Examining the financial repercussions of recent tropical cyclones

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By bno - Surabaya Office December 5, 2025

The recent onslaught of tropical storms across portions of South and South East Asia has tragically resulted in considerable loss of life and extensive disruption. While the humanitarian toll is devastating, the overall financial impact on the region is forecast to be relatively contained, primarily because the major industrial and commercial heartlands were largely spared from the worst destruction, according to Capital Economics.

Key Areas of concern and economic channels

In recent weeks, a succession of tropical cyclones has swept through the area, with Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka all reporting substantial damage. The death toll has surpassed 1,000, affecting hundreds of thousands of residents. The importance of this story lies in the region's reliance on agriculture and the risk that widespread crop destruction, even without hitting industrial centres, could still push up food inflation, adding pressure to household budgets already strained by other economic factors.

Natural catastrophes influence a nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) via several mechanisms. Initially, there is an immediate impediment as production, trade, and supply chains are interrupted, and the tourism sector suffers. This short-term negative shock is often followed by a recovery phase fuelled by deferred consumer demand. Furthermore, the necessary rebuilding efforts can stimulate subsequent economic expansion.

Asia has frequently endured such disasters. Historically, the repercussions on GDP have usually been minor and brief. For instance, despite Typhoon Haiyan causing over 10,000 fatalities in the Philippines in 2013, the effect on the nation's overall economic output was limited. Even the catastrophic 2004 tsunami, which claimed over 230,000 lives, had only a modest impact on the wider regional growth figures. As Gary Leather from Capital Economics observed, the economic impact in most cases has been short-lived and modest.

An important counterexample is the 2011 floods in Thailand, which caused a significant economic downturn. GDP plunged by a double-digit percentage as manufacturing (particularly the automotive industry), exports, and tourism all suffered major blows. This severity was due to the disruption being concentrated in the industrial zones surrounding Bangkok, where numerous automotive and electronics plants were inundated and forced to halt operations. Though manufacturing quickly resumed within a few months, the floods generated substantial global supply chain ripples, slowing production and exports globally.

Limited impact on major economic hubs

This latest series of events differs in scope. Despite affecting a broad geographical area, the region's main commercial and industrial centres seem to be mostly undamaged.

• In Indonesia, the harm is concentrated in northern Sumatra and parts of Kalimantan, primarily impacting rural communities and transport networks rather than significant industrial areas.

• Sri Lanka has experienced the worst damage in its rural, elevated districts, where crop losses and infrastructure damage are most severe.

• In the Philippines, the areas most affected are in the Visayas and Mindanao, with landslides and flooding disrupting local services and transport links. Of additional note in the Philippines is the political context: the floods have coincided with a corruption investigation related to flood-management initiatives, which could intensify public discontent and potentially force a more robust government intervention.

Overall, while there might be some temporary interruption to manufacturing and supply chains, the reduction in overall activity is expected to be minimal and temporary. The assessment by Capital Economics' Gary Leather is that the hit to activity is likely to be small and temporary, aligning with the pattern seen when major industrial areas are not severely affected.

The agricultural sector is predicted to absorb the greatest impact. Extensive flooding and crop failures are anticipated to drive food prices higher, posing an upside risk to future inflation forecasts. The encouraging news is that current inflation across most of the region is already very low, sitting near or below target levels. Consequently, Gary Leather and his team at Capital Economics project that central banks will likely retain an accommodative monetary policy, with further interest rate reductions probable in the coming months.

 

Environmental crime growing sharply across Western Balkans, watchdog warns

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By Clare Nuttall in Glasgow December 3, 2025

Environmental crime has become one of the fastest-growing illicit economies in the Western Balkans, fuelled by corruption, weak law enforcement and a lack of public awareness, according to a new report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

The study says environmental crime is now “among the most lucrative transnational criminal activities in the world”, generating an estimated $110bn-281bn annually” and expanding at a rate of 5-7% per year. All major types of environmental offences — from illegal logging and wildlife trafficking to hazardous-waste dumping and industrial pollution — are found across the region.

Air pollution, river contamination and unregulated construction are taking a heavy toll on ecosystems and public health. The report notes that in Serbia alone, “6,592 people die prematurely each year due to ambient air pollution.”

GI-TOC identifies hotspots across the six Western Balkan states. Illegal logging is widespread in Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Montenegro, while Albania and Bosnia face severe river pollution. Montenegro has emerged as a key transit point for wildlife trafficking. Serbia’s mining hub of Bor is singled out for “dangerously high concentrations of toxic metals in the air and water”.

Albania’s Ishem–Erzen river basin is contaminated with cadmium and lead at levels “exceeding EU standards by more than 100 times,” the report says.

Low indictments, high impunity

Despite the scale of damage, prosecutions remain rare. “Some types of environmental crime leave few or no traces, are easily concealed, or are deliberately covered up … This makes it difficult to bring cases to court,” the report warns.

Prosecutors often deprioritise such offences. In Serbia, the authorities recorded only 13 environmental crime indictments in 2021, a strikingly low figure for a country with some of Europe’s worst air pollution. Across the region, indictments remain limited: Albania registered 80 cases that year, Bosnia 256, Kosovo 471, Montenegro 166 and North Macedonia 113.

