Mark Dixon: A global ‘Democratic Market’ is needed to protect democracy

Mark Dixon
Fri, August 11, 2023 

Putin has shot himself in the foot. His recent expropriations of Western companies will actually help the West by damaging the Russian economy.

Expropriating the Russian assets of French company Danone and Danish company Carlsberg's Baltika subsidiary is reprehensible, but Putin is unwittingly actually harming Russia. He has bitten the hand that feeds him.

The more links that are cut between Russia and the West, the more the Russian economy will suffer. Russia will find it more difficult to finance its aggression, and Russian people will become more disillusioned with the Russian regime as they become poorer.

It doesn’t matter whether the Russian economy is disconnected by Western government sanctions, Western companies’ ethical voluntary exits, or by Putin expropriating the assets of unethical companies. They all lead to Russia becoming disconnected from the global economy.

Read also: Ukraine, allies must do more to hit Russia’s economy, says Moral Rating Agency head

Desert island economy

Russia should have been unplugged economically when it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Western governments failed to implement widespread sanctions, and the companies that have been embarrassed out of Russia are helping to make up for this failure.

Anything Putin does to disconnect Russia from Western investment and markets actually helps us finish the job we have failed to do fully ourselves.

In addition to actual expropriations, Western companies will assess the risk of being expropriated on top of the embarrassment of being seen to profit from Russia. Russia is steadily moving in the direction of becoming a “desert island economy.”

If we can make Russia a “desert island economy,” it will be destroyed financially because Russia is more dependent on exports than any other major nation as a percentage of its GNP, producing vastly more oil, gas, and minerals than its needs. This dependence on the West is Russia’s “Achilles’ heel.” If unplugged, it will not be able to survive as a stand-alone economy.

Read also: Risk of ‘big disruptions’ high in grain markets, says Black Sea expert

Why economic separation is good

The West should not pull its punches but do everything to weaken the Russian economy. We are already fighting a proxy war with Russia militarily and are fighting an open war for values. By any measure, Putin is an enemy of every democratic nation and person, and its market must be treated like an “enemy economy.”

The West should encourage the nascent trend toward two economic blocs in the world.

Russia will become more and more dependent on China, which is a much less rich market than OECD nations. If China supports Russia with excess trade to fill the gap, it will be doing something that hasn’t been economically optimal to date, just as Eastern bloc nations were forced to trade with each other before the break-up of the USSR.

The pain of this inferior economic opportunity will be suffered either by Russia taking the hit on pricing or by China having to subsidize Russia, which will only serve to weaken one or both of these undemocratic nations.

Read also: Kenneth Rogoff: Europe must lead Ukraine’s reconstruction

The end game

Unplugging Russia is the first step to separate the world into two economic blocs: a “Democratic Market” and an “Undemocratic Market.” Autocratic and totalitarian countries like Russia and China will cooperate with each other due to a lack of alternatives and become poorer and less powerful together.

The “Democratic Market” will be many times larger and will make democratic nations much richer than countries run by dictators. This would eventually consist of free trade between the U.S., EU, U.K., India, and every democratic country, which would impose barriers to the totalitarian and autocratic world.

We need to shift the wealth gap from dividing people and from dividing developed and developing economies, and intentionally apply it to democratic and undemocratic nations.

If an undemocratic nation wants to escape economic decline, it will need to become democratic. Its people will be motivated to remove their dictator so they can be welcomed into the “Democratic Market.” This will be a free market in which economic survival is the reward for democratic behavior and economic failure is the consequence of undemocratic or autocratic behavior.

The way we play our economic cards will determine whether we give democracy a long-term chance on the planet or we continue to finance totalitarianism to the point where it overpowers democracy in the end.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION 4 BLASPHEMY

Iran arrests 9 members of Baha’i faith on charges of smuggling medicine and financial wrongdoing

Associated Press
Mon, August 14, 2023 



TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s intelligence ministry arrested nine members of the Baha’i faith on charges of smuggling medicine and financial wrongdoing, state media reported on Monday.

State IRAN newspaper said the arrested people, mostly members of one family, had roles in smuggling medicine though a network of dozens of pharmacies. It said they bribed medics to send clients to the pharmacies and were involved in money laundering and tax evasion.

Iran bans the Baha’i religion, which was founded in the 1860s by a Persian nobleman considered a prophet by his followers, and from time to time has arrested and prosecuted members of the faith on spying and security charges.

Muslims consider the Prophet Muhammad the highest and last prophet.

In 2013, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, urged Iranians to avoid all dealings with the Baha’i. Khamenei’s fatwa, or religious order, supported similar fatwas in the past by other clerics.

In 2022, authorities arrested several members of the faith on spying charges.

The Baha’i say they’ve been persecuted by Shiite clerics in Iran since their religion’s founding — something that’s grown more intense since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Prisoner deal heralds Iran-US thaw, but no nuclear deal seen

Shaun TANDON
Fri, August 11, 2023 

US President Joe Biden speaks in Salt Lake City, Utah on August 10, 2023 (Jim WATSON)


Two and a half years into Joe Biden's presidency, and after exhaustive diplomacy with Iran's clerical leadership, his administration has reached a first deal -- to free five detained Americans.

The delicate agreement heralds an easing of tensions between the longtime adversaries, and experts and diplomats believe it could bring further, quiet efforts to address concerns including Iran's nuclear work.

