Iran blames Israel, vows revenge after Guards die in Syria strike

Damascus (AFP) – Iran on Saturday accused Israel of a strike in Damascus that killed five Revolutionary Guards members, and vowed to avenge the latest attack on the Islamic republic's personnel abroad.


Issued on: 20/01/2024 - 20:13

People and security forces gather in front of a building destroyed in a reported Israeli strike in Damascus on January 20 

© Louai Beshara / AFP


President Ebrahim Raisi said Tehran would not let the "cowardly assassination" go unanswered.

Israel has been accused of intensifying strikes targeting senior Iranian and allied figures in Syria and Lebanon -- backers of the Palestinian militant group Hamas -- raising fears that fighting in the Gaza Strip could spread further.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed it lost five members in the strike that it blamed on Israel, its regional arch-foe.

Hamas, which is backed by Tehran, also condemned what it called a "heinous crime".

In a statement, Raisi condemned "this cowardly attack".

"There is no doubt that continuing such terrorist and criminal acts ... will not remain without a response" from Iran, he said.

Earlier, Iran's foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani also blamed Israel and said Tehran "reserves the right to respond to organised terrorism" at the appropriate time and place.

Quoting an informed source, Iran's Mehr news agency said "the Revolutionary Guards' Syria intel chief" and his deputy were among those "martyred in the attack on Syria by Israel".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Israeli strike on the Mazzeh neighbourhood of the capital killed 10 people.

Iranian media reported one of the dead was "General Sadegh Omidzadeh, responsible in Syria for intelligence for the Quds Force", the IRGC foreign operations arm.

There has been no official confirmation of his death.

The Guards' Sepah news agency named four of those killed as Hojatollah Omidvar, Ali Aghazadeh, Hossein Mohammadi and Saeed Karimi.

The mid-morning strike, which sent a large plume of smoke skywards, was also reported by Syrian state media.

Official news agency SANA said a residential building in Mazzeh had been targeted in what it called "an Israeli aggression".

The defence ministry said the strike killed "a number of civilians".

Hundreds of strikes

The building was cordoned off as rescuers searched the rubble for survivors.

"I heard the explosion clearly in the western Mazzeh area, and I saw a large cloud of smoke," one resident told AFP, requesting anonymity over security concerns.

"The sound was similar to a missile explosion."

Asked about the strike, the Israeli military told AFP: "We do not comment on reports from the foreign media."

During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.

But such attacks have intensified since the war between Israel and Hamas, which like Lebanon's Hezbollah movement is an ally of Iran, began on October 7.

Syria © Sabrina BLANCHARD, Laurence SAUBADU, Sylvie HUSSON / AFP

The Observatory said the strike hit a four-storey building "where Iran-aligned leaders were meeting".

The Britain-based war monitor with a network of sources inside Syria said the targeted building belonged to the IRGC and that Mazzeh is known to be a high-security zone where leaders of the IRGC and pro-Iran Palestinian factions live.

The neighbourhood also houses the United Nations headquarters, embassies and restaurants.

"They were for sure targeting senior members" of Tehran-backed groups or Iranian forces, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
Exchanges of fire

Saturday's presumed Israeli strike was the second high-profile targeted assassination in Syria in less than a month.

In December, an air strike killed a senior Iranian general in Syria.

On January 2 in neighbouring Lebanon, where the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah holds sway, Hamas deputy Saleh al-Aruri was killed in a strike widely blamed on Israel.

Days later, Israel killed top Hezbollah commander Wissam Tawil in a strike in south Lebanon.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began there have been regular cross-border exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Saturday's Damascus strike came four days after the IRGC said it attacked "an Israeli intelligence headquarters" in Arbil, capital of Iraq's northern autonomous province of Kurdistan.

Iraqi authorities said the attack killed four civilians and wounded six others.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes targeting Syria, but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran, which backs President Bashar al-Assad's government, to expand its presence there.