Interviewees “consistently emphasised that the number of indictments does not reflect the actual scale of environmental harm,” GI-TOC writes. In Bosnia, the data shows very few convictions.

One case in Zenica detailed in the report illustrates the obstacles. A citizens’ association, Eko Forum, filed a criminal complaint against a local steelworks for pollution, but more than five years later, prosecutors suspended the investigation. The prosecutor’s office argued that the companies had made efforts to address the issue and that “there was no deliberate wrongdoing”. 

The report concludes that political interference is a key barrier to justice. Experts interviewed said “political corruption prevents court proceedings from taking place and satisfactory verdicts from being reached.”

Criminal markets

GI-TOC documents a series of major criminal schemes. In Bosnia, authorities uncovered the illegal import and dumping of “hundreds of tonnes of waste from Italy”.  Kosovo is losing more than 700 hectares of forest annually to illegal logging and wildfires, while Montenegro faces “financial losses amounting to €20bn through forest-concession mismanagement”. 

In North Macedonia, Lake Ohrid is threatened by fish poaching and regulatory capture, while Skadar Lake in Montenegro is a hotspot for illegal construction and wildlife poaching.

The report stresses that its focus on criminal markets reveals dynamics often absent from traditional climate assessments, describing the study as “a complementary but more targeted perspective on the region’s environmental vulnerabilities”. 

Grass-roots groups, environmental journalists and local activists are at the forefront of exposing abuses. GI-TOC highlights “the crucial role of civil society, journalists and environmental activists, including women who have led long-standing resistance movements in defence of rivers and forests.”

But citizens frequently hesitate to report violations. “Citizens often fear reporting environmental crimes, especially when the offenders are powerful entities,” the report says.

Public awareness of reporting procedures remains low, prompting calls for nationwide campaigns.

All six Western Balkan states are candidates or potential candidates for EU membership, but the report says they have made “limited progress in… aligning their policies and legislation with the European Union acquis” in areas such as water management, chemicals and environmental crime.

GI-TOC warns that the region’s patchwork approach to environmental protection is insufficient. It calls for stronger institutions, better enforcement, coordinated action across agencies and a clear distinction between administrative and criminal offences.

“Tackling environmental crime requires strong international cooperation and a multi-stakeholder approach,” the authors write — including governments, civil society, academia, the private sector and local communities.

Without significant reforms, the watchdog concludes, environmental crime will continue to flourish in the Western Balkans, threatening biodiversity, public health and the region’s European integration prospects.

Former EU foreign policy chief Mogherini detained in corruption case

Belgian police arrested three people, including former foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, and raided EU offices in a corruption probe that names her as a suspect.


Issued on: 04/12/2025 - RFI

Former EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, was taken into custody on Tuesday, 2 December in Belgium as part of an investigation into the fraudulent use of European funds. © John Thys / AFP

On Tuesday, Belgian authorities arrested the trio after searching the EU diplomatic service’s headquarters in Brussels and the College of Europe, a prestigious training institute for future policymakers, in Bruges.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) said on Wednesday that Mogherini, now rector of the College of Europe, was among those detained, along with a senior college staff member and an official from the European Commission.

The EPPO said the Belgian Federal Judicial Police questioned all three before formally notifying them of the accusations. These relate to suspected procurement fraud and corruption, conflict of interest and breaches of professional secrecy.

All three were released afterwards, with investigators saying they were unlikely to flee.

High-profile investigation

Mogherini led the EU’s external action service from 2014 to 2019 and was involved in some of the bloc’s most delicate diplomatic efforts, including the Iran nuclear talks and efforts to ease tensions between Serbia and Kosovo.

The EPPO said police had searched the suspects’ homes as well as several college buildings and the headquarters of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s foreign policy body.

The EEAS sits in central Brussels, close to other major EU institutions.

Investigators have not linked any outside actor or foreign government to the case. The probe focuses instead on what the EPPO described as “strong suspicions" of fraud in awarding a tender to run a training programme for junior diplomats at the EU Diplomatic Academy during the 2021-2022 academic year.

The EEAS was then overseen by Josep Borrell, who served as Vice President of the European Commission

Blow for EU integrity efforts

The accusations against Mogherini come as the EU tries to move past several corruption and influence-peddling scandals.

The largest, known as Qatargate, emerged in late 2022 and involved lawmakers, parliamentary aides, lobbyists and relatives.

Belgian prosecutors said Qatari and Moroccan officials paid cash to shape EU decisions, though both countries denied wrongdoing.

There have been no convictions and the prospects for a trial remain unclear.

Earlier this year, several people were arrested in a probe involving Chinese tech giant Huawei, suspected of bribing members of the European Parliament.

In 2023, a former aide to far-right German MEP Maximilian Krah was detained over allegations of spying for China. Krah, now in Germany’s federal parliament, said he had no knowledge of the suspicions involving his former staffer.