Few people, however, expect major agreements anytime soon, with the clock ticking to the 2024 US presidential election.

"I think both sides have an interest in using this initial agreement as the gateway to get back to dialogue, but not necessarily to a deal," said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, which promotes conflict resolution.


European-led talks collapsed last year on reviving a 2015 nuclear deal, which constrained Iran's contested program in return for promises of sanctions relief but was trashed by former president Donald Trump.

Biden himself, in a caught-on-camera encounter at a campaign stop late last year, said the nuclear deal was "dead" in all but name, at a time when the Islamic republic was putting down massive protests led by women.

- De-escalation seen -

A source familiar with the negotiations said the prisoner agreement was separate from the nuclear issue. But he also said diplomacy has been effective in lowering the temperature with Iran, pointing to the truce that has held unofficially for more than a year in war-ravaged Yemen, where Huthi rebels are backed by Iran.

Attacks by Iranian-linked Shiite militias against US troops have also appeared to subside in Iraq, noted a diplomat from a US ally.

"The tensions are still very much there but the two governments are communicating, and that makes a difference," the diplomat said.

US and Iranian officials reopened diplomacy in May in indirect meetings arranged by Oman, with some talks exploring measures to cap Iran's nuclear program that stop short of fully restoring the nuclear deal, according to diplomats.

"I think the de-escalatory context already exists," said Vaez, who helped outside efforts to bridge gaps to reach the 2015 accord.

But he doubted the Biden administration has the appetite on a new nuclear deal with the election season opening.

"Any substantive deal with Iran requires significant sanctions relief that will be extremely politically controversial in the US," he said.

"On the Iranian side, given the proximity of US election, it doesn't make sense to them strategically to give away most of their leverage not knowing who the next US president is," he said, with Trump or another Republican likely to tear apart any new deal.

Republicans have gone on the offensive over the prisoner deal, accusing Biden of enriching a hostile regime.

In an agreement that Biden officials insist is not final, South Korea will unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue blocked over US sanctions, with the funds transferred to an account in Qatar for humanitarian purchases.

In an initial step, Iran moved five US citizens, one of them arrested nearly eight years ago on spying charges he strongly denies, from prison to a guarded hotel.

- Poor sign to Iran protesters? -

Holly Dagres, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, agreed that the prisoner deal amounted to "a confidence-building measure and could revive talks over Iran's nuclear program."

"But this also signals to Tehran that it can get relief from its hostage-taking model, which may prompt it to continue the status quo given that it can also sell oil due to weakly enforced sanctions," she said.

She also questioned the timing of the agreement. September 16 marks one year since death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the clerical state's morality police for not wearing the mandatory headscarf.

Her death prompted mass demonstrations in one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic republic established after the overthrow of the pro-Western shah in 1979.

"Doing a deal with the United States around such a sensitive period is, in essence, communicating to protesters that Washington doesn't care about their plight," Dagres said.

sct/acb

US offers caution on Iran prisoner release: ‘This deal is not done’

BY LAURA KELLY - 08/11/23 

The flag of Iran is seen in front of the building of the IAEA Headquarters. (AP Photo/Florian Schroetter)


The Biden administration is in active negotiations with Iran to bring home five jailed Americans released to house arrest in anticipation of a reported prisoner exchange and the release of $6 billion in oil revenue for the purchase of critical life goods.

White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby on Friday cautioned that “the deal is not done” and that active discussions on how to bring home the five Americans are taking place.

Kirby also defended the deal from GOP criticism, saying the release of $6 billion will be tightly controlled for the purchase of food, medicine and medical equipment that does not have a dual military use.

“There would be a rigorous process of due diligence and standards applied with input from the U.S. Treasury Department,” he told reporters in a briefing call.

GOP critics have accused the administration of paying out a hefty ransom that will encourage adversaries like Russia and China to target Americans.

“While I welcome home wrongfully detained Americans, unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian assets dangerously further incentivizes hostage taking and provides a windfall for regime aggression,” tweeted Senator Jim Risch (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“The Biden Administration must punish those who use Americans as political pawns and work to end this practice.”

Democrats argued the concessions are a necessary step to rescue Americans unjustly detained.

“Agreements with hostile regimes to release hostages are never easy. They involve tradeoffs. Tough tradeoffs,” tweeted Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Middle East.

“But we are America and we bring our people home. Period. Stop. Biden made the right call.”

President Biden prioritized the release of Americans imprisoned abroad and in Iran, in particular.

Those released to house arrest included Siamak Namazi, who was given a 10-year prison sentence for “collaborating with enemy states,” but has been in prison since 2015; Emad Sharghi, who was sentenced in 2020 to 10 years in prison on charges of spying; and Morad Tahbaz, arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 10 years on charges of spying.

Two other Americans are also part of the deal, U.S. officials have said, but they have not released their names out of respect for their privacy.

“There is more work to be done to actually bring them home,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference Thursday. “My belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare and the nightmare that their families have experienced.”

The $6 billion stems from Iranian oil profits in South Korean banks that were frozen in 2019 following a decision by the Trump administration to revoke exceptions for certain countries to purchase oil from Iran while it was under U.S. sanctions.

The move was aimed at trying to bankrupt Tehran and bring its oil exports to zero, part of the former administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign that included former President Trump’s exit from the nuclear deal with Iran.

The Biden administration will reportedly transfer those funds to a bank account in Qatar controlled by the Qatari government, which will regulate Iranian purchases.


