Brexit: A Nation Returns to its Spittle

The Venezuelan Opposition' s High-Stakes Assault on Maduro

A Weekly Political News Magazine

China Turned Upside Down

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1733 - February 01/02/2019

Issue 1733 - February 01/02/2019

Annabella Hilal: My choice of clothing is bold, but not provocative www.majalla.com

Brexit: A Nation Returns to its Spittle www.majalla.com

Editorial Change is one of the inevitable parts of life, but it can manifest itself in different ways.

Sometimes change can be gradual and slow, but other times it is bold, abrupt and can leave people with not enough time to adapt. This week’s issue of Majalla takes a look at different forms of change, be they political, cultural or social, and how people are adapting or resisting changes they are faced with.

Bryn Haworth wrote this week’s cover story “Brexit: A Nation Returns to its Spittle” in which he analyzes Fintan O’Tool’s theory that Brexit was a “pure punk” rebellion.

O’Toole argues that many of Brits (60 percent to be exact) in their 50s and early 60s voted to leave the European Union, this incidentally was the generation that most likely listened to punk back in its heyday in the 1970s. But, one thing that makes this generation significant in the whole Brexit phenomenon is the fact that they lived through the early years of the post-British Empire and last years of pre-EU Britain. Thus they witnessed the displacement of Britain on the global stage as it went from a world power to just another member in an economic bloc. Thus, many within that age bracket who never accepted that change in Britain’s global role sought a return to the glory days and in their eyes the European Union was what was holding the country back.

Harold Trinkunas explores the possible changes and outcomes that may come from the Venezuelan political crisis. The writer argues that Guaido’s method of attracting opposition on the street has made him into a viable opposition force. Another important development is recognition of Guaido as the legitimate president by the US and other Western states. Guaido’s rise to power gave the US a new option of putting pressure on the Maduro regime, which hasn’t really budged from economic sanctions. However, the outcomes of the crisis are not clear and may not go Guaido’s way as the military officials might keep supporting the Maduro regime.

Weijian Shan recounts his memories as a primary school student living through the Cultural Revolution in China and the violent means revolutionaries and student groups were using to bring about change in China. Students were even inclined to destroy a teacher’s positions if they viewed them as capitalist. The writer also recounts a time he witnessed female students beating their vice principal who was a woman in her 60s.

Yasmine El-Geressi, who recently attended the Oman Vision 2040 National Conference, wrote on the pillars and goals that Oman hopes to achieve by 2040. Like other GCC states, Oman hopes to diversify its economy to eliminate overreliance on oil and gas exports. Oman hopes to shift its economy toward five sectors namely tourism, manufacturing, fisheries, mining and logistics, moreover it aims for these non-oil sectors to contribute to 93 percent of its GDP by 2030.

Ali El Shamy writes on 25th Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) which recognized actors from diverse backgrounds. This comes amid recent criticism aimed toward award shows for not nominating actors from non-white backgrounds, particularly those of African and Asian ethnicity. However, this year Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians, two films with largely non-white casts were nominated for best ensemble cast in a film.

Furthermore, Egyptian-American actor, Rami Malek, won best male actor in a leading role for his performance as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody and he is now predicted to win Best Actor in the upcoming Oscars.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

28 Oman Vision 2040

Issue 1733 - February 01/02/2019

46 2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards:

32 16 The Venezuelan Opposition's High-Stakes Assault on Maduro

32 20 China Turned Upside Down

Trump, Huawei, and the Politics 24 of Extradition

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The Latest Diet Everyone is Talking About 3

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38 Unseen Causes

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napshot

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Ice covers the Lake Michigan shoreline on January 2019 ,30 in Chicago, Illinois. Businesses and schools have closed, Amtrak has suspended service into the city, more than a thousand flights have been cancelled and mail delivery has been suspended as the city copes with recordsetting low temperatures. (Getty)

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napshot

Indian students throws rose flower petals over a portrait of Mahatma Gandhi during a gathering to pay tribute on the 71st death anniversary of the Indian founding father, at Marina Beach in Chennai on January 2019 ,30. (Getty)

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eekly news

Opposition leader and self-proclaimed 'acting president' Juan Guaido (-2L) talks to the press as he holds his daughter Miranda (-3L), next to his wife Fabiana Rosales (L), outside his home in Santa Fe, Caracas on January 2019 ,31. (Getty)

Venezuela Bars Guaido from Traveling Maduro’s regime imposes a travel ban on opposition leader, Guaido, thus rendering him susceptible to arrest. Guaido has also had his assets frozen; there is speculation that the regime’s actions might have come as retaliation for US economic sanctions on Venezuela, which has brought more trouble for its collapsing economy and the Maduro regime.

Meanwhile, Guaido has called for a mass march to take place next weekend to put more pressure on the Maduro regime from the streets, however with the

backing of the military Maduro is unlikely to step down for the time being.