(with newswires)

‘I Have Full Confidence In The Justice System’, Mogherini Says Amid EEAS-Gate

File photo of Federica Mogherini. Photo Credit: Federica Mogherini, Facebook


December 4, 2025 
 EurActiv
By Eddy Wax and Elisa Braun

(EurActiv) — Former EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is “very serene” about the ongoing fraud investigation in which she has been named a suspect, her lawyer said on Wednesday, a day after Belgian authorities questioned her for several hours and searched her Brussels residence.

Mogherini’s status as a suspect is part of a wider probe first reported by Euractiv, which led to the arrests and subsequent release of Mogherini and senior European Commission official Stefano Sannino.

Belgian police also raided the EU’s diplomatic service as investigators examine allegations of improperly shared confidential information linked to an EU-funded tender involving the College of Europe.

“I have full confidence in the justice system, and I trust that the correctness of the College’s action will be ascertained,” Mogherini said in a statement, adding she would offer “full collaboration to the authorities.”

Mogherini was interrogated from 2 p.m. until shortly after midnight on Tuesday, her lawyer Mariapaola Cherchi of Cherchi & De Vos told Euractiv.

“Mrs Mogherini has answered with total transparency, she is very serene despite the very heavy ordeal for someone like her, who has been very devoted towards the European institutions, as her track record shows,” Cherchi said.

She described the questioning as polite and focused, with investigators pressing for detailed explanations about the public tender at the centre of the case.

Mogherini’s release without any restriction on her movements was “a positive sign,” she added.

Following the hearing, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) confirmed that Mogherini had been formally notified of her status as a suspect – meaning the investigation remains open as prosecutors assess whether she is cleared or further implicated.

EPPO said she was released because she is not considered a flight risk and remains presumed innocent.

'Bread and butter corruption': Senator suspects sinister plot behind Trump's pardon spree

And it's kind of wild that Trump doesn't know anything about it, that it's happening behind his back.

Matthew Chapman
December 3, 2025

RAW STORY

Donald Trump (Reuters)


Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tore into President Donald Trump's recent string of pardons for powerful and well-connected criminals and criminal defendants — and suggested there is something much more sinister going on below the surface.

Specifically, he argued to MS NOW's Chris Hayes on Wednesday, there is a whole lobbying network at play that has set up a cash-for-pardons pipeline to the White House.

"I mean, he has made a series of what would seem to be audaciously politically toxic pardons," said Hayes. "I mean, a man convicted and sentenced for 40 years for trafficking cocaine into the U.S., someone convicted of an enormous fraud enterprise and defrauding investors. I think today he's now pardoning someone who is indicted by his own Justice Department this July. And when he's asked about it, he says, I don't know who they are. What are we supposed to make of that?"

"Yeah, I mean, my sense is that somebody is getting rich ultimately, that there is a cabal of administration officials and MAGA-friendly lobbyists that are in league together," said Murphy. "They all huddle together at these elite restaurants and clubs in Washington, D.C. and they likely hatch deals in which if somebody pays a MAGA-affiliated lobbyist a couple hundred thousand dollars, then maybe you'll be able to get a pardon and somehow, you know, that deal will be consummated down the line."

"The Binance owner, the owner of one of these big crypto companies, was pardoned," said Murphy. "And this is a bad, bad guy. He pled guilty. I mean, it wasn't like he was contesting the charges. He had essentially set up a company that was being used to launder money for terrorists and for child sex predators, and he got a pardon pretty explicitly because his company had chosen to give Trump's crypto coin advantage in the marketplace."

"And remember, that's not just Trump making money," he added. "That's anybody that gets inside information from Trump on when he's going to boost the cryptocurrency. If they get just two minutes notice of that, they can make millions of dollars and so on. The cryptocurrency stuff, there's clearly a whole group of people around him that are making millions of dollars, and they're handing out favors to folks in the form of pardons in order to make sure that they get their pockets lined."

"I mean, that's like just bread and butter corruption," said Murphy. "And it's kind of wild that Trump doesn't know anything about it, that it's happening behind his back."

'Totally disgusted': Victim aghast after Trump frees fraudster

Robert Davis
December 3, 2025 
RAW STORY

CNN screenshot

A victim of a fraudster that President Donald Trump recently let out of jail spoke out on Wednesday, railing that the president's move "makes no sense."

Carolann Tutera, who was defrauded by David Gentile, the former CEO of GPB Holdings, discussed the impact of Gentile's fraud on her family during Wednesday's broadcast of "The Lead" with Jake Tapper. Gentile was convicted in May of leading a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. He served just 12 days before Trump commuted his sentence.

"I'm totally disgusted because it wasn't only myself, it was my elder mother in her 90s and my sister as well. We all got defrauded," Tutera told Tapper.

Tutera said she lost about $500,000 in Gentile's scams and has since been able to recoup about $40,000. She told Tapper that she realized she was being scammed after her late husband died, and she asked for her money back.

"You're not really functioning for quite some time after you lose your spouse of many, many years," Tutera said. "And when I asked for money back, they said they're just waiting. What are they waiting for? Call me in about six months. Time went on, and there was no money. None."