Since 2011, Syria has endured a bloody conflict that has claimed more than half a million lives and displaced several million people.

burs-srm/ami

© 2024 AFP

Iran-backed militants strike US-led coalition base in Iraq

Issued on: 21/01/2024

Al-Asad airbase in Iraq's Anbar province

 Ayman HENNA / AFP/File

Washington (AFP) – Iran-backed militants launched ballistic missiles at a base hosting US forces in western Iraq, causing one Iraqi and possible American casualties, the US Central Command said Saturday.

"Multiple ballistic missiles and rockets were launched by Iranian-backed militants in western Iraq targeting al-Assad Airbase," CENTCOM said in a social media post, which placed the time of the attack at 6:30 pm Baghdad time (1530GMT) Saturday evening.

Most of the projectiles were intercepted by the base's air defense systems but "others impacted on the base," the statement said.

"A number of US personnel are undergoing evaluation for traumatic brain injuries. At least one Iraqi service member was wounded," it added.

Since mid-October, there have been dozens of attacks on US and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria, deployed there to fight jihadists of the Islamic State group.

Most have been claimed by "Islamic Resistance in Iraq," a loose alliance of Iran-linked armed groups that oppose US support for Israel in the Gaza conflict.

The group said in a press release Saturday that it had carried out the latest attack.

The use of ballistic missiles marks an escalation in the attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, who had previously been targeted with lower-tech rockets and drones.

Saturday's air base attack comes amid soaring tensions in the Middle East following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.

Five members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also killed in a strike Saturday in Damascus that Tehran blamed on Israel, threatening reprisals.

Last Monday evening, Iran itself launched a deadly strike in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, saying it had targeted a site used by "spies of the Zionist regime (Mossad)."

Washington has on several occasions launched strikes of its own, which it has said were to impede further assaults or to prevent imminent attacks.

According to the Pentagon, dozens of US personnel have been lightly wounded in previous attacks since late October.

There are roughly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria.

© 2024 AFP

ARCHITECTURE OF OPPRESSION

Years after civil war, security wall holds back Iraqi city

"It's a nightmare, worse than a prison" 

Samarra (Iraq) (AFP) – Khaled Ibrahim dreams of a home on the outskirts of Samarra, but a concrete wall built to protect the Iraqi city is stopping him and hampering sorely-needed urban expansion.

The wall was built when Samarra was at the heart of Iraq's sectarian civil war 

© Abdelkhaleq SAMARRAI / AFP

Issued on: 21/01/2024 - 

Built more than a decade ago at the height of Iraq's civil war which tore apart the multi-faith, multi-ethnic country, authorities say the wall must remain to prevent the threat of jihadist violence, even as security has gradually improved across the country.

Samarra is home to the Al-Askari shrine, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites and famed for its golden dome, but sits in the predominantly Sunni province of Salahaddin.

An attack by Sunni militant group Al-Qaeda in 2006 destroyed the dome, and set off a brutal sectarian conflict in which tens of thousands of people were killed. A year later, a second attack destroyed the two minarets at the site.

Today the wall around Samarra has also become a burden on daily life in the city that has expanded from 300,000 to 400,000 residents since 2008, pushing up property and land costs.

"It's a nightmare, worse than a prison," said Ibrahim.

The 52-year-old and his two sons, who all work as day labourers, currently rent accommodation in Samarra for around $180 a month, which for them is a small fortune.

The wall hems in Samarra and the city's surging population

 © Abdelkhaleq SAMARRAI / AFP

Ibrahim has a plot of land just outside the city walls where he would like to build a house, but he is becoming increasingly frustrated that the fortified barrier makes this impossible.

"The security forces do not allow us to approach the wall," he said.

"And then there are no services, no water, no electricity. Building beyond the wall is like living in exile."

In the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, 110 kilometres (70 miles) to the south, many of the blast walls that once surrounded key streets, embassies and government offices are being taken down.

But in Samarra, small, unfinished cinderblock houses languish just inside the city's wall. On the other side, abandoned plots stretch as far as the eye can see.

'Sleeper cells' remain a threat

There are three tightly controlled checkpoints in the barriers allowing access into Samarra, which is home to the remains of what was the capital of the Abassid caliphate in the ninth century, now a UNESCO heritage site.