French President, Emmanuel Macron, Visits Egypt Emmanuel Macron travelled to Egypt for a three day visit this week and had a talk with his Egyptian counterpart, President Abd El Fatah El Sisi. During the visit, Macron and El Sisi signed various economic, trade, education and industry agreements. Furthermore, Macron met with the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Ahmed

Pro EU placards stand outside the Houses of Parliament, London on January 2019 ,30. The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier says the Irish backstop is 'part and parcel' of the UK's Brexit deal and will not be renegotiated. (Getty)

Al Tayeb, at Azhar’s headquarters and Pope of the Coptic Church, Tawadros II at St. Mark’s Cathedral. The Pope and Macron stressed the need to interreligious dialogue and Tawadros II insisted the need for education to foster religious coexistence and end the problem of attacks on Egypt’s Coptic minority. The Grand Imam emphasized the historic ties between Al Azhar and France, and offered Al Azhar’s services to train French imams in countering extremist ideology and offered to give scholarships to French students wishing to study at Al Azhar.

The Grand Imam said that such actions can help France become a hub for Islamic moderation for Muslims in Europe.

MPs Debate Amendments to May’s Brexit Deal

French President Emmanuel Macron (C) and his wife Brigitte are welcomed by Ahmed al-Tayeb (C), the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, the most prestigious seat of Sunni Islamic learning in Egypt, during his visit to the Azhar headquarters in Cairo on January 2019 ,29. (Getty)

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MPs voted on three amendments to Theresa May’s Brexit deal this week. The first amendment was posed

by Tory MP Sir Graham Brady which proposed alternative arrangements for the Northern Irish backstop, and was passed by 17 votes, most Tory MPs voted in favor of it, while most Labour MPs voted against it. Dame Caroline Spelman, another Tory MP, put forward a non-binding amendment that rejected the UK leaving the EU without a deal

which was passed just by 8 votes, most Tory MPs voted against their fellow party colleague as only 17 Conservatives voted in favor of it, meanwhile most Labour MPs voted for it. Labour MP Yvette Cooper proposed an amendment to prevent a nodeal Brexit, her amendment put forward February 26 as a deadline for the government to come up with a deal, if the government fails, then Brexit would be postponed. The amendment was rejected by most Tories and voted for by most Labour MPs, but ultimately lost by 23 votes. SNP leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, called to delay Brexit and rule out no-deal and the amendment was rejected by 288 MPs and only 39 MPs voted for it.

New Rifts between Tunisian President and Prime Minister

A kamikaze drone is seen on display after US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley unveiled previously classified information intending to prove Iran violated UNSCR 2231 by providing the Houthi rebels in Yemen with arms during a press conference at Joint Base Anacostia in Washington, DC, on December 2017 ,14. (Getty)

the Chahed as one of the favourites to succeed him.

The Ennahdha party is a somewhat controversial party as it was founded on inspiration from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which is classified as a terrorist group in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the Iranian Islamic revolution.

Houthi Drone Targeting Saudi Arabia Gets Shot Down Tunisia's President Beji Caid Essebsi during a meeting with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Tunis. (Getty)

Tunisian President Essebsi has accused Prime Minister Youssef Chahed of creating a secret pact with the Islamist Ennahdha Party, in which the latter would back the former in the upcoming presidential election. The 92 year old Essebsi has said that he does not intend on running for re-election, leaving

Shield which was aimed to target and destroys Hezbollah’s secret tunnels into Israel. The operation was called off and was deemed a success after Israel located and destroyed the sixth and largest Hezbollah tunnel. This week, Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah scoffed and laughed off Israel’s declaration of victory, as he claimed that the group would not need tunnels to invade Galilee and that Israel would not know where Hezbollah fighters would be coming from if the group were to enter another war with the state. Nasrallah would go on to say that Hezbollah would join its allies Iran and Syria in retaliation, if Israel were to launch another airstrike in Damascus. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu responded to Nasrallah’s statement by saying that he and Hezbollah faced three embarrassments in the aftermath of the operation. First, Hezbollah spent years preparing these tunnels in a matter of weeks the IDF destroyed the group’s efforts. Nasrallah’s second source of embarrassment is his group’s current financial strain resulting from the US sanctions on Iran and its proxies, with Hezbollah toping that list.

The third reason for Nasrallah’s embarrassment, according to the Israeli leader, is the lethal force and determination of the IDF.

Trump Temporarily Opens the Government

The Saudi-led coalition has intercepted and shot down a Houthi drone hovering over Abha. In a statement, Colonel Turki al-Maliki said that the analysis of the drone debris confirmed that the object was a "hostile Houthi drone with Iranian specifications and characteristics".

Nasrallah and Netanyahu Trade Words In mid-January, Israel ended Operation Northern U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press event in the Rose Garden of the White House on January 2019 ,25 in Washington, DC.

A picture taken on December 2018 ,19 during a guided tour by the Israeli army shows an Israeli soldier operating a pulley while standing outside an entry point made by the army to intercept a tunnel which reportedly connects between Lebanon and Israel, near the border near the northern Israeli town of Metula. (Getty)

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Trump signed a short term stop gap that would keep reopen the closed parts of government until February 15, thus ending the longest government shutdown in US history. This development came as the negotiations were largely going nowhere. In a press conference, Trump said “Over the next 21 days, I expect that both Democrats and Republicans will operate in good faith…”. It is still unclear what will happen after the three weeks end and whether or not the Democrats and Republicans will come to a compromise over border security.

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Brexit: A Nation Returns to its Spittle Johnny Rotten launched himself to stardom by walking up and down the King’s Road in Chelsea, spitting at people. “I did it because they were stupid.”

‘The Guardian,’ 3 December 1976

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No more Mr Nice Brit. Brexit will see to that.