The successful return of Americans from prison in Iran – reportedly in exchange for five Iranians serving sentences in U.S. jails for sanctions violations – could prove an important confidence building measure between Washington and Tehran related to Iran’s nuclear program.

The New York Times reported in June that U.S. officials were in talks with Iran on an informal agreement where Tehran would limit its enrichment of nuclear-weapon fuel, expand cooperation with international nuclear inspectors, halt lethal attacks on U.S. contractors in Syria and Iraq by its proxy forces and hold back from selling ballistic missiles to Russia.

The U.S., in turn, the Times reported at the time, would release the billions in frozen oil profits and hold back on further tightening existing sanctions.

The reports drew intense pushback from GOP lawmakers who celebrated Trump’s pullout of the deal in 2018.

Kirby on Friday said that the administration is not focused on talks to renew the nuclear deal with Iran, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but said it would be welcome if Tehran took deescalating steps surrounding its nuclear program.

“If Iran were to take deescalating steps with respect to their nuclear ambitions again, that would all be to the good,” he said. “We are not in active negotiations with Iran, akin to the Iran deal, we’re not in active negotiations about the nuclear program. But certainly, those sorts of steps if they were to be true, would be welcome.”

Polish government plans referendum asking if voters want 'thousands of illegal immigrants'

VANESSA GERA
Updated Sun, August 13, 2023

A metal wall on the border between Poland and Belarus, in Jurowlany, Poland, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023. Poland’s defense minister said Saturday, that the country has increased the number of troops protecting its border with Belarus as a deterrent amid “destabilising” actions by its pro-Russian neighbour. 

(AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s ruling party wants to ask voters in a referendum whether they support accepting “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa” as part of a European Union relocation plan, the prime minister said Sunday, as his conservative party seeks to hold onto power in an October parliamentary election.

Mateusz Morawiecki announced the referendum question in a new video published on social media. It indicated that his party, Law and Justice, is seeking to use migration in its election campaign, a tactic that helped it take power in 2015.

Poland currently hosts more than a million Ukrainian refugees, who are primarily white and Christian, but officials have long made clear that they consider Muslims and others from different cultures to be a threat to the nation’s cultural identity and security.

EU interior ministers in June endorsed a plan to share out responsibility for migrants entering Europe without authorization, the root of one of the bloc’s longest-running political crises.

The Polish government wants to hold the referendum alongside the parliamentary election, scheduled for Oct. 15. Morawiecki said that the question would say: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa under the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?”

The video announcing the question includes scenes of burning cars and other street violence in Western Europe. A Black man licks a huge knife in apparent anticipation of committing a crime. Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski then says: “Do you want this to happen in Poland as well? Do you want to cease being masters of your own country?”

An opposition politician, Robert Biedron, reacted by saying the migration question is pointless because participation in the EU mechanism is not mandatory and can be replaced by other forms of shared responsibility, while Poland itself could be eligible for support or for a waiver of its contribution due to the high number of Ukrainian refugees.

Biedron, a European Parliament member for the Left party, posted on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, a letter from EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson. In it, she sets out the terms of the relocation mechanism and the grounds for seeking an exemption

.

Leaders have announced two other questions in recent days. One will ask voters for their views on privatizing state-owned enterprises and the other will ask if they support raising the retirement age, which Law and Justice lowered to 60 for women and 65 for men.

The questions are set up to depict the opposition party, Civic Platform, as a threat to the interests of Poles. The pro-business and pro-EU party, which governed from 2007 to 2015, raised the retirement age during its time in power, favored some privatization and signaled a willingness to accept a few thousand refugees before it lost power.

The video takes aim directly at Civic Platform leader Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council. “Tusk is the greatest threat to our security, he is the greatest threat to Poland’s security,” Morawiecki says. “Let’s not let Tusk — as an envoy of the Brussels elites — demolish security in Poland.”

Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years ago after well over a million people entered the bloc — most of them fleeing conflict in Syria — and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, in the process sparking one of the EU’s biggest political crises.

The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which countries should take responsibility for people arriving without authorization, and whether other members should be obliged to help them cope.

Initially Poland was neither an entry country nor a destination country for migrants and refugees. It became a front-line state two years ago when migrants began crossing from Belarus, something European authorities view as an effort by the Russian ally to generate turmoil in Poland and other European countries.

Poland responded by building a large wall on its border. It has recently increased its military presence on the border fearing an uptick in migration and other possible instability.

As well as disagreements over migration, Law and Justice has long been in conflict with the EU over a perception by the bloc that the Warsaw government has been eroding democratic norms.

https://youtu.be/goqj9oWFhMw?t=1

Poland's government wants to ask voters loaded questions on border security as part of election

Associated Press
Mon, August 14, 2023 


Polish servicemen attend a press conference of Poland's Minister of Defense, Mariusz Blaszczak, in Jarylowka, Poland, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023. Minister Mariusz Blaszczak on Saturday met in Jarylowka with some of the troops recently deployed with their defense equipment close to the Belarus border. 

(AP Photo/Michal Dyjuk)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s government said Monday it wants to ask voters whether they want dismantled a recently-built border wall that blocks unauthorized migration from Belarus.

The loaded question is one of four the right-wing ruling party wants to ask in a referendum it intends to hold alongside the Oct. 15 parliamentary elections. The Law and Justice party is intent on winning an unprecedented third term in the elections.

Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on social media that the question will ask: “Do you support the pulling down of the barrier on the border on the Polish Republic with the Republic of Belarus?”

The government built the wall last year and substantially reduced the inflow of Middle East and African migrants across that border. Poland and European Union authorities view the inflow as an effort by Russia's ally Belarus to generate turmoil in Poland and other European countries.

Poland has also reinforced military troops along that border due to Belarus' hostility.

The other questions in the referendum would be about refusing to accept migrants within a EU program, refusing the privatization of state-owned enterprises and agreeing to the retirement age to be raised.

The referendum is seen as a major element in the ruling party's electoral campaign intended to discredit the opposition and rally voters around the current government’s policy. Observers say that the fact it would be held together with the elections could influence the voters' decisions.

The lawmakers are to decide this week whether the referendum will be held, but the ruling party holds narrow control of the decision-making lower house.

Critics note the referendum in not obligatory and suggest voters can ignore it. The opposition is calling for a boycott.

Nelson Chamisa: The comeback preacher who wants to be Zimbabwe president

Shingai Nyoka - BBC News, Harare
Sun, August 13, 2023 

Nelson Chamisa

With all the drama of the Pentecostal preacher that he is, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa can work a crowd.

He will now put that charisma to the test in the general election on 23 August when he will once again face President Emmerson Mnangagwa after losing to him in a disputed poll in 2018.

Mr Chamisa will run for the presidency under the banner of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), the party he formed last year after he was thrown out of what used to be the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

It came after a vicious power-struggle broke out in the party following the death of its founding leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mr Chamisa was accused by his MDC rivals of staging a coup to wrest control of the party, and as the battle became increasingly vicious he was evicted from the party's headquarters, and lost a court battle where his claim to the leadership of the party was challenged.

It marked a low point for Mr Chamisa, but he made a comeback with the formation of the CCC. The string of victories it notched up in parliamentary by-elections was heralded by his supporters as a yellow revolution - a reference to the party colours.

On the campaign trail he has sounded optimistic about his prospects, despite saying that the political field is tilted against the CCC, with little access to state media, and an electoral commission he says is staffed by ruling party supporters.

However, President Mnangagwa has said the elections will be free and fair.
'A formidable opposition'

The 45-year-old's campaign has focused on his relative youth, with supporters chanting the Shona language slogan "ngaapinde hake mukomana" meaning "let the boy in".

But it remains to be seen if he can defeat 80-year-old Mr Mnangagwa, known as the "crocodile", who has been in politics longer than Mr Chamisa has been alive.

Still hugely popular among urban and youth voters, Mr Chamisa is credited with transitioning into his own brand of opposition politics in the last two years and creating an identity divorced from the man he regards as his mentor, Mr Tsvangirai.

"Creating a formidable opposition in a short period of time has been his greatest victory," says political scientist Alexander Rusero,

Like the late Mr Tsvangirai, being the face of the opposition has made him a target. Mr Chamisa says 63 meetings have either been banned by police or disrupted - potentially a preview of the upcoming elections.

Mr Chamisa suffered a fractured skull when beaten up in a crackdown on the opposition in 2007

Moreover, members of his party have been arrested and convicted in what Mr Chamisa describes as fabricated charges aimed at weakening the CCC.

He says he has faced threats to his life, which have made him extremely cautious and mistrustful - including escaping an alleged assassination attempt in 2022 when his convoy came under attack during by-election campaigns. He also suffered a cracked skull during a clampdown on the opposition in 2007.

He has previously told the BBC that he rarely eats at public events, for fear of getting poisoned.

'Strategic ambiguity'

An ordained church pastor who graduated from Living Waters Theological Seminary in 2016 and a practising lawyer, Mr Chamisa's social media timeline is filled with political commentary and biblical references in almost equal measure.

His almost Baptist-like charisma has served him well on the campaign stage, but some say it has come at the expense of substantive policy and a coherent political game-plan.

The CCC follows what Mr Chamisa calls "strategic ambiguity". It has not held an elective congress, and has not unveiled its party structures or constitution. It prefers to call itself a broad-based citizens' movement, rather than a political party.

"Our [by-election] wins shows that it is organised and is not a one-man band," according to CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere.

But some of his former supporters, among them social media influencers, are increasingly frustrated.

Mr Rusero believes that Mr Chamisa appears to be intimidated by the ruling party, opting to confront them on "social media, with bible verses and misplaced optimism", instead of in real life.

He thinks the opposition candidate has missed opportunities to wage a robust campaign in the face of allegations of rampant government corruption and public discontent at the spiralling cost of living. President Mnangagwa has previously promised a zero tolerance approach to graft.

In 2018, in his characteristic way, Mr Chamisa told the BBC that he was a young man trying to bring about alternative politics on the African continent and that he wanted to replace strong men with strong institutions.

It was a reference to the personality cult that had developed around former President Robert Mugabe, a common phenomenon in Zimbabwean politics.

He too has not been a stranger to controversy. During the last presidential campaign, he boasted he had met Rwandan President Paul Kagame and been central in crafting a digital strategy that had been key to Rwanda's economic success.

However, Mr Kagame rebuffed this, tweeting that he had no clue who Mr Chamisa was and had never even had a discussion with him.

He has also been labelled as sexist after telling voters he would marry off his then-18-year-old sister to President Mnangagwa if his rival only won 5% of the vote in the 2018 election.

