed most, if not all, of the rising demand for petroleum in 2019 and may continue to do so for the next few years. What is more, other developed countries such as Norway and

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Canada are developing their own recent fossil fuel finds with the benefit of new technologies that lower the cost of drilling and facilitate greater production.

Competition between these markets and new developing ones will only stiffen if global economic growth falters down the road, reducing the immediate demand for oil.

Making matters worse for new oil producers, some of the world’s biggest markets—such as China and the European Union—have enacted policies that incentivize a rapid move away from oil. France, the United Kingdom, China, and India have all announced future bans on the sale of gasoline-powered cars.

And rising targets for renewable energy in the United States, Europe, and Asia have clouded the prospects for natural gas. For all of these reasons, recent finds in the developing world are unlikely to be as lucrative as similar discoveries in the past.

COMPETING GOALS Other finds may never be developed at all. New producers are on the hunt for capital just as many existing oil producers in the developing world are struggling to find continued investment for their remaining resources. In a recent tender for offshore drilling rights in Brazil—billed by President Jair Bolsonaro as the “biggest auction there’s ever been”—the government found few takers. Angola’s oil production is falling because of a lack of interest in new drilling.

Part of the problem is the broader market forces described above. But part of it is mounting hostility

The apparent hypocrisy of rich nations swearing off fossil fuels just when many poor nations are discovering their own has fueled debate about how best to balance climate and development goals.

from international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the European Investment Bank, both of which have sworn off lending to new fossil fuel projects because of climate change. In the past, these institutions played a critical role in helping poorer nations get lucrative oil and gas projects, including major pipeline projects in Africa, off the ground. The World Bank alone issued 21$ billion in fossil fuel– related loans, grants, and guarantees between 2014 and 2018. Governments and sovereign wealth funds are increasingly climate conscious as well: last year, the UN-backed Green Climate Fund—which finances investments in climate adaptation, clean energy, and energy efficiency projects in the developing world— attracted commitments of close to 10$ billion from 27 countries to spend on climate aid over the next four years.

The apparent hypocrisy of rich nations swearing off fossil fuels just when many poor nations are

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Power cables plug into the place of a petrol cap while recharging G-Wiz cars in central London.

A power cable plugs into the place of a petrol cap while recharging a G-Wiz AEV (Automatic Electric Vehicle) car. (Getty)

discovering their own has fueled debate about how best to balance climate and development goals.

Climate justice advocates have gone as far as calling for long-standing and wealthy oil producers such as Norway to shut down their oil industries to make room for poorer nations with oil reserves. The 2017 Lofoten Declaration—signed by some 600 organizations in 76 countries—was a step in that direction, pushing for wealthy nations to lead the way in abandoning fossil fuel production because their economies have already benefited from burning oil and gas and are in a better position to diversify. But the Lofoten Declaration applies only to extant producers, and it is difficult to imagine a fair or uncontroversial way to determine which countries with new discoveries should be given priority to develop their oil and gas reserves.

In the end, markets will determine which new discoveries get exploited and which remain stranded

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in the ground or underwater. Projects with lower costs will advance further than those with a comparatively higher overhead. That will pit new oil states against wealthy Middle Eastern producers, which have among the lowest oil and gas production costs. At a recent OPEC meeting, the Angolan oil minister reportedly stormed out when his Saudi counterpart suggested that his country—which faces low rates of investment and high production costs—should lower production alongside OPEC’s richer members in order to shore up oil prices. Such heated debates among OPEC members reflect the high stakes for countries that depend heavily on oil and gas revenues for their state budgets. For nascent oil producers trying to break into that well-heeled club, however, the competition will be tougher than ever.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Capitalism Must Reform to Survive From Shareholders to Stakeholders

by Klaus Schwab Companies today face an existential choice. Either they wholeheartedly embrace “stakeholder capitalism” and subscribe to the responsibilities that come with it, by actively taking steps to meet social and environmental goals. Or they stick to an outdated “shareholder capitalism” that prioritizes short-term profits over everything else—and wait for employees, clients, and voters to force change on them from the outside.

This assessment may seem harsh coming from someone who has always believed in the pivotal role companies play in the global economy. But there is no alternative. Our ecological footprint has expanded far beyond what the earth can sustain.

Our social systems are cracking. Our economies no longer drive inclusive growth.