Gentile is not the only white collar criminal Trump has granted clemency for during his second administration. He pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who was convicted of money laundering and forced to pay a more than $4 billion fine. Trump has also pardoned Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, who was also convicted of money laundering.

Trump pardons media exec indicted by his own DOJ

Matthew Chapman
December 3, 2025

RAW STORY


U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a breakfast with Republican Senators at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S. November 5, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

President Donald Trump has issued a full pardon to Tim Leiweke, a media executive who co-founded the Oak View Group, according to CNN on Wednesday.

The move is notable as, unlike many other controversial Trump clemencies for rich and well-connected people, this pardon is for a charge brought by his own Justice Department earlier this year.

"A federal grand jury indicted Leiweke, then the CEO of the live entertainment group, in July for 'orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for an arena at a public university in Austin, Texas,' according to a press release from the Justice Department announcing the charge," noted the report. Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater proclaimed at that time, “As outlined in the indictment, the Defendant rigged a bidding process to benefit his own company and deprived a public university and taxpayers of the benefits of competitive bidding.”

Ironically, according to the report, Leiweke has a history of criticizing Trump on social media, posting that he was the “single greatest Con man” and lauding former Vice President Mike Pence for standing up to Trump's scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Leiweke was represented in his quest for a pardon by former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a former ally of the president.

This comes just hours after Trump sent House Republicans into chaos by pardoning conservative Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, who was charged alongside his wife with a $600,000 bribery scheme on behalf of an oil and gas company tied to foreign entities. GOP lawmakers had hoped to leverage his criminal charges to unseat him in his South Texas district.

Democrats in Congress Are Out of Touch With Constituents on Israeli Genocide

The political issue of complicity with genocide will not go away. And that’s a good thing.


Over 200 members from the organization Jewish Voice for Peace occupy the lobby outside the offices of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). The group is protesting the senator’s military support of the Israeli government and the continued starvation and genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
(Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Norman Solomon
Dec 03, 2025

Common Dreams

Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same conclusion. But such clarity is sparse in Congress.

And no wonder. Genocide denial is needed for continuing to appropriate billions of dollars in weapons to Israel, as most legislators have kept doing. Congress members would find it very difficult to admit that Israeli forces are committing genocide while voting to send them more weaponry.

Three weeks ago, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced a resolution titled “Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Twenty-one House colleagues, all of them Democrats, signed on as co-sponsors. They account for 10 percent of the Democrats in Congress.

In sharp contrast, a national Quinnipiac Poll found that 77 percent of Democrats “think Israel is committing genocide.” That means there is a 67 percent gap between what the elected Democrats are willing to say and what the people who elected them believe. The huge gap has big implications for the party’s primaries in the midterm elections next year, and then in the race for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.

The party’s leadership remains stuck in a bygone era.

One of the likely candidates in that race, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), is speaking out in ways that fit with the overwhelming views of Democratic voters. “I agree with the UN commission’s heartbreaking finding that there is a genocide in Gaza,” he tweeted as autumn began. “What matters is what we do about it—stop military sales that are being used to kill civilians and recognize a Palestinian state.” Consistent with that position, the California congressman was one of the score of Democrats who signed on as co-sponsors of Tlaib’s resolution the day it was introduced.

In the past, signers of such a resolution would have reason to fear the wrath—and the electoral muscle—of AIPAC, the Israel-can-do-no-wrong lobby. But its intimidation power is waning. AIPAC’s support for Israel does not represent the views of the public, a reality that has begun to dawn on more Democratic officeholders.

“With American support for the Israeli government’s management of the conflict in Gaza undergoing a seismic reversal, and Democratic voters’ support for the Jewish state dropping off steeply, AIPAC is becoming an increasingly toxic brand for some Democrats on Capitol Hill,” the New York Times reported this fall. Notably, “some Democrats who once counted AIPAC among their top donors have in recent weeks refused to take the group’s donations.”

Khanna has become more and more willing to tangle with AIPAC, which is now paying for attack ads against him. On Thanksgiving, he tweeted about Gaza and accused AIPAC of “asking people to disbelieve what they saw with their own eyes.” Khanna elaborated in a campaign email days ago, writing: “Any politician who caves to special interests on Gaza will never stand up to special interests on corruption, healthcare, housing, or the economy. If we can’t speak with moral clarity when thousands of children are dying, we won’t stand for working Americans when corporate power comes knocking.”

AIPAC isn’t the only well-heeled organization for Israel now struggling with diminished clout. Democratic Majority for Israel, an offshoot of AIPAC that calls itself “an American advocacy group that supports pro-Israel policies within the United States Democratic Party,” is now clearly misnamed. Every bit of recent polling shows that in the interests of accuracy, the organization should change its name to “Democratic Minority for Israel.”

Yet the party’s leadership remains stuck in a bygone era. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, typifies how disconnected so many party leaders are from the actual views of Democratic voters. Speaking in Brooklyn three months ago, she flatly claimed that “nine out of 10 Democrats are pro-Israel.” She did not attempt to explain how that could be true when more than seven out of 10 Democrats say Israel is guilty of genocide.