He later said it was just "political banter that I used to illustrate that even if I promised to give him my most prized possession, he would still not be able to defeat us in a free and fair election".

In the 23 August poll, Mr Chamisa is hoping to emulate the victory of long-time Zambian underdog Hakainde Hichilem, who lost every presidential election since 2006, until he finally won in 2021.

But it is unclear whether Mr Chamisa has enough resources and support to win, especially when the playing field is tilted in favour of Mr Mnangagwa, whose Zanu-PF party has maintained a tight grip on power since independence in 1980.

However, he remains the hope for millions of Zimbabweans who believe that it is time for younger people to lead the nation.

Read more about politics in Zimbabwe:

What you need to know about Zimbabwe's elections

New party, same fears of dirty tricks in Zimbabwe vote

How Zimbabwe is still haunted by Robert Mugabe

Emmerson Mnangagwa - the 'crocodile' who snapped back

Is it easier to poke fun after Mugabe?

10 numbers that tell the story of Zimbabwe

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PENTACOSTAL 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PENTACOSTALISM

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PENTACOSTAL COLONIALISM 

Lebanon Christian cleric urges state control of weapons after clash

Reuters
Sun, August 13, 2023

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's top Christian cleric called for state control over weapons on Sunday, days after a deadly clash between Christian villagers and the heavily armed group Hezbollah over an overturned truck of ammunition.

A Hezbollah member and a Christian resident were killed in Wednesday's exchange of fire in the village of Kahaleh, near Beirut, which began when a Hezbollah truck carrying ammunition turned over while driving through the area.

It was the deadliest confrontation between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Lebanese who oppose it since clashes in Beirut two years ago, further rocking the stability of a country already suffering deep political and economic crises.

In his sermon on Sunday, cleric Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai called for "all parties" and other elements of the country "to unite under the banner of the state, especially regarding the use of weapons".

"It is not possible to live on one land with more than one state, more than one legitimate army, more than one authority, and more than one sovereignty," Rai said, in an apparent reference to Hezbollah's arsenal.

Hezbollah, founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards in 1982, is Lebanon's most powerful group. Its arsenal has long been a point of conflict in Lebanon, where its opponents accuse the group of undermining the state.

Lebanon has been suffering a four-year-long financial collapse that has marked its most destabilising episode since the 1975-90 civil war. It was caused by decades of corruption and profligate spending by ruling politicians.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Ecuador was calm and peaceful. Now hitmen, kidnappers and robbers walk the streets

REGINA GARCIA CANO
Sun, August 13, 2023 


1 / 12
 A soldier monitors vehicle traffic on the National Unity Bridge that connects the town of Duran with the Guayaquil, Ecuador, July 20, 2023. Guayaquil is the epicenter of violence. About a third of this year’s violent deaths took place in what is Ecuador’s second-largest city and home to the main commercial port, as well as a large prison complex. 

(AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa, File)

GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador (AP) — Belen Diaz was walking home from college one evening when a motorcycle carrying two men made a menacing U-turn.

Terrified that she was about to be robbed for the eighth time in three years, the teaching student banged on a cab window until the driver drove her home. Diaz got away safe, but there was an unrelated fatal shooting the next day outside her gated community of two-story homes on the edge of the Ecuadorian port city of Guayaquil.

Ecuador was one of the calmest countries in Latin America until about three years ago. Today, criminals prowl relatively wealthy and working-class neighborhoods alike: professional hitmen, kidnappers, extortionists and thousands of thieves and robbers. Mexican and Colombian cartels have settled into coastal cities like Guayaquil and grabbed chunks of the trade shipping hundreds of millions of dollars of cocaine from neighboring Colombia and Peru to countries overseas.

One of the candidates in a special Aug. 20 presidential election had a famously tough stance on organized crime and corruption. Fernando Villavicencio was fatally shot in broad daylight Wednesday despite a security detail that included police and bodyguards.

“No one is safe from the insecurity in the country,” Anthony Garcia, who packs shrimp, said after the Villavicencio assassination. “We are at the hands of drug trafficking, of evil in its entirety.”

The country’s National Police tallied 3,568 violent deaths in the first six months of this year, far more than the 2,042 reported during the same period in 2022. That year ended with 4,600 violent deaths, the country’s highest in history and double the total in 2021.

The causes are complex. All, though, revolve around cocaine.

Cartel-aided gangs are battling for control of the streets, prisons and drug routes to the Pacific. Dwindling state coffers, political infighting, corruption and soaring debts created funding gaps in social and law-enforcement programs. The COVID-19 pandemic turned hungry children and unemployed adults into easy recruits for criminal groups.

Criminals are increasingly demanding payments from businesses and terming the fee a “vacuna” — vaccine — as in immunity from crime.

“COVID came and went and left us vaccines, but a different type of vaccines,” said Holbach Muñeton, president of the National Federation of Provincial Chambers of Tourism of Ecuador.

Shopping and dining is a different experience these days. Convenience stores, auto part shops and pharmacies have floor-to-ceiling metal bars that prevent customers from entering from the sidewalk. Malls have metal detectors at the entrances. The bars and restaurants that survived the pandemic have fewer tables and close early.

Reports of robberies have soared. Data from the National Police show 31,485 cases were reported last year, about 11,000 more than in 2020.

Garcia, the 26-year-old shrimp packer, has been robbed twice this year. Thieves in Guayaquil stole his phone one time during his morning commute. Another time, he was robbed after he went out to have a couple of drinks.