Today’s younger generations simply do not accept that companies should pursue profits at the expense of broader environmental and social well-being. We know that a free-market economy is essential for producing long-term development and social progress. We should not want to replace that system. But in its current form, capitalism has reached its limits. Unless it reforms from within, it will not survive.

FROM SHAREHOLDERS TO STAKEHOLDERS Last year, the Business Roundtable, an organization representing many of the largest American companies, announced that it wanted to move away from shareholder primacy and toward a commitment to all stakeholders.

It redefined the purpose of a corporation to promote “an economy that serves all Americans”—not just those who own shares.

The CEOs signing the Business Roundtable statement were a veritable Who’s Who of American capitalism. As chair of the Business Roundtable, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was the first to endorse it. Among the 181 signatories were also Alex Gorsky of Johnson & Johnson, Ginni Rometty of IBM, Mortimer J. Buckley of Vanguard, and Tricia Griffith of Progressive.

The announcement was met with mixed reactions. Some saw it merely as a maneuver to preempt pressure from an ascendant left. Others dismissed it as disingenuous, a mostly symbolic move without concrete actions to back it up. How can a company claim to have implemented a major change, asked skeptics, if its quarterly reports still focus on maximizing the financial bottom line?

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A protestor holds a sign at a demonstration against climate change where climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed a multitudinary crowd on January ,17 2019 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The protest is taking place ahead of the upcoming annual gathering of world leaders at the Davos World Economic Forum.

(Getty)

But such skepticism misses how significant the shift is— and the opportunity to turn it into real change. Since 1997, each previous set of principles endorsed by the Business Roundtable had put shareholder primacy first. For the group to drop that principle was revolutionary. But it is also true that unless these words are translated into collective actions, the revolution will be short-lived.

Today’s younger generations simply do not accept that companies should pursue profits at the expense of broader environmental and social well-being.

WHAT IS THE CORPORATION? So what can be done to ensure that the move to stakeholder capitalism is real and lasting? To answer that question, it is worthwhile looking back to the postwar global economic system and the role played within it by companies, governments, civil society, and international organizations.

Some may think Western capitalism has always put shareholders first. That is not so.

The World Economic Forum was founded five decades ago in Davos to promote the “multistakeholder concept”—a model that had grown out of my knowledge of both the European and the American approaches to capitalism. U.S. companies

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in the postwar era had perfected business and financial management, optimizing for growth and profits. It made American companies and American management thinkers the envy of the world. But European managers at the time were also getting something right. They had a social reflex, evident in a deep commitment to their workers, clients, and suppliers.

As an engineering student, I had worked on the shop floor in several factories. Spending time with my fellow workers confirmed to me that blue-collar workers are just as bright, and add just as much value to a company, as their white-collar peers or the shareholders of the companies they work for.

The ideas of stakeholder capitalism (which I first described in

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my 1971 book, Modern Enterprise Management in Mechanical Engineering) inform the Davos Manifesto signed at the newly created World Economic Forum. The manifesto’s opening line declared that “the purpose of professional management is to serve clients, shareholders, workers, and employees, as well as societies, and to harmonize the different interests of the stakeholders.”

The Davos Manifesto was rooted in recent postwar experience, but it was also a restoration of a longer historical arc. Companies have always been social units as well as economic units. Indeed, corporations were first created in medieval Europe as an independent vehicle to achieve economic progress but also to create prosperity for society or to build institutions for the public good, such as hospitals and universities—what we now call “shared value.”

But this vision of the corporation was not universally embraced. Around the same time, the University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman put forth a very different vision.

“There is one and only one social responsibility of business,” he wrote, and that is “to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” The business of business, in short, was business. The idea of shareholder primacy was born. Before long, it was embraced by the Business Roundtable and other leaders in the field.

INCONVENIENT TRUTHS For the next few decades, it appeared that shareholder capitalism really was superior to stakeholder capitalism.

U.S. companies increased their dominance, and shareholder primacy became the norm in international businesses. No

U.S. companies in the post-war era had perfected business and financial management, optimizing for growth and profits. But European managers at the time were also getting something right. They had a social reflex, evident in a deep commitment to their workers, clients, and suppliers.

person captured the atmosphere better, perhaps, than Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gekko in the film Wall Street. “Greed, for lack of a better term,” he said, “is good.” His words were fiction, but many in the business and financial world agreed.

But the high growth of the 1980s, the 1990s, and the early years of this century masked some inconvenient truths.