The political issue of complicity with genocide will not go away.

Last week, Amnesty International released a detailed statement documenting that “Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” But in Congress, almost every Republican and a large majority of Democrats remain stuck in public denial about Israel’s genocidal policies.

Such denial will be put to the electoral test in Democratic primaries next year, when most incumbents will face an electorate far more morally attuned to Gaza than they are. What easily passes for reasoned judgment and political smarts in Congress will seem more like cluelessness to many Democratic activists and voters who can provide reality checks with their ballots.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Norman Solomon
Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The paperback edition of his latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, includes an afterword about the Gaza war.
Full Bio >

200+ Luminaries Back Demand for Israel to Free Marwan Barghouti

The Israelis want the Palestinian leadership weak and divided, and they have succeeded in arranging for this outcome.



Demonstrators, led by the Anti-War Committee Chicago and the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine, march down Michigan Avenue, chanting for justice in Palestine and demanding the release of Marwan Barghouti, while motorcyclists waving Palestinian flags amplify the protest on August 23, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
(Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Juan Cole
Dec 03, 2025

Informed Comment

Two hundred prominent literary, cultural and political figures have signed an open letter demanding the release from Israeli prison of Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti 66, is widely thought to be one of the few figures who could unite the Palestinians and lead them to statehood. Israel has imprisoned him for 23 years after a trial most observers consider extremely flawed to say the least. Israel is apparently preparing to go on an execution spree against Palestinian prisoners, some of whom are held without charges or trial for indefinite periods of time.

The star-studded list of signatories includes Margaret Atwood of “The Handmaid’s Tale” fame; Mark Ruffalo a.k.a. the Incredible Hulk, Philip Pullman, author of “His Dark Materials;” Paul Simon, who knows a thing or two about bridges over troubled waters; Benedict Cumberbatch a.k.a. Dr. Strange; Sting, who knows when someone’s watching you; artist Ai Weiwei (who was once arrested and held without charges for 81 days himself); television personality and author Stephen Fry; billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson; and other prominent writers and culture figures.

The campaign is being likened to the effort to free Nelson Mandela from the prisons of Apartheid South Africa in the late 1980s, which presaged the end of Apartheid itself.

Palestinian leadership is a mess, though this is largely the fault of Israel and the United States. Occupied people are often divided and ruled by outsiders, who bribe and spy and set honey traps. They turn any successful indigenous leader into either a collaborator or a terrorist. They damage the local economy and so set the stage for societal failure. The Oslo Accords of 1993 turned the Palestine Liberation Organization, which gave up its chief bargaining chip by recognizing Israel, into a tool for policing Palestinians to keep them from rising up over being brutally occupied. As a result, the PLO is now widely hated. Not to mention that the Israeli refusal to allow elections to be held after 2006 has ensured that the Palestine Authority leaders became a corrupt gerontocracy.

Hamas was alternatively bankrolled by the Israelis or at their behest and cooped up in a large open air concentration camp, a combination that made them dangerous rather than complacent and as a result they committed the horrors of October 7, 2023, ensuring that no Israeli or American government could deal with them ever after.

The Israelis want the Palestinian leadership weak and divided, and they have succeeded in arranging for this outcome.

Bargouti has none of the taint of corruption and collaborator status that now clings to the PLO, since although he is a member of Fateh he has been in prison for the bad old days. He has from his youth been opposed to Hamas.

Barghouti was born in 1959 in the hamlet of Kober in Ramallah governorate. His wife Nadwa is an attorney and women’s rights activist.

Barghouti in his teens joined the Communist Party and participated in peaceful demonstrations. As historian Joel Beinin showed in his Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Eqypt and Israel 1948-1965, the Communist Party was one of the few political vehicles in Israel and Palestine that had both Israeli and Palestinian members, since Marxism rejects nationalist chauvinism.

The Israeli-Palestine problem, however, did not seem to him likely to be resolved by sitting around the campfire singing the Marxist equivalent of Kumbaya, and he gravitated to Fateh, the leading group within the Palestine Liberation Organization, led by Yasser Arafat. In 1978, the Israelis arrested Barghouti when he was around 19, apparently just for being associated with the PLO. They imprisoned him for four years. He finished up his high school degree at Prince Hassan High School in Bir Zeit by completing correspondence courses from prison.

After he was released in 1982, when he must have been about 23, he went to Bir Zeit University and did a BA in History and Political Science. Then he did an MA at Bir Zeit in International Relations. During the 1980s he was active in campus politics and was elected head of the Bir Zeit University student council.

In 1987, the Israelis expelled him to Jordan, which is a war crime. That is, an occupying power is forbidden in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 of displacing members of the occupied population. He had to remain in forced exile until 1993, when Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO and the latter recognized Israel, ending the state of conflict between the two in principle.