Aware of residents' frustrations, authorities intend to overhaul the wall, with work to start within a month.

They plan to extend its perimeter by three to seven kilometres, increase the number of entry points to six, and add watchtowers and surveillance cameras.

City authorities have promised to upgrade the wall, but insist it must stay 

© Abdelkhaleq SAMARRAI / AFP

"We would have liked to remove it, but there are obligations and security plans which mandated its presence," Riyad al-Tayyas, the deputy governor of Salahaddin, told AFP.

Tayyas said that building outside the wall was not officially banned, but he acknowledged that the barrier's presence was hindering urban expansion.

Residents opt not to build on the other side, fearing "they will find themselves cut off from the rest of the city", Tayyas said.

Nevertheless, he insisted lingering worries over security meant the barrier must stay.

This is to ensure there was no "repeat of the catastrophe of 2006, which led to a sectarian war", he told AFP.

"Even though the security situation has improved, there are still sleeper cells" of the Islamic State group (IS), he said.

A UN report in 2023 noted a drop in the frequency of IS attacks in urban centres but also warned that the group has maintained a presence in its strongholds, including around Salahaddin.

The 2006 bombing of Al-Askari shrine, since rebuilt, sparked the civil war in Iraq 

© - / AFP/File

Tayyas's position chimes with the concerns of some Samarra residents such as 64-year-old retiree Laith Ibrahim, who said he was in favour of extending the wall's perimeter.

"In Samarra, inside the city, the security situation is excellent... Outside, it's exposed," he said.

But there is also "a shortage of land, housing," he said. "Real estate (prices) are soaring day after day."

© 2024 AFP

U.S. authorities to return artworks stolen by Nazis

Agence France-Presse
January 20, 2024

It follows the return last year of seven pieces stolen from Grunbaum in 1938 and sold by the Nazis to fund their war machine (AFP)

US authorities announced Friday that two drawings worth $2.5 million stolen by the Nazi regime and eventually displayed in American museums will be returned to relatives of Fritz Grunbaum, an Austrian Jewish cabaret performer killed in the Holocaust.

It follows the return last year of seven works of art stolen from Grunbaum in 1938 and sold by the Nazis to fund their war machine.

"Girl with Black Hair" had been held by the Allen Museum of Art at Oberlin College and is valued at approximately $1.5 million, while "Portrait of a Man" was in the Carnegie Museum of Art collection and valued at approximately $1 million.

They are both by Egon Schiele, an Austrian expressionist artist.

"This is a victory for justice, and the memory of a brave artist, art collector, and opponent of Fascism," said Timothy Reif, a judge and relative of Grunbaum who died in Dachau concentration camp.

"As the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, we are gratified that this man who fought for what was right in his own time continues to make the world fairer decades after his tragic death."

In addition to the seven returned last year and the two latest pieces to be handed back, one piece was surrendered by a collector directly to the family.

"The fact that we have been able to return ten pieces that were looted by the Nazis speaks to the dogged advocacy of his relatives to ensure these beautiful artworks could finally return home," said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Grunbaum, who was also an art collector and critic of the Nazi regime, possessed hundreds of works of art, including more than 80 by Schiele.

Schiele's works, considered "degenerate" by the Nazis, were largely auctioned or sold abroad.

Arrested by the Nazis in 1938, Grunbaum was forced while at Dachau to sign over his power of attorney to his spouse, who was then made to hand over the family's entire collection before herself being deported to a different concentration camp, in current-day Belarus.

Ava DuVernay wants 'Origin' to create more conversation about caste

By Dawn Chmielewski and Rollo Ross

January 20, 2024

Ava DuVernay attends the 14th Governors Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 9, 2024. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni Acquire Licensing Rights, opens new tab

Jan 20 (Reuters) - For Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated director Ava DuVernay, creating the biographical film “Origin” was an emotional quest that helped her connect with Isabel Wilkerson, the author of the book on which it was based.

“I made this film from a place of great joy and connection, Isabel was writing her book from a place of deep loss and connection, and what they both have in common was that it was a very emotional journey for both of us,” DuVernay told Reuters.