Wages in the United States started to stagnate from the late 1970s onward, and union power significantly declined. The natural environment deteriorated as the economy improved.

And governments found it increasingly difficult to gather taxes from multinational corporations. All those problems have combined in the current crisis—and the only viable response is a turn back to the stakeholder capitalism that the shareholder model displaced.

In the four decades since 1980, economic inequality of all forms has significantly increased. In the United States, most notably, inflation-adjusted income growth within the bottom 90 percent has been virtually zero, while incomes of the top 0.01 percent have risen more than fivefold. Wealth inequality has grown even more. And the trends are similar, if sometimes less pronounced, virtually everywhere else in the world. In the 1960s, a CEO might earn 20 times what his workers earned. Today, American CEOs earn on average 287 times the median salary.

At the same time, the world’s leading companies have grown bigger and bigger, leading to increased market power and a

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An empty trading floor is seen after the closing of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on January ,10 2020 in New York City. (Getty)

The only way to save capitalism is to return to—and double down on—the stakeholder model we discovered, and then forgot, decades ago. would not be facing a climate crisis today. According to the Global Footprint Network, 1969 was the last year in which humanity’s ecological footprint was small enough to be sustainable. Since then, we’ve consistently exceeded this limit. Now, in 2020, we use resources at almost twice the sustainable rate.

A LAST CHANCE

change in their relationship to communities and governments.

Whereas companies were once deeply embedded in the communities where they operated, those connections have diminished over time. As they cleverly exploit intellectual property and global transfer pricing, many companies— driven by profit maximization—have become less reliable taxpayers. And as the financial sector has grown in a way that is increasingly decoupled from real economic growth, it has pursued short-term results to the detriment of long-term sustainability.

The overall result has been a deterioration of the bond between business and society. And governments, faced with fresh social and economic challenges, are often unable to make the investments that are needed, deprived as they are of necessary tax incomes.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the environment has continued to suffer as a result of economic activity driven solely by profit maximization. This, too, was a concern as early as the 1970s. At Davos in 1973, the Club of Rome’s Aurelio Peccei spoke of the imminent “limits to growth.”

And the Davos Manifesto noted that management “must assume the role of a trustee of the material universe for future generations” and “use the immaterial and material resources at its disposal in an optimal way.”

We now know that if our use of the world’s natural resources had remained at early 1970s levels, we probably

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As young people from around the world have been reminding us of late, now is the time to rectify our historical error. The only way to save capitalism is to return to—and double down on—the stakeholder model we discovered, and then forgot, decades ago. But with the social, economic, and environmental situation now several times worse than it was, we’ll more than ever need to make changes that go beyond mere words. How can we do this?

To start, companies and their shareholders must agree on a long-term vision of their objectives and performance, rather than let quarterly results dictate everything. From there, companies must make more concrete commitments to pay fair prices, salaries, and taxes wherever they operate. And finally, we have to integrate environmental, social, and governance measurements into formal business reporting and auditing systems.

These steps will require major changes. But the alternative will be even more difficult and potentially disruptive. Companies will be forced by new generations of workers, consumers, and voters to change their ways, whether or not they want to. Many companies, rejected by these groups, could slowly wither away. Or governments could take a heavier hand in enforcing new norms, reasserting themselves as the leviathan referee in markets.

If companies want to avoid such scenarios, 2020 will be a pivotal year. At the World Economic Forum, we will continue to advance and advocate for stakeholder capitalism, with the concrete commitments to make it inclusive and sustainable.

This may be our last chance to reform capitalism from within.

We should take it.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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If the Oscars Aren’t Going to Change, Is it Time to Walk Away?

How the Academy Still Marginalizes Women and P.O.C

by Nina Metz How do you solve a problem like the Oscars?

“Female filmmakers and actors of color increasingly sidelined,” is how the New York Times put it in the run-up to nominations. That prediction was confirmed earlier this month when a number of worthy names were noticeably missing from the list of contenders.

This year is the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony. In that history, only five women — all white — have been nominated for a best director Oscar. Ever. This year there are zero. And it’s not because of a lack of notable films.

Despite a concerted effort by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to add more people of color and white women to its membership in recent years, they still remain a vastly smaller segment of voters (%32 women, %16 people of color) compared to white men.