On his return to his homeland, Barghouti landed a teaching position at the main Abu Dis campus of al-Quds University in Jerusalem. In the 1990s, Barghouti was known for having good relationships with Israelis. He rose to become secretary-general of Fateh in the Palestinian West Bank, and then was elected to the Palestinian parliament established after Oslo. He established the secular Tanzim paramilitary to combat rising fundamentalist Hamas militants. He was seen as a young comer in Palestinian politics, as someone on whom the old guard like Yasser Arafat depended. But he was also critical of the corruption that arose in the Palestine Authority.

But during the Second Uprising (Intifada), the relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians again turned violent. In 2002, Barghouti wrote an op ed for the Washington Post entitled “Want Security? End the Occupation.” He said,“Over the past 15 months, Israel has killed more than 900 Palestinian civilians, 25 percent of them under the age of 18.”

He added,“I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other oppressed person has advocated — the right to help myself in the absence of help from anywhere else. This principle may well lead to my assassination.”

Thereafter, a militant Fateh wing committed violence in Israel, killing dozens of Israelis and the Israeli authorities tagged Barghouti as involved, though they never made public what evidence they had of his involvement. In 2004 he was sentenced to five life sentences.

I am a severe critic of terrorism in the sense of targeting civilians for political purposes. But in the real world of politics, people who deploy that tactic sometimes do have a political comeback. Menahem Begin, who boasted of machine-gunning down innocent Palestinian women and children at Deir Yassin in 1948, became prime minister of Israel and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Ahmed al-Shara, formerly head of an al-Qaeda offshoot, who was imprisoned by US marines in Iraq, and who certainly committed a ton more terrorism than Begin, was just recently an honored guest in the Trump White House. Nelson Mandela himself committed political violence in his youth, for which he was imprisoned; he was no pacifist. Released from prison, he became president of South Africa and urged reconciliation.

In prison Barghouti finished a doctorate in political science in 2010 and is known for having argued for restraint and against violence to his Palestinian audience on the outside.

His advice to the Israelis in 2002, which, to say the least they haven’t heeded, is still the best advice. If you want security, end the occupation. If Barghouti could help do that, it might save Israel from its own most self-destructive instincts — which are at the moment sinking it.



© 2023 Juan Cole


Juan Cole
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His newest book, "Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires" was published in 2020. He is also the author of "The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East" (2015) and "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East" (2008). He has appeared widely on television, radio, and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles.
Full Bio >

Backlash brews against Trump as voters reject assumption people 'enjoy suffering'




Adam Lynch

December 03, 2025

ALTERNET

“Daily Blast” podcaster Greg Sargent spoke with The American Prospect senior writer Paul Waldman about the backlash brewing among American voters against MAGA and Trump-style cruelty.

Sabrina Carpenter recently condemned the White House for using her song in a video of people getting arrested, pinned to the ground and handcuffed, which Carpenter called “evil and disgusting.” The White House replied with a statement blasting Carter for defending “these sick monsters” and suggested she “must be stupid, or is it slow?”

“It’s intentionally juvenile,” said Waldman, who added that administration spokespeople had “abandoned” principles of earlier administrations by handing out responses that basically say: “Your mom.”

“Their attitude is ‘no, we’re just going to be like the worst 4chan troll because we think that’s funny and we think people will respond to it and like it and our base will like it when we’re being abusive to people. And when it comes to people like immigrants — that we’re being literally sadistic to them — that we want people to enjoy their suffering,’” Waldman said.

But Americans appear to be turning on the childish sadism, said Sargent.


“You could … argue that they’re losing the war over social media spectacle because all the polls are showing very clearly that there’s widespread revulsion and rejection of the mass deportations,” Sargent said. “Trump has completely thrown away whatever advantage he had on the broader immigration issue. Thank you, [White House advisor] Stephen Miller, for doing that. [Trump] has really wrecked his standing on the issue with all these deportation raids and so forth. And I think they almost weren’t prepared for it in one critical sense, which is funny because they sort of pose as very savvy in terms of social media and the cultural stuff.”

All over the country, ICE is becoming a pariah agency, said Sargent. “People are taking out their phones, filming these things,” suggesting that the Trump administration is losing the “spectacle wars” they started by filming agents abusing children and family members.

“I think maybe they are,” said Waldman. “The theory at the heart of what the administration is doing and what Trump’s entire career is based on is that we should all be our worst selves, that our kind of darkest impulses should be the ones that reign. We should be the most bigoted, the most corrupt, the most angry and hateful — that that’s our truest self is our worst self.”

“And if you look at who is in this administration, it is a collection of the worst people from top to bottom,” Waldman continued. “And the implicit argument is that we should all be that way. And we should cheer when people get brutalized. And we should laugh when we see the corruption because everybody is corrupt and everybody is sadistic, and that’s who we ought to be,” said Waldman. “But the truth is that that’s not who most people want to be.”

Read and hear the New Republic podcast at this link.

Brussels In Shock As Ex-EU Diplomat Mogherini Arrested In Tender-Rigging Probe

December 3, 2025 
EurActiv
By Eddy Wax and Elisa Braun

(EurActiv) — Belgian police arrested the EU’s former top diplomat Federica Mogherini and senior Commission official Stefano Sannino as part a sweeping fraud investigation that is renewing fears about corruption in the highest ranks of the European bureaucracy.