Wilkerson’s 2020 book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” defines racism in the United States as an aspect of a larger racial caste system. Wilkerson describes caste an artificial hierarchy that divides society into social classes.

Drawing from Wilkerson’s non-fiction book, DuVernay’s narrative feature explores how the experiences of people of color in America connect to caste systems in India and the Holocaust in Germany.

“Any society in the world you think about, there’s someone at the top and someone at the bottom. If we understand that that’s the case, we can start to say, ‘how can we level it out?’” said DuVernay, who also directed "Selma," a film that explores Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s voting rights campaign.

Although she doesn’t believe inequity will be solved in her generation, she does believe that getting the message out there through her film and other means may someday cause a shift in the universe toward justice.

“Origin” follows author and journalist Wilkerson as she copes with a personal tragedy that serves as a catalyst for her to begin a global investigation into how caste has shaped society, including slavery and hierarchy.

The film stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Wilkerson, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman and Blair Underwood.

DuVernay created what she describes as less of a “straight adaptation” and more of a “companion piece” that’s an interpretation of Wilkerson’s life and book.

“We really were just allergic to permission. We just gave it to ourselves and allowed us to make the film we wanted to make, to be completely free in our expression,” she said.
For DuVernay, even if “Origin” is mostly recommended through word of mouth, it is important for the independent film distributed by Neon to be seen globally.

“We are fortunate that we were able to make it as an offering and whoever receives it, will receive it. That's it,” she said.

Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski, Rollo Ross and Danielle Broadway; Editing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis

Review: ‘Origin’ is logically thought-provoking


By Sarah Gopaul
January 19, 2024

A scene from 'Origin' courtesy of Elevation Pictures

‘Origin’ is an adaptation of an American nonfiction book that suggests racial stratification in the United States is best understood as a caste system.

In 2020, spurred by the murder of Trayvon Martin, journalist and award-winning author Isabel Wilkerson released a book titled, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. It describes racism in the United States as an aspect of a caste system — a society-wide system of social stratification characterized by notions of hierarchy, inclusion and exclusion, and purity — and uses India and Nazi Germany as more overt, non-U.S. examples of its impact. In Origin, Ava DuVernay attempts to bring Wilkerson’s ideas and revelations to the big screen and a wider audience.

Isabel (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) was a prominent voice among journalists and academics, having become the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism in 1994. After Martin is stalked and killed in his own suburban neighbourhood, she is approached by a former colleague to write an article about the role racism played in the young man’s murder. However, life gets in the way, as well as her own feelings that what is happening in America runs deeper and calling it “racism” is too simple. So Isabel embarks on a multi-year journey in which she explores and defines the presence and impact of a caste system in the United States.

While this is a very complex issue, Wilkerson undertook the task of explaining it in a way that was clear and uncomplicated enough that anyone could understand it. Hence, DuVernay applies her approach in the film to describe the same concepts. It uses the Holocaust and still-present Indian caste system as examples and points of comparison to American slavery, Jim Crow laws and social hierarchies. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t get a little convoluted at times, but it is constructed with widespread comprehension in mind. One of the issues that may have muffled the message is the filmmaker’s commitment to following the book’s eight “pillars of caste” in the movie, which somewhat fractures the narrative and causes some abruptness as it forces the shift from one pillar to the next.

Nonetheless, Isabel’s thesis is a thought-provoking lens by which to view America’s past and present, and it required a strong performance to visually convey the provocative theory. Ellis-Taylor is able to present Wilkerson’s work in a manner that is stimulating and convincing, while also portraying the emotional hardships that surrounded the book and its research. Just as Isabel has a loving support system, Ellis-Taylor is buoyed by touching performances by the rest of the cast who portray her family and the research partners that help make the ideas presented in the film tangible. The book and film draw clear lines between caste and U.S. history, hopefully inspiring broader conversations about the role of race in contemporary society that can help create a potential blueprint for the future.

Director: Ava DuVernay

Starring: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal and Niecy Nash

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CASTE 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for ARYAN 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DALITS 

Biden cancels nearly $5 billion more in student debt relief

By Andrea Shalal

January 20, 2024

Jan 19 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday announced student debt cancellation of nearly $5 billion for an additional 74,000 borrowers, including more than half who earned forgiveness after 10 years of public service as teachers, nurses and firefighters.