Sometimes the media is complicit in reinforcing the status quo. The New York Post recently published a story (“Academy members viciously reveal why Lopez, Sandler, Murphy got snubbed from Oscars”) that failed to challenge any of the nonsensical assertions from its quoted (and in most cases anonymous) sources.

One Academy member told the paper that the expertly shot “Hustlers” was “a little too rough around the edges” and therefore not an Oscar movie. And yet the equally “rough around the edges” story told in “Wolf of Wall Street” — a multi-nominee in 2014 including best picture — clearly was an Oscar movie, whatever that even means?

Or consider this explanation for the snub of “Dolemite is My Name” star Eddie Murphy: “Some voters disliked how hard he seemed to be campaigning for a nomination, including hosting ‘Saturday Night Live,’ after giving his old show the cold shoulder for 35 years.”

Openly campaigning during awards season is nothing new. It’s remarked upon all the time. But Eddie Murphy returning to host “SNL” — the show that launched his career — is a bridge too far? You know who else hosted “SNL” in late 2019? Scarlett Johansson, who was nominated not just one but twice this year, for “Marriage Story” and “Jojo Rabbit.”

These excuses are ridiculous and we in the media shouldn’t validate them.

So what’s the way forward?

There’s a petition on change.org started by pop culture writer Kayleigh Donaldson calling for Academy

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In this handout provided

by A.M.P.A.S., Oscar statues are seen backstage during the 91st Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on February 2019 ,24 in Hollywood, California. (Getty)

president David Rubin to “publicly announce a plan to fix the Oscars diversity problem” and to announce that plan at this year’s ceremony.

“Someone at Change reached out to me,” Donaldson said when contacted earlier this week, “and asked if I’d be interested in doing something more direct in opposition to the Academy’s consistent shutting out of women directors and I thought a petition would be more tangible than me constantly screaming about it on Twitter!

“2019 was such a brilliant year for women directors,” she added, “not only in that they made amazing films but that they worked on critically and commercially successful films that were part of the awards conversation and perfectly fit the often smothering mold that the Academy and the film industry at large demands of ‘prestige cinema.’”

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There have been Oscar boycotts on an individual level through the years. Marlon Brando in 1973.

And Will Smith in 2016.

And yet, “it still wasn’t good enough. The goalposts are always moved further and further away, and it stung to see how pathetically predictable yet another all-male best director line-up was.”

So what kind of solution does she have in mind?

“I know that asking for specific aims on a topic like this

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can be tricky,” she said.

“I admit that I don’t have a detailed plan for their future.

But I also think it’s sad that such institutions and the people within them don’t have one either, especially when they have all the resources at their fingertips. These (people) are supposed to be the best and brightest in their field, representing the group that positions itself as the peak of Hollywood glamour, history, and importance, so surely they’re not entirely devoid of ideas … (and) I do firmly believe that making the people involved fully confront the issue and commit to change on the record will have a tangible impact. And it will also force the industry around it, from actors to producers to publicists and journalists and beyond, to confront their own biases and make important shifts that will ripple throughout.”

What if instead of hoping for change, it’s time to reject the Oscars altogether?

That’s an idea writer Nylah Burton explores in a column she wrote for the digital publication Wear Your Voice: “I say divestment is the best option,” she writes. “If the Oscar’s discernment has proven to be basically useless, then stop assigning worth to the awards they give out. Refuse to submit your work to the Academy for consideration. Promote other, more equitable film festivals and award shows. Or work together and start your own.”

She doesn’t just mean don’t submit work for Oscar

This year is the 92nd Academy Awards ceremony. In that history, only five women — all white — have been nominated for a best director Oscar. Ever.

This year there are zero. And it’s not because of a lack of notable films.

consideration — don’t participate at all, and that includes being a presenter or announcing nominations in the future. “The Oscars wants to stay white, and straight. So let them,” she writes.

Consider the kinds of roles women of color are typically nominated for — “Harriet” star Cynthia Erivo is the only non-white nominee in the acting categories this year — and which parts are overlooked.

Lupita Nyong’o playing double roles that are two sides of the same coin in the “Us”? No nomination.

Alfre Woodard as a prison warden in grappling with the emotional toll of overseeing yet another execution in “Clemency”? No nomination. Jennifer Lopez as a charismatic exotic dancer who turns the tables on her clients in “Hustlers”? No nomination. The list goes on.