Commons Speaker John Bercow speaks during a Service of Remembrance for members of the House of Commons and House of Lords in St Margaret's church in Westminster to remember the sacrifices of parliamentarians, parliamentary officers and staff who gave their lives during the First World War, on November 2018 ,5 in London, United Kingdom.

By: Bryn Haworth One wonders what the world thinks of British culture, and more specifically of English culture, nowadays. Are we as polite as they thought we were? Do we still queue? And just how long can we continue to amuse the planet with our eccentricity and our famous sense of humour, now that we have stated in a referendum that we are disenchanted with the status quo of the world and want to get off. Yes, it was an eccentric decision, but we definitely weren’t joking.

Mr Speaker Well, in Europe (if reports are to be believed) they are yet to reciprocate our disenchantment. Instead, they have been watching with something like horrified fascination as the farce of Brexit

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has been played out.

On 17th January, in the midst of chronic parliamentary agonising, the Guardian reported that the Europeans greatly admired Mr Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, for the way he bellowed “Order!” The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant was in ecstasies: “No one on the British island can call ‘order, order’ more beautifully than John Bercow. […] Louder, boisterous and, yes, more animal than ever, he shouts ‘order, order’, with which the -55year-old House of Commons Speaker tries to calm down the members of the famous parliament.”

This view of the Speaker as a kind of lovable animal, a grumpy shepherd dog attempting to control the unruly members, is in marked contrast to the view of the British government. They are so incensed by what they see as his bias against the executive and disregard for the unwritten rules of the house that there is talk of punishing Bercow by refusing to make him a lord when he retires, a preferment which is considered as hallowed a tradition as any of the rituals of the mother of parliaments. Abroad, on the contrary, he is considered hugely amusing, as funny as any Monty Python sketch.

In Britain, these rituals lack the novelty they still have on the continent. The British public has long been wearily accustomed to the rowdy behaviour of its elected representatives. Ken Clarke is known as the ‘father of the house’ as he is the longest-serving member of parliament. In a recent interview, he managed to describe the antics of his fellow parliamentarians as ‘silly’ no less than five times, thus demonstrating that he takes his parental responsibilities very seriously. In an equally stern rebuke, Isabel Hardman of the Spectator lamented the way ministers and MPs were ignoring the very rules designed to check the power of the executive. This was, she complained, ‘a terrible example to emerging democracies around the world’, as if MPs had taken leave of their senses and were giving democracy itself a bad name, to the lasting detriment of good governance the world over.

It’s a significant difference of perception: the British are solemn about the harm being done, the foreigners are by turns amused or wistful. The latter tone was noticeable when a group of German leaders made a plea to the British to scrap Brexit and remain in the European Union after all. They appeared almost tearful in contemplating a future without us, as if we were decamping en masse to New Zealand. “We would miss the legendary British black humour and going to the pub after work hours to drink an ale,” they said, though it’s safe to say that no Brit ever ‘drank an ale’. “We would miss tea with milk and driving on the left-hand side of the road,” they continued, as if these were once exotic customs now eagerly adopted throughout a continent of helpless Anglophiles. “And we would miss seeing the panto at Christmas,”

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when they could have Christmas every day in Westminster. “But more than anything else, we would miss the British people – our friends across the Channel.”

These sugary sweet sentiments may have been wasted on the Brits and even more so on the English, because the dark, open secret of Brexit is that the English, those perfidious inhabitants of Albion, are its chief perpetrators. The Scots and even the Northern Irish, despite the abrasive attitudes of the DUP, were innocents caught up in the disaster.

Given the way the English (and the Welsh, of course) have behaved, the continuing affection and captivated attention we receive from Europeans begins to feel slightly embarrassing.

Their sentiments verge on clingy. Because, as recent history shows, there is little love lost on our side, at least not for the villains in Brussels, and the result of the referendum in 2016 had a definite whiff of rebellion about it, a kind of two-fingered salute across the Channel, a case of the curled lip and good old punk defiance. This is not just my conclusion, though I came to it before realising that others felt the same way: Punk is back and rearing its ugly, gobbing head all over the place.

Not the World’s Favourite The British film currently wowing the Oscar judges is called The Favourite. It has been described by Peter Bradshaw, a venerable film critic these days who can recall the punk phenomenon, as ‘more punk’ than the usual costume drama, ‘a rousingly nasty, bleary, hung over punch up’.

Bradshaw meant this as high praise. The film might also be a good way to approach the possible change in the perceptions of Britain, which might only sink in after we have definitively left the European Union, since by doing so we will no longer seem as harmlessly eccentric and funny as we may have seemed. No more Mr Nice Brit. Brexit will see to that.

Though billed as a dark comedy (and therefore just the sort of thing that so delights German leaders), the laughs in The Favourite are few and far between. I think I laughed once, at a moment of particularly bad dancing, but if I wanted that I could always replay Theresa May’s last speech to the Tory conference.

Over the film hangs a pall of punk sulkiness. The main characters even wear punkish clothing. There is also an undercurrent of something distinctively unsexy which afflicts all English attempts at being sexy, something ugly and literal, as if sexuality could never lift itself above the more gut-related appetites. The wigs, the men wearing make-up and fake moles on their faces, the music and even the stilted script with its occasional bursts of vulgarity, all reminded me of Peter Greenaway, and the music was nowhere near as good as Michael Nyman’s. Maybe too much time has elapsed for most people to notice the similarities.