Restaurant owner Carlos Barrezueta said there are spots in Guayaquil where sales have dropped to a tenth of what they once were.

Ecuadorian authorities attribute the unprecedented violence to a power vacuum triggered by the killing in December 2020 of Jorge Zambrano, alias “Rasquiña” or “JL,” the leader of Los Choneros. Founded in the 1990s, the group is the country’s largest and most feared gang. Members carry out contract killings, run extortion operations, move and sell drugs, and are the law inside prisons.

Los Choneros and the similar groups Los Lobos and Los Tiguerones have been fighting over territory and control, including within detention facilities, where at least 400 inmates have died since 2021. The gangs have links to cartels from Colombia and Mexico, including the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation groups.

“Since the year 2000, we had already seen the Mexican cartels here,” said Rob Peralta, a former member of a National Police intelligence unit. “But definitely, in recent years, these criminal groups have garnered more influence here through local gangs, which they empowered, and today they have more weapons than the police themselves.”

Outgunned, unprepared and underpaid, law-enforcement officers don’t dare enter parts of crime-ridden neighborhoods or the wings of some prisons, where dismembered bodies, as well as high-caliber weapons, grenades, belt feeders and drugs, have been found when the government deploys the military and additional police after vicious riots.

Guayaquil is the epicenter of violence. About a third of this year’s violent deaths took place in Ecuador’s second-largest city, home to the country's main commercial port and a large prison complex.

Built on flat land at the end of the Andes, the city stretches along the brown Amazonian waters of the Guayas River, with only a few tall buildings, and homes and small businesses such as pharmacies dominating the landscape.

The province of Guayas, which includes Guayaquil, is the country’s most populous with about 4.5 million people. In the first half of the year, the province saw 976 business robberies, according to National Police data, just 12 short of last year’s total.

In Socio Vivienda, a sprawling public housing neighborhood, shop owners, pedestrians, police — everyone — talks in whispers. Their eyes bounce around as if someone is watching them 24/7.

The neighborhood’s police station is surrounded by bags of dirt placed as protection after a shootout earlier this year. Save for a handful of officers chatting by the door, the building looks abandoned.

Police officers across the country walk around with outdated bulletproof vests, and a shortage of ammunition was not addressed until recently. People in some neighborhoods have pitched in to buy gasoline for police cars.

Muñeton said the tourism industry in Guayaquil recently arranged for a private university to let police officers use its dorms because their barracks have leaking roofs and lack air conditioning.

Stray bullets are now everyone’s concern. One pierced the door of the home of 12-year-old Daniel Mosquera on July 19 and hit him in the back. His mother, Caterina Aguirre, said he lost a kidney and the ability to move from the waist down.

But unlike many mothers of gun violence victims in other countries, Aguirre, 29, said she is not demanding punishment for the perpetrators. She prefers “divine justice” and only wants better health care for her son. That’s common even among the nonreligious, as nobody wants to attract additional attention.

Indeed, fear and distrust have tinged the warmth and politeness characteristic of Ecuadorian society.

People constantly look behind their backs, and some, like Diaz, have come up with elaborate plans to avoid being victimized.

Diaz, who is studying to one day become a college professor, carries two cellphones. She never uses one of them, but has downloaded apps to make it look like her everyday phone. She plans to hand thieves that one next time she is robbed. She does not go out in the evenings or dare download dating apps.

“We don’t know who we’re friends with anymore,” Diaz, 32, said. “I’m going to stay single forever. I can’t go dating on these weird apps. I mean, imagine, they could kidnap me! Life is not what it used to be.”

MONDAY'S DON'T SUCK

 

(195) I Don't Like Mondays - YouTube

BIDEN'S BIGGEST BLUNDER

The Taliban are entrenched in Afghanistan after 2 years of rule. Women and girls pay the price

HE FOLLOWED TRUMPS PLAN

RIAZAT BUTT
Sun, August 13, 2023 


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Taliban fighters celebrate one year since they seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, in front of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have settled in as rulers of Afghanistan, two years after they seized power as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country following two decades of war.

The Taliban face no significant opposition that could topple them. They have avoided internal divisions by falling in line behind their ideologically unbending leader. They have kept a struggling economy afloat, in part by holding investment talks with capital-rich regional countries, even as the international community withholds formal recognition. They have improved domestic security through crackdowns on armed groups such as the Islamic State, and say they are fighting corruption and opium production.

But it’s their slew of bans on Afghan girls and women that dominated the Taliban’s second year in charge. They barred them from parks, gyms, universities, and jobs at nongovernmental groups and the United Nations – all in the space of a few months – allegedly because they weren’t wearing proper hijab — the Islamic head covering — or violated gender segregation rules. These orders followed a previous ban, issued in the first year of Taliban rule, on girls going to school beyond sixth grade.

Here is a closer look at Taliban rule and where they are headed.

WHY DID THEY EXCLUDE WOMEN FROM HIGHER EDUCATION, MOST JOBS AND PUBLIC SPACES?

The Taliban say they are committed to implementing their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, in Afghanistan. This leaves no space for anything they think is foreign or secular, such as women working or studying. It’s what drove them in the late 1990s, when they first seized power in Afghanistan, and it propels them now, ever since they took control again on Aug. 15, 2021.

Their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has praised the changes imposed since the takeover, claiming life improved for Afghan women after foreign troops left and the hijab became mandatory again.