The arrests came amid dawn raids, first reported by Euractiv, on the EU diplomatic service in Brussels and the College of Europe in Bruges, where Mogherini, who previously served as Italy’s foreign minister, is the rector. The ongoing probe involves alleged misuse of EU funds, according to people familiar with the investigation and witnesses.

In addition to Mogherini, a socialist who headed the EU’s foreign service between 2014 and 2019, and Sannino, a fellow Italian diplomat who heads the Commission’s directorate general for the Middle East and Northern Africa (DG-MENA), a third person, who works in the executive education department of the College of Europe, was also detained.

All three were questioned on suspicion of procurement fraud, corruption, and criminal conflict of interest. Sannino and Mogherini did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the EEAS said he had no information.

The criminal probe began after allegations that the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s diplomatic arm, and the College of Europe colluded to misuse EU public money in 2021 and 2022 to start a new diplomatic academy, according to four people with knowledge of the investigation.



The affair the latest major scandal to hit the EU in the wake of the Huawei and ‘Qatargate‘ investigations and raises serious concerns about the integrity of the senior leadership of the institutions at the core of the European ‘project’.
In Bruges

At the core of the investigation is a suspicion that the College of Europe or its representatives had prior knowledge of a public tender launched by the EEAS to host a new EU diplomatic academy. The tender, which was awarded to the College of Europe in 2022, was open to institutions of higher education across Europe.

Founded in 1949, the College of Europe is regarded as the premier finishing school for aspiring European civil servants, with alumni including top politicians and officials in the European institutions. Though it is closely affiliated with the EU, which helps fund it, the college is nominally independent.

Investigators have focused on the circumstances surrounding the college’s €3.2 million purchase of a building on Spanjaardstraat in Bruges, which now houses a dormitory for diplomats who attend the academy, the four people with knowledge of the probe said. The competition to host the academy required bidders to propose plans for housing.

The College of Europe purchased the building in 2022 during a period of financial strain for the institution, two people with knowledge of the probe said. Shortly thereafter, the EEAS awarded the college €654,000 in funding.

Authorities suspect the College of Europe and its representatives had privileged access to confidential information about the tender, giving them an unfair advantage over other bidders. During the period in question, Mogherini was rector of the College of Europe and Sannino, who had worked for Mogherini in the Italian foreign ministry, was secretary-general of the EU’s foreign service, a position that may have given him sway over the tender.

Whatever happened behind the scenes, there’s no doubt that the tender ended in Mogherini’s favour. In addition to running the College of Europe, she now also oversees the new EU Diplomatic Academy, which was launched in 2022. She began a second five-year term in Bruges this year.

During the period under scrutiny, the EEAS was led by another socialist former foreign minister, Spain’s Josep Borrell. Spokespeople for Borrell and the College of Europe declined to comment.
Early morning raids

Tuesday’s police raids, which included private residences, took place across Belgium in the early hours of the morning, with police seizing documents. Around 10 officers dressed in civilian clothes entered the EEAS headquarters at 7:30 am on Tuesday, one eyewitness said. Another EU official from the EU’s diplomatic service confirmed the raid.

Belgian federal police from West Flanders, and the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF, took part in the operation as part of a criminal probe led by the EU’s Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO).

Spokespersons from EPPO and OLAF declined to comment.

OLAF, which has administrative powers to pursue suspected fraud involving EU money, interviewed several individuals before passing its findings to EPPO, tasked with investigating and prosecuting serious crimes against the EU’s interests.

There is no indication that OLAF or EPPO have reached conclusions of wrongdoing, and no one has been formally charged yet.

Seven defendants on trial in alleged €19bn fraud attempt against TotalEnergies

Judges in a Nanterre courtroom are untangling an alleged scheme to siphon billions from TotalEnergies through a disputed arbitration process.


Issued on: 02/12/2025 - RFI

TotalEnergies se retrouve devant la justice à Paris ce 5 juin pour «pour pratiques commerciales trompeuses», accusée de «publicité mensongère» et de «greenwashing». (Image d'illustration) © Lou Benoist / AFP

The court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre opened proceedings this week in an extensive fraud case centred on an alleged attempt to extract more than €19 billion from TotalEnergies.

Seven defendants – amongst them a former senior magistrate, two well-known Parisian lawyers and figures linked to the late businessman André "Dédé la sardine" Guelfi – are set to appear over the next three weeks as the court unravels the tangled origins of a controversial 2009 arbitration bid.

The case dates back more than a decade and a half, when in 2011, TotalEnergies filed a complaint with prosecutors in Nanterre, claiming it had been the target of an elaborate fraud attempt.

The company argued that an arbitration procedure launched two years earlier was baseless – a view supported by successive court rulings that confirmed an underlying 1992 oil exploration contract in Russia had never actually taken effect.

That agreement, struck between one of TotalEnergies’ subsidiaries – at the time part of French oil company Elf – and the Russian regions of Saratov and Volgograd, along with the company Interneft, was conditional on several preliminary requirements.