Even Peter Bradshaw seems to have forgotten the Draughtsman’s Contract. It was eccentric to have a fat, naked man being pelted with fruit for no apparent reason, but this was just the sort of eccentricity I recall in some of Greenaway’s scenes, and under the intellectual, mirthless humour of it lurked another similarity: the edge of menace that pure ego creates. This was the cynicism of a country that had lost its way.

Bradshaw called the script ‘cheerfully obscene’, when in fact it was obscene period, and cheerlessly so. Could this be the rather sour cud of a new punk era? Punk, pre-masticated, served up without any of the weird glamour it possessed the first time round, unlovely as it always was, but even more futile.

If so, this would be the Brexit version. It was spotted first, perhaps, by Anthony Barnett in his book The Lure of Greatness, described by John Harris in the New Statesman as a ‘punk polemic’. This is a little unfair on the book, as in fact the punk gesture is something which Barnett himself discerns in the referendum. Barnett describes how people had grown sick of Singer-songwriter John Lydon visits Build Series to discuss the documetary 'The Public Image Is Rotten' at Build Studio on September 2018 ,13 in New York City.

It is only since then, with the loss of empire and a clear role in the world, that self-pity has become fashionable.

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The Interpretation of England’s Dreaming

Former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stuck on a zip-line during BT London Live in Victoria Park on August 2012 ,01 in London, England. (Getty)

the ruling class and of politicians of all shades, and Brexit was a ‘displacement of English exasperation with the whole damn lot of them’ on to Brussels. ‘Unable to exit Britain,’ he says, ‘the English did the next best thing and told the EU to f--- off.’

It is a shrewd assessment which captures the widely acknowledged anger of the vote. Though it has been difficult ever since to define what exactly the English (and the Welsh) were so annoyed about, there seems little doubt they were annoyed. The campaign was ugly too, and full of rancour, to the extent that talk of having a second referendum to resolve the deadlock in parliament has led to dire warnings of civil unrest, even from the Prime Minister herself. Anger was the ruling passion of punk, was it not? Ergo, the whole Brexit thing was a punk snarl of discontent. Well, actually, the whole thing may not be so simple.

The similarity first detected by Barnett appealed to one of the best journalists around, Fintan O’Toole, who happens to be an expert anatomist of the cultural aspects of Brexit. He is also its best psychologist, sociologist and myth-buster. My first acquaintance with him came in an article the Guardian published, where he compared the sight of the House of Commons defeating Theresa May’s Brexit deal to the caucus race in Alice in Wonderland. It was an extravagant and satirically satisfying comparison, right down to the Dodo (May, or her deal, or both, as depicted by the Sun) and the sea of tears everyone had been in danger of drowning in. Yup, Brexit in a nutshell, I thought. I then purchased a copy of O’Toole’s Heroic Failure where he nicks the idea of the punk Brexit from Barnett and runs with it, as any good thief would.

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Brexit may not have inspired much eloquence in the House of Commons (silly, silly, silly, silly, silly), but in an observer from across the Irish Sea it has inspired sublime prose. Heroic Failure has virtually nothing to say about backstops, or trade deals, or the Court of Human Rights. It has little to say about Europe, though one short passage is sufficient to demonstrate that O’Toole is no great fan of its institutions and austerity policies.

But the book’s real concern is to look at the cultural backdrop to the vote and to subject it to psychiatric examination. For this purpose, he combines two main diagnoses, one of sadomasochism (or, as David Cameron famously referred to it once at the dispatch box, ‘masosadism’) and a very belated case of punk-itis. This is what O’Toole declares at the beginning of the chapter he entitles ‘Sadopopulism’: ‘If you are English, and in your fifties or early sixties, two things are likely to be true of you. One is that in 2016 you voted to leave the European Union: 60 per cent of both men and women in the UK aged between fifty and sixty-four did so. The other is that you were, in the immediate period after the UK joined the Common Market, a punk.’

I may as well confess, here and now, that I am what some leave voters would call a ‘remoaner’ and proud of it, despite falling into O’Toole’s age bracket, but I forgive him. Nonetheless – and this I find harder to forgive – I have never called myself a punk. That doesn’t mean I am devoid of feelings. Like anybody, I have a soft spot for that version in French of Anarchy for the UK, where Sid Vicious is seen walking down a chic Parisian street and sticking his tongue out at the bourgeois Parisians through the restaurant windows. And I ask you, who could resist his version of Eddie Cochran’s Something Else while cavorting around his bedroom dressed only in his underpants? Or his version of My Way, where he confesses to having killed a cat ‘and may I say, not in a shy way’?

But I never wore the gear and I never cultivated a Mohican, so how dare O’Toole imply otherwise? It makes me want to spit.

Politicians and the English Sense of Humour Having got that off my chest, I do think the punk analogy has some truth in it. But I am getting ahead of myself. Heroic Failure is not simply about the recrudescence of punk. It is also about a nation’s collective self-pity after the perceived let down of winning two world wars and yet failing economically afterwards.

It describes the culture of heroic failure, but this is seen as only possible in the context of success. There was no self-pity to get in the way of the Brits who glorified the charge of the Light Brigade, for instance, or the misadventures of Sir John Franklin as he tried, and failed, to locate the Northwest Passage, because these were mere blips in the nation’s ongoing success story.