WHAT WAS THE RESPONSE TO THESE BANS?

Foreign governments, rights groups, and global bodies condemned the restrictions. The U.N. said they were a major obstacle to the Taliban gaining international recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Overseas aid is drying up as major donors stop their funding, pulled in different directions by other crises and worried their money might fall into Taliban hands.

The lack of funds, as well as the exclusion of Afghan women from delivering essential humanitarian services, is hitting the population hard, pushing more people into poverty.

WHAT ARE LIVING CONDITIONS LIKE IN AFGHANISTAN?

Nearly 80% of the previous, Western-backed Afghan government’s budget came from the international community. That money — now largely cut off — financed hospitals, schools, factories and government ministries. The COVID-19 pandemic, medical shortages, climate change and malnutrition have made life more desperate for Afghans. Aid agencies have stepped into the breach to provide basic services like health care.

Afghanistan is struggling with its third consecutive year of drought-like conditions, the ongoing collapse in families’ income, and restrictions on international banking. It’s also still suffering from decades of war and natural disasters.

HOW IS THE ECONOMY DOING?

The World Bank said last month that the local currency, the afghani, gained value against major currencies. Customers can withdraw more money from individual deposits made before August 2021 and most civil servants are being paid. The World Bank described revenue collection as “healthy” and said most basic items remained available, although demand is low.

The Taliban have held investment talks with countries in the region, including China and Kazakhstan. They want sanctions removed and billions of dollars in frozen funds to be released, saying these measures will alleviate the suffering of Afghans. But the international community will only take such steps once the Taliban take certain actions, including lifting restrictions on women and girls.

HOW LIKELY ARE THE TALIBAN TO CHANGE DIRECTION?

It's largely up to the Taliban leader, Akhundzada. The cleric counts like-minded government ministers and Islamic scholars among his circle. He is behind the decrees on women and girls. His edicts, framed in the language of Islamic law, are absolute. The bans will only be lifted if Akhundzada orders it. Some Taliban figures have spoken out against the way decisions are made, and there has been disagreement about the bans on women and girls. But the Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid slammed these reports as propaganda.

“The secret of their success is that they are united,” Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as the Taliban envoy to Pakistan when they ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s, said. “If someone expresses his opinion or his thoughts, it doesn't mean someone is against the leadership or will go to another side," said Zaeef who spent several years at the Guantanamo Bay detention center after the 2001 U.S. invasion. "Disagreements are put in front of the emir (Akhundzada) and he decides. They follow his word.”

WHAT ABOUT INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION?

Aid officials say the Taliban view recognition as an entitlement, not something to be negotiated. The officials also cite high-level meetings with powerful states like China and Russia as signs that the Taliban are building bilateral relations in their own way. Qatar’s prime minister met Akhundzada in the southwestern Afghan city of Kandahar in June, the first-such publicly known meeting between the supreme leader and a foreign official.

Even though the Taliban are officially isolated on the global stage, they appear to have enough interactions and engagement for ties with countries to inch toward normalization. Cooperation with the Taliban on narcotics, refugees and counter-terrorism is of interest globally, including to the West. Countries like China, Russia and neighboring Pakistan want an end to sanctions.

“The political interactions are such that no country in the region is thinking of bringing Afghanistan under their power or control,” said Zaeef. He said the Taliban's foreign outreach is hampered by blacklists preventing officials from traveling, and by lacking common ground with the rest of the world.

WHAT OPPOSITION IS THERE TO THE TALIBAN?

There’s no armed or political opposition with enough domestic or foreign support to topple the Taliban. A fighting force resisting Taliban rule from the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul is being violently purged. Public protests are rare.

The Islamic State has struck high-profile targets in deadly bombings, including two government ministries, but the militants lack fighters, money and other resources to wage a major offensive against the Taliban.

INSIGHT-Palestinian gunmen say they're fighting for Jenin, not foreign backers

Sun, August 13, 2023 
By Ali Sawafta, James Mackenzie and Suleiman Al-Khalidi

JENIN, West Bank, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Sitting in a bullet-scarred building in the city of Jenin, two fighters from Islamic Jihad - a militant group funded by Iran - celebrated what they said was a victory for Palestinians over the biggest Israeli operation in the West Bank in decades.

Israeli commanders said the two-day incursion in Jenin last month succeeded in seizing weapons and smashing infrastructure used by fighters funded by Iran, who use a crowded refugee camp - where thousands live packed into an area of less than half a square kilometre - as a base to attack and kill Israelis.

Israel's National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Aug. 7 that Iran was trying to "draw a ring around our neck" through militant groups like Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the West Bank and its proxy Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.

While the fighters make no secret of the fact money comes from Iran, for them, the battle is a local one, fuelled by anger over the Israeli occupation, and they show no interest in the broader geopolitical issues, according to dozens of conversations with fighters and sympathisers in Jenin.

"We are sons of Jenin," said one of the Islamic Jihad fighters, who identified himself as Abu Salah. A thin, bearded 36-year-old, dressed in black athletic gear and trainers, he said fighters felt they had no alternative. "We are surrounded and we are under siege. We have no choice but to fight."

"It's true that Islamic Jihad is the main faction but the more important thing is that we are sons of Jenin," he said, sitting amid chunks of masonry and burned-out cooking gas canisters used as improvised bombs during the Israeli incursion.