The White House announcement brings the total loan forgiveness approved by the Biden-Harris administration to $136.6 billion for more than 3.7 million Americans.

Nearly 44,000 of the borrowers approved for relief are those with a decade of public service, with close to 30,000 are people who have been repaying their loans for at least 20 years but never got the relief through income-driven repayment plans.

Biden vowed to continue working to deliver student debt relief to as many borrowers as possible in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling blocking his plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in debt.


The Library of Columbia University is seen as students walk the campus in New York, U.S., 

REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/ File Photo 

"I won’t back down from using every tool at our disposal to get student loan borrowers the relief they need to reach their dreams," he said in a statement.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the department was moving "full speed ahead" with efforts to deliver even greater debt relief for more borrowers and to help them get on a faster track to loan forgiveness under a new SAVE repayment plan.

As of June 2023, approximately 43.4 million student loan recipients had $1.63 trillion in outstanding loans, according to the Federal Student Aid website. The figure represents an increase of nearly $17 billion in the outstanding loan balance and almost 600,000 in the number of student loan recipients since last year, it said.

Progressive voters, who are part of the coalition that helped elect Biden in 2020, long pressed the White House to address student loan debt, and the issue remains high on the agenda of younger voters, many of whom have concerns about Biden's foreign policy on the war in Gaza and fault him for not achieving greater debt forgiveness.

Reporting by Anirudh Saligrama in Bengaluru; editing by Christina Fincher and Aurora Ellis

Four astronauts, including Turkey's first, arrive at space station

By Steve Gorman

January 20, 2024

Jan 20 (Reuters) - A four-man crew including Turkey's first astronaut arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) early on Saturday for a two-week stay in the latest such mission arranged entirely at commercial expense by Texas-based startup company Axiom Space.

The rendezvous came about 37 hours after the Axiom quartet's Thursday evening liftoff in a rocketship from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Both the Crew Dragon vessel and the Falcon 9 rocket that carried it to orbit were supplied, launched and operated by Elon Musk's SpaceX under contract with Axiom, as they were in the first two Axiom missions to the ISS since 2022.

Once the astronauts reach the space station, they fall under the responsibility of NASA's mission control operation in Houston.

The Crew Dragon autonomously docked with the ISS at 5:42 a.m. EDT (1042 GMT) as the two space vehicles were flying roughly 250 miles (400 km) over the South Pacific, a live NASA webcast showed.

Both were soaring in tandem around the globe at the hypersonic speed of about 17,500 miles per hour (28,200 km/h) as they joined together in orbit.

With coupling achieved, it was expected to take about two hours for the sealed passageway between the space station and crew capsule to be pressurized and checked for leaks before hatches can be opened, allowing the newly arrived astronauts to move aboard the orbiting laboratory.
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The Axiom Mission 3 launches to the International Space Station with crew members Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria of the U.S./Spain, Pilot Walter Villadei of Italy, Mission Specialist Alper Gezeravcı of Turkey, and ESA 

(European Space Agency) 

Plans call for the Axiom-3 crew to spend roughly 14 days in microgravity conducting more than 30 scientific experiments, many of them focused on the effects of spaceflight on human health and disease.
The multinational team was led by Michael López-Alegría, 65, a Spanish-born retired NASA astronaut and Axiom executive making his sixth flight to the space station. He also commanded Axiom's debut mission - the first all-private voyage to the ISS - in April 2022.

His second-in-command for Ax-3 is Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei, 49. Rounding out the team are Swedish aviator Marcus Wandt, 43, representing the European Space Agency, and Alper Gezeravcı, 44, a Turkish Air Force veteran and fighter pilot, making his nation's first human spaceflight.

They will be welcomed aboard ISS by the seven members of the station's current regular crew - two Americans from NASA, one astronaut each from Japan and Denmark and three Russian cosmonauts.