Pluck, which O’Toole identifies as the most English of words, got them through and there was to be no self-pity. It is only since then, with the loss of empire and a clear role in the world, that

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self-pity has become fashionable. O’Toole provides a wonderful portrait of Enoch Powell, that arch villain of British racism, as a theatrical exemplar of political ‘camp’, but the rivers of blood have long disappeared under the bridge. I shall focus for the time being on the book’s description of Boris Johnson, for it is ‘Boris’ (he is often referred to by his first name, as if he was a pop idol) who has made the mixing of the English sense of fun with the serious business of politics a pressing issue for our times. It was all very well when he was the mayor of London and waving ludicrous little flags while suspended from a wire he could not get down from. Even the massive expense on projects that never came to fruition, such as a Garden Bridge over the Thames, or projects that did, like a pointless cable car, could on some level be seen as a harmless joke compared to his elevation to high office.

It was Boris as Foreign Secretary that seriously tried the world’s patience because, after all, his job exposed them to close contact with his ‘sense of humour.’

When it comes to Europe specifically, O’Toole reminds us of the apex of Johnson’s comic career, his starring role as King Brexit, a kind of regal dunce, but the way had been prepared for this carnivalesque incarnation by his time as a journalist reporting from the front line. He made his name among the party members (and preserves it among current readers of the Daily Telegraph) by inventing European Union rulings to prevent children blowing up balloons or people reusing tea bags. These were like the bent bananas – or was it the straight bananas? – supposedly favoured by the faceless (and humourless) bureaucrats. He also menaced his readers with the Union’s threat to prawn-flavoured crisps.

The largely imagined indignities suffered by Britain at the hands of Brussels were told as if in accordance with Oscar Wilde’s dictum ‘that we should treat all trivial things very seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality,’ an attitude which has always worked when trying to please the delegates at Tory conferences, but which doesn’t have quite the same impish charm when people’s livelihoods are at stake.

His adherence to this fin de siècle dictum led to Johnson’s unmasking, just months before the referendum, by Andrew Tyrie

This other Brexit took place at the level of popular culture. O’Toole describes this Brexit as ‘pure punk’ – Never Mind the Bollocks, as the Sex Pistols would have put it, Here’s Brexit!

in front of the Treasury Committee, a spectacle O’Toole compares to watching ‘a kitten bouncing into a combine harvester’ – the kitten in this instance being the cuddly clown, Boris. Tyrie began by disproving the story about recycling tea bags, which it turned out had been a directive from Cardiff City Council. He also rubbished the balloons story as merely being a safety warning, rather than an attempt to prevent all minors from inflating balloons. And Tyrie had no hesitation in rubbishing a rumour that Europe was seeking to legislate on the weight, dimensions and composition of coffins, as Boris had claimed: “It is not EU regulation at all, is it?” asked Tyrie, rhetorically.

“In fact, it is a Council of Europe convention on the transfer of corpses […] there is no reference to coffin weight or dimensions […] The story is a figment of your imagination.”

This, then, was Boris the frivolous liar, the cheerfully mendacious figure who lent his comic charisma to the campaign to leave the European Union and restore ancient liberty to the English people.

But according to O’Toole, Johnson had never expected to be on the winning side of the referendum. When the unthinkable happened, he was at a loss what to do next, which meant: ‘…the English revolution became more like a medieval carnival in which the crowd sweeps up the village idiot and proclaims him as king for the week. Johnson was in fact King Brexit for slightly less than a week…’

Thereafter, of course, he bowed out of the leadership race, having been betrayed by Michael Gove, his erstwhile ally.

But where does the punk element come into all this? In truth, it doesn’t. For O’Toole, there were at least two Brexits, the one championed by Boris and his fellow Brexiteers, posing as bad

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A Union Jack and a pro-Brexit message is seen written on a frosty car windscreen following a very cold night in London.

‘If you are English, and in your fifties or early sixties, two things are likely to be true of you. One is that in 2016 you voted to leave the European Union: 60 per cent of both men and women in the UK aged between fifty and sixty-four did so. The other is that you were, in the immediate period after the UK joined the Common Market, a punk.’

boys when in fact they were pillars of the Establishment, albeit prepared to cock a leg at those same pillars and relieve themselves thereon. The other Brexit was not so rarefied or posh. It certainly hadn’t received an Eton education and may even have thought it was cocking a snook at some of the politicians (e.g. David Cameron) who had.

We Are All Punks Now! This other Brexit took place at the level of popular culture.

O’Toole describes this Brexit as ‘pure punk’ – Never Mind the Bollocks, as the Sex Pistols would have put it, Here’s Brexit!

It is not easy to summarise the argument here, as there are enough paradoxes and counter-intuitive insights to fuel an entire Freudian case study, but this much we gather from stretching Britannia out on the couch and probing her complexes: she is definitely engaged in displacement. Having lost an empire, she has pivoted from imperial power to oppressed victim, from colonialist to the colonised, with Europe as the colonial power. O’Toole even sees the country’s perplexity in terms of Fifty Shades of Grey, with England as the Submissive at the mercy of a remarkable variety of rules dictated by Europe, the Dominant.