Islamic Jihad is a Palestinian faction sworn to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamic state.

"Our goal is close to Islamic Jihad but the motivation is from Jenin," the fighter said.

For over a year, there has been turmoil in the West Bank, a kidney shaped area about 100 km (60 miles) long and 50 km wide that has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since it was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Hundreds of Palestinians, mostly fighters but many civilians as well, have been killed in Israeli raids since the latest wave of violence erupted in early 2022. In the same period, dozens of Israelis have been killed in shootings, stabbings or car-ramming attacks by Palestinians.

Israeli officials repeatedly accuse Iran of funding militant groups in the West Bank as one element in a multipronged campaign that includes attacks against Israelis abroad, funding for Hezbollah and a programme to build a nuclear weapon.

Many Palestinians see the charge as a means of shifting the focus from Israel's occupation of the West Bank, and the expansion of settlement building, which most of the world considers to be illegal, especially since the election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government.

'HIT AND MISS'

Jenin, a traditional hub of Palestinian resistance to Israel, has provided a fertile arena for the interests of Iranian security officials, shadowy financiers and competing Palestinian factions to meet.

Nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority, the body set up some 30 years ago under the Oslo peace accords, Jenin is an increasingly lawless space where PA officials sit behind the high walls of the governor's compound, unable to do much more than protest Israeli raids.

"This is an area without a government," said Mahmoud Al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, who has worked there for decades.

According to the Israeli military, about 25% of families there are affiliated with Islamic Jihad, which receives about 90% of its funding came from Iran, amounting to "several tens of millions of dollars" a year, an Israeli official said. Many of the Palestinian attackers who have killed Israelis in Israel and the West Bank came from the area.

Tamir Hayman, managing director of Israel's Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, and a former head of Israel's military intelligence directorate, said Iran was unable to exert much direct control over what happens to its money.

"Iran is spending a lot of money in the West Bank but they aren't able to target it precisely or get terror operatives to do exactly what they want so it's a bit hit and miss," he said.

"They send in money by encouraging smugglers and smuggling through criminal gangs or whatever and have to hope that a large enough amount gets through to the Jenin camp and other places to make a difference."

Asked if Iran trains and provides monetary and other support to Islamic Jihad, Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York said in an email: "Our assistance to Palestinian resistance groups is provided upon their request. It is the international obligation of all states to empower and defend these groups against occupation and resist Israeli occupying forces."

Islamic Jihad spokesman Daoud Shehab said it was no secret the movement received Iranian support but that there was "no direct connection between Iran and what's happening in Jenin or elsewhere".

'ALWAYS WAYS'

Surveys show overwhelming public support among Palestinians for armed groups as raids have stepped up and Jewish settler attacks on Palestinian villages have become more brazen.

"If we didn't have the support of the families here, we wouldn't survive an hour," said Abu Salah.

According to a survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 71% of Palestinians support armed groups such as the Jenin Brigade, an umbrella group that includes factions like Islamic Jihad and Hamas, and the "Den of Lions" in the nearby city of Nablus.

But as Israel's relations have improved with the wealthy Gulf states that have traditionally funded the Palestinian cause, an important source of money for the militant groups has dried up. That's the gap Iran has sought to fill.

Israel's intelligence services make moving funds difficult but criminal gangs and unscrupulous businessmen - "who gain from high commissions and do not want to know why they are being paid triple" - provide an opening, said a senior Islamist official based outside the Palestinian Territories who has first hand knowledge of the mechanisms used to move money.

"There are always ways to get in support even if it can appear near impossible - they even get it from Israeli smugglers," he said.

While security officials say they have seen a recent increase in smuggling of weapons and drugs, Israeli officials and militant groups say Iranian support also comes from more sophisticated money transfers.

Sometimes the transfers involve criminals and sometimes legitimate or semi-legitimate businesses help to move funds to the West Bank, the militant sources said.

NO QUESTIONS ASKED

Typically, transfers involve legitimate foreign currency letters of credit, or orders for a variety of imported goods, usually at inflated valuations, from garments to toys to shoes and household items mainly from China, four sources familiar with the mechanism said.

"They don't ask questions but the deal is that they hand over part of that money to a respected businessman whom we deal with and who passes it over to our military operative," a senior Islamic Jihad source said.

Anywhere between a quarter to a third of the value of these transactions is passed in cash to businessmen Islamic Jihad trust and who get the money to the militant group, often using family ties to help keep the transfers covert, the source said.

Automatic rifles, such as M16s, can cost $30,000 and, in an area of chronic unemployment, regular fighters say they can earn $300 to $700 a month from the Iranian-backed group.

Much of the weaponry used by the Jenin fighters comes from Israel itself, stolen and sold on through criminal gangs, Israeli officials say. Some is smuggled across the Jordanian border, and some is improvised in local workshops.

For the young men in the camps, inspired by the posters of martyred fighters that plaster public spaces, the origin of the money that pays for the weapons is of little concern.

"It's well known that outside funds come from Islamic Jihad," said another fighter, from the Al-Aqsa Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, the faction founded in the 1950s by Yasser Arafat, which now runs the Palestinian Authority.

"We don't care who brings the funds to us."

(Ali Sawafta and James Mackenzie reported from Jenin, Suleiman al-Khalidi reported from Amman; Additional reporting by Raneen Sawafta in Jenin, Maayan Lubell and Jonathan Saul in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Leila Bassam in Beirut and Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Editing by David Clarke)