These conditions were never met, yet the Russian claimants pushed for arbitration, demanding more than €19 billion on the grounds that TotalEnergies had failed to honour the deal.

TotalEnergies posts biggest ever annual profit of almost €20bn

'Dédé la sardine'

André Guelfi, a businessman with a colourful past and an equally colourful nickname – Dédé la sardine – sits at the centre of the affair.

In the early 1990s, he acted as a fixer for Elf in the former USSR before becoming embroiled in the huge Elf corruption scandal.

Convicted of embezzling funds from the oil group, he later re-emerged in various business dealings.

Investigators believe Guelfi played a key role in steering the disputed arbitration process.

However, with his death in 2016, he was never interviewed by magistrates and his precise influence remains unclear.

Nevertheless, prosecutors argue that his relationship networks in Russia and France were instrumental in pushing forward the arbitration bid – one TotalEnergies has consistently denounced as a blatant attempt at extortion.

TotalEnergies exits Russian gas firm's board, takes $3.7bn hit

Legal heavyweights in court

Among those now facing trial is Jean-Pierre Mattei, former president of the Paris Commercial Court.

Selected in 2009 as a member of the arbitration panel, he stands accused of passive corruption and attempted fraud as part of an organised group.

He will be tried alongside the two other arbitrators chosen for the tribunal.

Two prominent Parisian lawyers – Olivier Pardo and Xavier Cazottes – are also in the dock. Pardo is charged with active corruption of an international arbitrator and of a person tasked with a public service mission.

Prosecutors suspect he sought to influence Mattei’s appointment and maintained close ties with Guelfi throughout the arbitration push. Cazottes faces similar allegations.

A solicitor close to Mattei, two additional members of the arbitration tribunal and the ad hoc administrator of the now-liquidated Elf subsidiary involved in the original contract round out the list of defendants.

Over the course of the hearings, the court will attempt to uncover the precise roles each defendant played in the arbitration initiative – and whether the process was driven by genuine legal misjudgment or outright fraud.

The court proceedings are expected to last at least three weeks.

(with newswires)

 UPDATE

Bulgaria withdraws 2026 budget after biggest protests in years turn violent

Organisers said around 50,000 people gathered in central Sofia, filling the square around the National Assembly, the Council of Ministers and the presidency.

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By bne IntelliNews December 2, 2025

Bulgaria’s government said on December 2 it is withdrawing its controversial 2026 budget proposal after mass protests against the plan drew tens of thousands of people onto the streets and triggered clashes between police and demonstrators.

The rallies, the largest the Balkan country has seen in years, erupted on December 1 in Sofia and at least a dozen other cities including Varna, Plovdiv and Burgas. Organisers said around 50,000 people gathered in central Sofia, filling the square around the National Assembly, the Council of Ministers and the presidency.

Chanting “Resignation!” and “We will not allow ourselves to be robbed,” demonstrators waved Bulgarian and EU flags and held banners reading “Generation Z is Coming” and “Young Bulgaria Without the Mafia”.

The protest began peacefully but later descended into violence as groups of masked youths threw bottles, stones and firecrackers at police and party offices. Riot police pepper-sprayed crowds, while garbage containers were torched and police vehicles vandalised. Around 70 people have been arrested.

The unrest reflects anger not only over the draft budget but also over longstanding grievances about corruption, cronyism and a lack of accountability in government. Bulgaria, an EU member of 6.4mn people, is rated among the bloc’s most corrupt countries.

Controversial budget abandoned

The government said it would formally withdraw the draft budget after initially pulling it back informally last week. Opposition parties, echoing protester demands, are now calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov’s minority coalition.

The draft budget had proposed higher taxes, increased social security contributions and a rise in public spending. Business groups and opposition parties warned the measures would drive investment away, expand the shadow economy and stoke inflation at a time when Bulgaria is preparing to adopt the euro on January 1, 2026.

Officials argued the budget would keep the deficit below the eurozone’s 3% threshold. Critics countered that the spending increases would be financed largely through tax hikes on workers and companies and a sharp rise in public debt.

Despite government assurances that contentious measures — including a dividend tax increase and new software requirements for traders — would be revised, opponents said legal withdrawal was necessary before any changes could be made.

Varna mayor Blagomir Kotsev, who was released from custody last week after supporters crowdfunded his bail, joined demonstrations in the Black Sea city. Solidarity protests have also taken place abroad, with Bulgarians gathering outside their embassy in London on November 30.

Political strains deepen

The protests add pressure on Zhelyazkov’s fragile cabinet, formed in January after the October 2024 snap election — the seventh since 2021 — again produced a fragmented parliament. GERB, led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov, emerged as the largest party with 69 of 240 seats and relies on an informal understanding with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS). DPS heavyweight Delyan Peevski, a polarising figure frequently invoked by protesters, is sanctioned by the United States and United Kingdom for corruption.

The government has already faced five no-confidence motions this year. The cabinet is now expected to present amendments to the budget later this week, though it remains unclear whether the revisions will ease public anger — or whether the protests will intensify into a wider challenge to the government’s survival.