But England is also rebellious. She is into self-harm, a very punk tendency indeed. Just as the punks wore bin liners and safety pins to emphasise their defiance and their willingness to fail on society’s discredited terms, so England cultivates a sense of grievance. She inflicts pain upon herself as a punk might scratch her own arms, because to inflict pain on oneself is at least to exert

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some kind of control. Thus, for some, O’Toole claims, ‘marking Leave on the ballot paper in June 2016 was a way of scratching the name of England on their arms to prove their love.’ It’s like this because of the phoney grievances the Brexiteer elite have roused them against. They have been goaded into self-harm by what George Orwell famously called the ‘wrong members’ of the English family, those old Etonians and toffs who are forever ‘in control’ and don’t feel the need to take it back. The outcome can only bring the people further pain, of course. ‘The people get out of the Red Room of Pain only to find themselves in the Red White and Blue Room of Pain.’ There can be no victory as the enemy was never Brussels; it was the inequalities of modern Britain and, for the smaller nations, the ‘precious union’ itself, which is now imperilled by the whole unholy mess.

It’s a grim prospect. The ghost of Malcolm McLaren cannot conjure success out of failure this time. Johnny Rotten, who used to spit at people on the King’s Road ‘because they were stupid’, has donned a straitjacket in solidarity with the working class he came from and embraced Brexit. Just as the first punks spilled out of McLaren’s sex shop dressed in the bondage gear of the boudoir, so the ‘maso-sadists’ spawned by David Cameron’s folly in calling a referendum are released onto the high streets of England, a little over half of them yelling ‘leave means leave’ while the other, almost half of them, can only re-moan.

Grim as the state of the national culture has become, it does seem unlikely that the world will find us quite as funny in the future.

That point has been amply demonstrated by the unpopularity of King Brexit overseas. As for eccentricity, those who exhibited it were once generally seen as harmless. Now, in this newly embittered England, maybe it’s harmful eccentrics we have to fear most.

Still, that Mr Speaker is hilarious.

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The Venezuelan Opposition's High-Stakes Assault on Maduro Will Guaidรณ's Gamble Pay Off? 16

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The economy has contracted by nearly 50 percent since Maduro first took office in 2013, oil production declined to levels not seen since 1950, and inflation reached an estimated annual rate of one million percent.

This combination of pictures created on January 2019 ,25 shows Venezuela's National Assembly head Juan Guaido (L) speaking to opposition supporters at the Central University of Caracas (UCV) in Caracas, on January ,21 2019 and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro offering a press conference in Caracas, on January 2019 ,25.

(Getty)

By Harold Trinkunas* On January 23, Venezuela’s opposition-led National Assembly shocked the world. It declared the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, illegitimate, pronounced his office vacant, and proceeded to swear in National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó as interim president in accordance with Venezuela’s constitutional provisions on presidential succession. Soon after, the United States, Canada, and most major governments in the Western Hemisphere recognized Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

Such a bold and energetic move came as a surprise. 2018 had been a bleak year for Venezuela’s opposition. Despite having

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won control of the legislature in 2015 and led a massive civil disobedience campaign in 2017, the opposition seemed further than ever from removing Maduro’s deeply unpopular authoritarian government from office. The major anti-Maduro parties had spent the year fighting one another, arguing over whom to blame for their failure and leveling accusations that some had secretly sold out to the regime.

All the while, Venezuela’s economic and political crisis worsened.

The economy has contracted by nearly 50 percent since Maduro first took office in 2013, oil production declined to levels not seen since 1950, and inflation reached an estimated annual rate of one million percent. Malnutrition afflicted many of the nearly 90 percent of Venezuelans who now live in poverty, and millions fled abroad in search of a better life, making Venezuela’s migration crisis the second worst in the world after Syria’s.

Yet Maduro hung on. His government clung to power with the help of financing from Russia and China, intelligence support from Cuba, and growing sales of gold to Turkey. Throughout 2018, Maduro consistently wrong-footed the opposition, even claiming victory in a presidential election in May that was deemed illegitimate by independent observers and over 50 foreign governments. For much of last year, it seemed as though Maduro had painted the opposition into a corner.

So what explains the sudden turnaround? Has Venezuela’s opposition gotten its mojo back? The answer is a qualified “Yes.” First, the opposition has at least temporarily overcome its tendency toward self-sabotage and factionalism. Second, it has developed a successful new approach to mobilizing discontented Venezuelans against the government. Third, it has conveyed to the armed forces, a linchpin of the Maduro regime, credible assurances that military officers would receive amnesty for any crimes they had previously committed if they supported a transition to democracy. And finally, by securing the swift—and difficult to reverse—recognition of Guaidó by the Trump administration and Latin American governments, the opposition has signaled to Maduro’s remaining supporters, especially those in the military, that the international community is committed to change.

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BACK IN THE SADDLE As I wrote in Foreign Affairs last January, Venezuela’s opposition coalition was originally built for the purpose of winning unfree and unfair elections. And it succeeded, sweeping the 2015 legislative elections with a two-thirds majority. But the opposition quickly learned that elections no longer really matter in Venezuela. President Maduro invalidated the elections of two legislators to deny the opposition a supermajority, prohibited officials from testifying to the legislature, vetoed all legislation, and eventually convened a government-dominated constituent assembly to take on many of the legislature’s functions. Shut out of power, the opposition parties had too little in common, ideologically or programmatically, to effectively work together.

This appears to have changed. The surprise events of January 23 make clear that at least some opposition leaders, particularly from the Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular parties, have been quietly doing their homework, developing both a domestic and an international strategy to pressure Maduro to step down.