Since its founding eight years ago, Houston-based Axiom has carved out a business catering to foreign governments and wealthy private patrons aiming to put their own astronauts into orbit. The company charges at least $55 million per seat for its services organizing, training and equipping customers for spaceflight.

Axiom also is one of a handful of companies building a commercial space station of its own intended to eventually replace the ISS, which NASA expects to retire around 2030.

Launched to orbit in 1998, the ISS has been continuously occupied since 2000 under a U.S.-Russian-led partnership that includes Canada, Japan and 11 countries belonging to the European Space Agency.


Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; editing by David Evans

Two Russian sailors held in Mozambique as financial hostages, Moscow says

Jan 21 (Reuters) - Two Russian sailors being held in the Mozambique port of Maputo are financial hostages in a dispute between the ship's owner and its local customer, Russia's foreign ministry told the state RIA news agency in remarks published on Sunday.
Russia's SHOT news outlet reported last week on its Telegram that two Russians, a Lithuanian and two Ukrainians have been locked up on board a Cameroon-flagged fishing boat Volopas for eight months.
"They found themselves hostage to a financial and property dispute between the ship-owning company and a local agent company," Russia's foreign ministry told RIA.
Diplomatic efforts to repatriate the sailors have not been successful so far, the foreign ministry said.

Davos free-trade champions fret over war, climate


By AFP
January 19, 2024

Trade tensions took centre stage on the final day of the World Economic Forum - Copyright AFP Punit PARANJPE
Sophie ESTIENNE

After Covid and the war in Ukraine, free-trade boosters in Davos fretted over a new bout of turmoil in global supply chains due to rising geopolitical frictions.

The Israel-Hamas conflict, Yemeni rebel attacking ships in the Red Sea and tensions over Taiwan weighed on political and business elites at the five-day meeting of the World Economic Forum, which wrapped up Friday.

“There are geopolitical dynamics that are on our minds with respect to obviously the potential disruption of supply chains,” Francesco Ceccato, CEO of Barclays Europe, told AFP on the sidelines of the WEF.

“We thought we had normalised those after Covid. Clearly, that’s a little bit more precarious after … what is happening every day in the Red Sea,” he said.

Before Hamas’s attack on Israel in October, the World Trade Organization had forecast global trade growth of 3.3 percent, an improvement from 0.8 percent in 2023.

But WTO chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told the forum this week that she was now “less optimistic” about world trade in 2024 due to “worsening geopolitical tensions”.

She added, however, that it would be “much better than what we saw in 2023. Unless a major war breaks out, then all bets are off.”

– Disruptions for ‘few months’ –

The Red Sea route carries about 12 percent of global maritime trade, but the attacks have prompted many companies to take a massive and costly detour around the southern tip of Africa.

Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen say they are targetting Israel-linked ships in protest over the war in Gaza.

US and UK military forces have launched a series of strikes against rebel sites in Yemen.

The Huthis have “changed global trade and global shipping costs,” said Karen Harris, an economist at the consulting firm Bain & Co.

Vincent Clerc, the CEO of Danish shipping giant Maersk, said the the conflict will probably disrupt supply chains “for a few months at least. Hopefully less, but it could be also longer because it’s so unpredictable”.

Automakers Tesla and Volvo were forced to temporarily suspend some production in Europe due to a shortage of parts.

Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told the Davos conference that shipments of liquefied natural gas “will be affected” by the Red Sea tensions.

– Taiwan tensions –

There are concerns along other major trade routes.

Taiwan’s presidential election last weekend renewed US-China tensions over the democratic island, which China considers a part of its territory that must be brought back under its control, by force if necessary.

Speaking in Davos, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recalled that a huge amount of commerce flows through the Taiwan Strait.

“If that were to be disrupted, it would affect the entire planet. And it’s about the last thing we need, especially coming back from Covid,” Blinken said.

Taiwan itself is a major producer of semiconductors, the microchips that are vital for a range of products from smartphones to cars.

“Any disruption in the flow of that product is going to be, again, a watch item or a concern,” Ceccato said.

– Green an tech trade spats –

Microchips are already at the heart of a trade spat between Washington and Beijing as the United States has tightened export curbs on the technology over national security concerns.