“An award nomination seems to depend on whether the role is deserving of white pity,” according to Beatrice Loayza writing in the Guardian, pointing out a blatant trend: “That the same types of roles — slaves, nannies and maids — continue to be the magic ticket to the red

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Cynthia Erivo attends 26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 2020 ,19 in Los Angeles, California.

(Getty)

I was curious if Burton thinks enough people could really be convinced to divest from the Oscars.

“Probably not,” she said. “It’s a hard decision and I get that. And I can’t even say if I were a filmmaker or an actor that I would even have the strength to make that decision.

“There’s a significant benefit to being involved with the Oscars that can’t be understated. We can say ‘You should divest’ but in reality that could harm people’s careers. The hostility that they might face from the rest of the industry, that’s a lot to risk. I think it’s scary to take a stand this concrete and shocking, and not everyone feels they can do it. And it would take a lot of organizing and who’s going to organize it? Who’s going to convince people to do it?

“Also there might be a lot of people who don’t actually see it as a big problem — that they’re so desensitized to it that they think everything is fine.

“But for me, from the outside looking in, it just seems like this is a way to make a powerful statement: I’m not going to submit my film for nomination. Don’t enable it, is basically what I’m saying. And it would almost give those films (that were snubbed) even more recognition if they stood together that way. Like: This is something we’re not going to do.” carpet feels particularly ugly considering the range of parts played by white nominees.”

“I think those movies make white people feel good because they feel so far removed from it,” Burton said by phone. “Like, ‘That happened way back, and isn’t is so inspiring that now the person who shares my cubicle is black?’

“It’s not a crime to be inspired or see those films and be moved by them,” she said. “But I do think they’re celebrated more because they allow people to feel like racism is a thing of the past.”

Maybe, she added, “it’s hard (for white audiences) to recognize when a black person is giving a good performance if it doesn’t revolve around their oppression or their struggle — maybe it’s difficult for them to even identify with it because the way they’ve been taught to identify with black people centers around either our oppression or some stereotype of us. Or our relationship to white people. Or our relationship to each other, like Tyler Perry films, that portray us in ways that white people are comfortable with.”

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The Oscars retain their credibility and legitimacy precisely because we — Hollywood as a whole, but also the media and audiences — continue to participate.

Or as Donaldson noted: “It’s tough to kick down the Academy’s sheen of prestige and being Hollywood kingmakers,” calling the situation a Catch22-. “Participating in a broken system that doesn’t care about you is exhausting and demoralizing. But a lot of people also don’t want to step outside of that system when their voices of protest are needed more than ever.”

There have been Oscar boycotts on an individual level through the years. Marlon Brando in 1973. And Will Smith in 2016.

But imagine if enough Hollywood players with clout and status refused to attend? What if a substantial group publicly rejected the Oscars the way the Oscars have long rejected marginalized communities?

It might be the most powerful way to push for meaningful change.

Originally published in Chicago Tribune

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1785- January- 31/01/2020

Mikhail Mishustin: From Little-Known Tax Chief to the Second Most Powerful Politician in Russia

www.majalla.com

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What›s the Beef with Red Meat?

A recent study suggested that eating red or processed meats won›t necessarily harm your health. What is the truth?

by Harvard Men›s Health Watch

conducted five systematic reviews that looked at the effects of red meat and The news headlines were everywhere: «It›s processed meat on multiple health issues, Okay to Eat Red Meat.» The source for this such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and statement was a study published online Oct. premature death.

2019 ,1, in Annals of Internal Medicine.

An international team of researchers The researchers found «low» evidence that

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An accumulated body of evidence shows a clear link between high intake of red and processed meats and a higher risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and premature death. of Public Health issued a statement that the new advice could potentially harm people›s health.

«This new red meat and processed meat recommendation was based on flawed methodology and a misinterpretation of nutritional evidence,» says Dr. Frank Hu, chair of the Department of Nutrition. «The authors used a method often applied to randomized clinical trials for drugs and devices, which is typically not feasible in nutritional studies.»

A LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE The study and its widespread reaction have once again brought up the question of whether red meat and processed meat are bad for your health and if people should cut them out or simply cut back.

So what are the facts? Here›s a look at the main issues and questions regarding the role of red and processed meats in your diet.

Red and processed meats do increase health risks. In spite of what the Annals of Internal Medicine study suggests, Dr. Hu says that an accumulated body of evidence shows a clear link between high intake of red and either red meat or processed meat is harmful. processed meats and a higher risk for heart Their advice: there›s no need to reduce your disease, cancer, diabetes, and premature regular red meat and processed meat intake death. «The evidence is consistent across different studies,» he says. for health reasons.