Guaidó of Voluntad Popular—whose leader, Leopoldo López, has been under house arrest since 2014—assumed the presidency of the National Assembly in December 2018, a post that rotates among the opposition parties that control the legislature.

With his roots in Venezuela’s student movement, the -35year-old Guaidó is a fresh face who has proven to be more appealing than previous opposition leaders. Guaidó and his allies have pursued a new mobilization strategy, convening open-air town halls (known as cabildos abiertos) to engage with average Venezuelans. For the first time since the end of the 2017 protests, the public has proven responsive. When popular unrest spiked after a small military uprising failed on January 21, the cabildos helped lay the groundwork for massive demonstrations across Venezuela on January 23.

The opposition has also begun to use its legislative power in the National Assembly to signal to the military that it would not be threatened by a democratic transition. On January 15, the National Assembly passed an amnesty law that provides immunity to members of the military who act to restore democracy in Venezuela. Moreover, Guaidó has himself said that he does not intend to hold the military accountable for supporting Maduro.

Reassuring the military is important because it is an essential pillar of Maduro’s governing coalition. The armed forces control government ministries, the oil industry, food distribution, and internal security. Senior military commanders have so far been reluctant to act against Maduro for fear of being held accountable by a successor government. And they have good reason to fear accountability, since they are complicit in many of the regime’s crimes, including corruption, human rights abuses, and drug trafficking. (Junior officers are by all accounts much less satisfied with the regime, but they are subject to close ideological monitoring and counterintelligence surveillance, both by the regime and by its Cuban allies, to detect and dismantle potential

coup plots.) Guaidó has made clear that the opposition is not calling for a coup but prefers that the armed forces as a whole remain in their barracks and resist orders to engage in repression against popular protests.

The opposition has also found a willing and important ally in the United States. Trump administration officials have grown frustrated with the failure of the United States’ targeted economic sanctions to make any real impact on the Maduro regime. In the past year, they have been casting about for alternatives, ranging from banning Venezuelan oil exports to the United States to prosecuting Maduro’s network of cronies and frontmen in U.S. courts.

The Venezuelan opposition presented the Trump administration with a fresh approach. It offered a legal theory according to which the United States could recognize Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela—if Maduro’s reelection was illegitimate, the opposition argued, the logical conclusion was that the office of the presidency of Venezuela was vacant as of the end of Maduro’s first term on January 10. According to Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, if the presidency is vacant, then the head of the National Assembly becomes interim president and calls for new elections.

Washington accepted this reasoning. By recognizing Guaidó, the Trump administration and its partners helped the Venezuelan opposition more credibly signal to the military that a transition to democracy is viable and will be supported by the international community. In doing so, the United States and other countries

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Opposition leader of Venezuela Juan Guaidó delivers a speech during a demonstration on January 2019 ,26 in Caracas, Venezuela.

(Getty)

By recognizing Guaidó, the Trump administration and its partners helped the Venezuelan opposition more credibly signal to the military that a transition to democracy is viable and will be supported by the international community.

that have recognized Guaidó have taken a highly visible—and risky—diplomatic step that will be difficult to undo, committing them to backing the opposition.

WHAT NEXT? The opposition’s strategy, conducted in coordination with the United States, is clearly a game changer, but will it work? There are two reasons to be skeptical. First, the Maduro administration continues to have the support and recognition of its most important international allies: China, Cuba, Russia, and Turkey.

These countries are lenders of last resort, enablers of the Maduro regime, or both. Second, despite clear signals to the armed forces that they would benefit from a soft landing in the event of a democratic transition, major military commanders publicly declared their support for President Maduro on January 23 and 24. The incentive structure facing the military is still heavily stacked in favor of supporting the government.

There are many unpredictable and unforeseen consequences to the international recognition of Guaidó, ranging from questions about the disposition of Venezuelan assets abroad to the status of diplomats posted in Venezuela by governments that no longer consider Maduro the legitimate president. The Trump administration clearly wishes to increase pressure on the Maduro administration, and in the coming days will have ample opportunity to do so at the invitation of Guaidó.

The United States was correct to cooperate with the

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Venezuelan opposition—the Maduro regime has shown itself unwilling to negotiate in good faith with the opposition in recent years, even when external mediators such as the Vatican were involved. But Washington has chosen a risky path. By escalating with Maduro, the Trump administration has raised the possibility of misperception and misunderstanding leading to inadvertent conflict, especially given how little the U.S. and Venezuelan governments understand and respect each other.

Aggressive U.S. action will also run the risk of splitting the international coalition now backing the Venezuelan opposition, and could also turn the situation into a U.S.-Venezuelan conflict rather than an effort to restore Venezuelan democracy. This would allow Maduro to fall back on the rhetoric of anti-imperialism and would provide an excuse for his allies—particularly Russia but perhaps also China—to continue offering their support. But even if the United States avoids this particular pitfall, Russia and China will undoubtedly see events in Venezuela as part of a new Western strategy to undermine their authoritarian allies and client states. They will develop countermeasures, and these will be unpleasant.

It is possible that under growing domestic and international pressure, Maduro may lose his nerve and flee the country.