China is also squabbling with the European Union over the bloc’s probe into Chinese electric car subsidies.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang took the podium on Wednesday to slam what he called “discriminatory” trade measures on green and tech trade.

Europe is also concerned about the huge subsidies for clean technologies in the United States under the Inflation Reduction Act.

But German Finance Minister Christian Lindner warned the EU against following in the Americans’ footsteps.

“We have to avoid a subsidy race,” Lindner told Friday’s panel.

– Panama drought –

On top of geopolitical tensions, climate change has also played tricks on global trade.

A drought and water shortages linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon reduced ship traffic through the Panama Canal.

“We have more sources of disruptions,” said Tobias Meyer, CEO of German logistics group DHL.

“It’s more likely that two, three, four of these events somehow accumulate. And that leads then in the system of transport to certain bottlenecks,” he said.

Harris said each disruption “simply reinforces the return on investment for near-shoring, re-shoring” — the act of bringing production home or closer instead of relying on factories across the world.

Millionaires and Billionaires to Davos Elites: 'We Must Be Taxed More'

"Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it's time," said Abigail Disney. "The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously."


Participants wait for a session at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on January 16, 2024.
(Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

JAKE JOHNSON

COMMON DREAMS
Jan 17, 2024

Survey results released Tuesday as corporate CEOs, top government officials, and other global elites gathered in Davos, Switzerland show that nearly three-quarters of millionaires in G20 countries support higher taxes on extreme wealth, which they view as an increasingly dire threat to democracy.

The poll was conducted by the London-based firm Survation on behalf of the Patriotic Millionaires, an advocacy group that campaigns for a more progressive tax system. The survey, which polled over 2,300 millionaires in G20 nations, found that 74% "support higher taxes on wealth to help address the cost-of-living crisis and improve public services."

More than 70% of the respondents said they believe wealth "helps buy political influence" and a majority see extreme concentrations of wealth at the very top as corrosive to democracy. According to an Oxfam analysis released earlier this week, the world's billionaires have gotten $3.3 trillion richer since 2020 as 5 billion people across the globe have lost ground, struggling to get by as wages fail to keep up with inflation.

"We, the very richest, are sick and tired of inaction, so it's hardly surprising that working people, at the sharp end of our rigged economies, have lost all patience," said Guy Singh-Watson, a British entrepreneur and member of Patriotic Millionaires U.K.



The poll was released as 260 millionaires and billionaires signed a letter imploring the dozens of world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos to raise taxes on rich people like them, warning that a continued failure to "address the dramatic rise of income inequality" would be "catastrophic for society."

"Every moment of delay entrenches the dangerous economic status quo, threatens our democratic norms, and passes the buck to our children and grandchildren. Not only do we want to be taxed more but we believe we must be taxed more," the letter reads. "The true measure of a society can be found, not just in how it treats its most vulnerable, but in what it asks of its wealthiest members. Our future is one of tax pride, or economic shame. That's the choice."

"There is a clear social, economic, ecological, intergenerational, and democratic need to address extreme economic inequality."

Abigail Disney, an American documentary filmmaker and letter signatory, said in a statement that "throughout history, pitchforks were the inevitable consequence of extreme discontent, but today, the masses are turning to populism, which is on the rise throughout the world."

"We already know the solution to protect our institutions and stabilize our country: it's taxing extreme wealth," said Disney. "What we lack is the political fortitude to do it. Even millionaires and billionaires like me are saying it's time. The elites gathering in Davos must take this crisis seriously."

A report published Tuesday by the Patriotic Millionaires and allied organizations argues that "the extreme economic conditions of our age are at the heart of the world's overlapping and compounding crises," pointing to the outsized carbon footprints of the ultrawealthy and the ongoing acceleration of inequality.

The report notes that top income tax rates have fallen globally in recent decades, dropping from 58% in 1980 to 42% in recent years across Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.

"There is a clear social, economic, ecological, intergenerational, and democratic need to address extreme economic inequality," the report says. "And yet political leaders have failed to take action on the simplest of solutions: raising taxes on the ultra-rich. This is a political choice."