Unsurprisingly, the backlash from the science community was sharp and swift.

For instance, Harvard›s T.H. Chan School

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But the key word here is «high.» Dr. Hu points out that the exact amounts for safely consuming red meat are open to debate.

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«The evidence shows that people with a relatively low intake have lower health risks,» he says. «A general recommendation is that people should stick to no more than two to three servings per week.»

Dr. Hu suggests that people focus not so much on actual serving sizes, but rather on red meat›s placement in meals. «Instead of the main course, use red meat as a side dish,» he says. «Consider red meat a luxury and not

a staple food.

For processed meat, Dr. Hu says there is a much stronger association with a higher risk of heart disease and cancer (especially colon cancer).

Processed meat products contain high amounts of additives and chemicals, which may contribute to health risks. «Again, there is not a specific amount that is considered

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safe, so you should keep processed meat intake to a minimum,» he says.

You don›t need to eat red meat. Red meat has high amounts of protein, which helps promote muscle growth, and vitamin B12 to make red blood cells. For example, a -3ounce serving has about %45 of the Daily Value (DV) of protein and %35 of the DV for B12. A serving of red meat is also a good source of zinc, which can help the body produce testosterone, and selenium, a powerful antioxidant. Plus, red meat is rich in iron. However, Dr. Hu says that you don›t need to eat red meat to get these essential nutrients.

«You can get the same

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amounts -- and in some cases even more -from poultry, fish, eggs, and nuts, and as well as by following a plant-based diet.»

Some kinds of red meat are not necessarily healthier. There are no firm studies that have shown nutritional or health advantages from eating organic or grass-fed beef.

«These types of red meat are often more desirable as they contain low or no growth hormones compared with grain-fed beef, but it›s still not clear if they offer any health benefits,» says Dr. Hu.

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Mikhail Mishustin: From LittleKnown Tax Chief to the Second Most Powerful Politician in Russia Majalla - London

When Russians woke up on the morning on January 16, few knew the name Mikhail Vladimirovich Mishustin, the head of the country’s tax service. But by the time they went to bed that night, Mishustin had been named as Russia’s new prime minister and the second most powerful politician in the country amid reforms that could potentially extend Putin’s grip on power after his presidential term ends in 2024.

Born in Moscow in 1966, Mishustin’s career has been largely technocratic up until now. He started out work at an information technology non-profit but entered the state tax service as an assistant in 1998. He has worked in tax collection since then, has headed the Federal Tax Service since 2010.

Mishustin is similar to his predecessor Medvedev in embracing technology and has been widely credited with digitalizing the Russian tax system.

This led to a drop in tax evasion as well as bringing many smaller businesses

into the formal economy. «Few people love tax specialists, but Mishustin managed to maintain a pretty decent reputation,» said political scientist and professor at the Higher School of Economics Alexey Makarkin.

In 2008, he also served as the head of Russian investment company UFG, which at the time worked with Germany›s Deutsche Bank. Despite his tax-focused career, Mishustin initially trained as an engineer, graduating from Moscow›s STANKIN MachineInstrument Institute (currently Moscow State Technological University STANKIN) in 1989. He has a PhD in economics, according to his official biography.

Just last year, Mishutin told the Kommersant newspaper that Russia needed to embrace artificial intelligence and digital technology, saying «if we don›t understand how this world is developing and what its rules are, if we insist our country is part of the old order, this new world will make us its victim.»

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Like Putin, the newly-appointed prime minister a hockey fan and has been seen at matches with security services officials in Moscow. According to Bloomberg, Mishustin developed a relationship with Putin as a member of the president’s Night Hockey League, and he is also a member of the board of Russia’s Ice Hockey Federation. Mishustin is reportedly an enthusiastic pianist and composer who has written a number of songs for well-known Russian singers, according to the Russian financial newspaper Vedomosti.

Forbes Russia listed him as the 54th best-paid state official in 2015 with earnings of 183.31 million rubles (around 3$ million; 2.7€ million).

His wife reported earnings of 47.709 million rubles in the reported period, according to Reuters news agency.

His personal wealth appears relatively modest compared to his predecessor, who was repeatedly accused by opposition leader Alexei Navalny of graft.