Jamie Dimon Groveling Before Trump Exemplifies How Fascism Takes Root

At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of America need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, for democracy, for decency, and against Donald Trump, Dimon is leading the charge in the opposite direction.


“Take a step back, be honest. He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. He wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues,” Dimon.
(Photo: Ludovic Marin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

ROBERT REICH
Jan 20, 2024

Robertreich.Substack.Com


On Wednesday, speaking from the World Economic Forum’s confab in Davos, Switzerland, Jamie Dimon — chair and CEO of the largest and most profitable bank in the United States and one of the most influential CEOs in the world — heaped praise on Donald Trump’s policies while president.“Take a step back, be honest. He was kind of right about NATO, kind of right on immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked. He was right about some of China. He wasn’t wrong about some of these critical issues,” said Dimon.

What?

Mr. Dimon, take a step back, be honest.

Kind of right about NATO? Trump wanted the U.S. to withdraw from NATO — and may get his way if he becomes president again. This would open Europe further to Putin’s aggression.

Kind of right on immigration? Even the conservative CATO Institute found that Trump reduced legal immigration but not illegal immigration. Trump refused to grant legal status to children of immigrants born in the United States or who grew up in the U.S. He banned Muslims from America, and when the Muslim ban was found to be unconstitutional, banned people from Muslim countries. He fueled the flames of nativism by describing poorer nations as “shit holes” and has used Nazi terms to describe foreigners as “poisoning the blood” of Americans.

Grew the economy quite well? In fact, under Trump the economy lost 2.9 million jobs. Even before the pandemic, job growth was slower than it has been under Biden. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%. The international trade deficit Trump promised to reduce went up. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 40.5% from 2016. The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. The federal debt held by the public went up, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.

Tax reform worked? Trump’s tax cut conferred most of its benefits on big corporations and the rich, while enlarging the budget deficit. Giant banks and financial services companies got huge gains based on the new, lower corporate rate (21%), as well as the more preferable tax treatment of pass-through companies.

If not for the Trump cuts — along with the Bush tax cuts and their extensions—federal revenues would keep pace with federal spending indefinitely, and the ratio of the debt to the national economy would be declining. Instead, these tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt since their enactment and are responsible for 57% of the increase in the debt ratio since 2001, and more than 90% of the increase in the debt ratio if the one-time costs of bills responding to COVID-19 and the Great Recession are excluded. Eventually, the tax cuts are projected to grow to more than 100% of the increase.

Right about China? As the Brookings Institution found, Trump’s China policy only made China less restrained in pursuit of its ambitions. Confrontation has intensified, areas of cooperation have vanished, and the capacity of both countries to solve problems or manage competing interests has atrophied.

Oh, and then there are the pesky matters of Trump’s seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, facing 91 criminal indictments, causing America to be more divided than at any time since the Civil War, lying every time he opens his mouth, and planning to use the Justice Department for “vengeance” against his political enemies if elected again.

Why is Jamie Dimon — the most influential CEO in America — spouting these lies in favor of Trump?

Because he thinks Trump has a good chance of becoming president, and Dimon wants to be in his good graces.

Asked which candidate would be better for his business, Dimon said, “I have to be prepared for both. I will be prepared for both. We will deal with both.”

Dimon knows that his support for Nikki Haley irked Trump.

“Highly overrated Globalist Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMORGAN, is quietly pushing another non-MAGA person, Nikki Haley, for President,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social in late November. “I’ve never been a big Jamie Dimon fan, but had to live with this guy when he came begging to the White House. I guess I don’t have to live with him anymore, and that’s a really good thing.”

So now, Dimon — like Republican lawmakers across America, like other leaders of American institutions — feels it necessary to cave into the integrity-crushing intimidation of a Trump administration, and lick Trump’s backside.

And when Dimon does this, you can bet many other CEOs and financial leaders will now follow his example.

At a time in American history when the most influential leaders of America need to stand up loudly and clearly for the rule of law, for democracy, for decency, and against Donald Trump, Dimon is leading the charge in the opposite direction.

This is how fascism takes root and spreads, friends.

© 2021 robertreich.substack.com

ROBERT REICH is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.