Alternatively, lower ranking officers may simply gamble on a spontaneous rebellion to force the hand of senior officers, precipitating a violent outcome. But there is also a very significant risk that Maduro will remain in power with support from the military and his allies abroad, although he will be more internationally isolated than ever before. The opposition’s gamble may end with its leaders imprisoned or in exile. This would leave the Trump administration and the international community in a very difficult position, with fewer diplomatic tools than ever to influence Venezuela’s future in a positive direction. *This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com. *HAROLD TRINKUNAS is Deputy Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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China Turned Upside Down Life During Mao’s Bloody, Chaotic Cultural Revolution

By Weijian Shan* This month marks the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and the United States and the start of China’s “reform and opening up.” In the late 1970s, China was still emerging from the shadows of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, which had swept away most of the country’s social and political institutions and had brought its undeveloped economy to its knees.

China has made remarkable progress since then;

today’s China bears almost no resemblance to the China of that period. But the experience of the Cultural Revolution—a chaotic and brutal time of social upheaval—is still fresh in the memories of those who lived through it, including myself and many members of China’s contemporary ruling class.

Although most of them rarely discuss it publicly, the Cultural Revolution had a defining impact on many of the people who now lead China and the country’s biggest firms.

Two schools of thought about how to govern China

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But the revolution still seemed slightly distant to us - until, one day in June, it did not. a profound mark on many Chinese elites. It has led them to a wide variety of conclusions about what kind of society China should be. But to understand their thinking and their competing visions, it helps to have a sense of what life was like in those dark, intense times.

My own experience was fairly typical.

SCHOOL’S OUT

An -83year-old Chinese old man wearing the Red Guard uniform walks out Mao Zedong's maosoleum after visiting to the remains of Mao in Tiananmen Square on December 2013 ,26 in Beijing, China. (Getty Images)

and manage its economy emerged in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. Some senior party leaders favored limited political liberalization and marketfriendly reforms. Others insisted on the suppression of dissent and unwavering support for old-school, statist policies. This debate still roils China and serves as the main prism through which most foreign observers view Chinese politics. But outsiders sometimes fail to grasp how the debate itself has been shaped by the participants’ shared experience of the Cultural Revolution. Living through social disorder has left

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It was the early summer of 1966 in the western suburbs of Beijing. I was 12 years old and preparing to graduate from elementary school. All through the broiling hot days, cicadas sang their unrelenting songs.

I spent the afternoons studying for my final exams.

In the past few months, there had been chatter about the Cultural Revolution. In a document that my father showed me, I read some remarks that Mao had made, excoriating the educational system. Mao said teachers treated students like enemies and exams were like “surprise attacks.” He said that such a system discouraged creativity. Mao claimed that the most accomplished emperors in Chinese history were not well educated and that the most highly educated ones turned out to be failures. He also said that students should be allowed to whisper to one another, exchange notes, and check their textbooks during exams. These remarks were music to the ears of impressionable students, including me and my friends. But the revolution still seemed slightly distant to us—until, one day in June, it did not.

Gao Jianjing, a class leader in my school, took charge of a group of students who had decided to march down to Beijing’s City Hall. They went in the name of revolution, so none of our teachers or principals dared stop them. I stayed behind: I was too focused on studying for the final exams to be distracted by all the whispers around me.

Later, Gao and others told me that they had watched as crowds of people harangued the mayor and vice mayors. They heard people give speeches about the necessity of revolution. And they witnessed a group of revolutionaries assault Ma Lianliang, an opera star who was one of the most accomplished performing artists in China but who had been condemned in the state media as a “poisonous weed.” (Ma had recently appeared in a production that Mao believed implicitly

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criticized him.) Ma’s leg was broken and he passed out; before the end of the year, he would die of his injuries.

Gao told me that the revolutionaries who were shouting slogans, making speeches, and beating people were called Red Guards. It was the first time I had heard that term.

This was all much more exciting than studying for final exams. There was something thrilling about the fact that school authorities had done nothing to prevent my classmates from marching to City Hall.

The school even sent a bus to pick them up and bring them back. We heard that in some schools, particularly middle schools and universities, students had rebelled against their teachers and refused to take final exams.

Soon after the trip to City Hall, a few of our teachers accused some of their colleagues of being huai fen zi: “bad elements.” Overnight, someone’s reputation could be transformed. Someone put up posters around the school declaring that a cook in the dining hall was a “bad element.” His crime was having a deck of playing cards featuring pictures of naked women, which he had brought back with him after serving as a chef at a Chinese embassy overseas.

The school quickly descended into chaos. We students learned that many of our respected teachers were, in fact, huai fen zi. We all loved the school nurse, until we learned that she had worked as a nurse in the nationalist army during the civil war. Now, she was a class enemy. At mass assemblies attended by both teachers and students, people took turns criticizing and humiliating such “bad elements.”

One day, I joined a group of students who broke into the dormitory room of Teacher Cai, an art instructor.

Young and attractive, Teacher Cai was popular with students, who loved her classes. But we knew that she had a small statue of a half-naked woman on a table in her room. It was clearly a capitalist object.

And times had changed: we were now revolutionaries.

Mao had promised that the Cultural Revolution would bring “great chaos leading to great rule.”

But I had begun to think that it was leading only to more chaos.

We stormed into her room and broke the statue. She dared not utter a word, in spite of her usual authority.

We all felt excited and proud. But I also felt a pang of sympathy for Teacher Cai when I saw tears in her eyes. (Only much later did I realize that the statue was a miniature replica of the Venus de Milo.)

YOU SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION Schools were hardly the only places where the Cultural Revolution had turned everything upside down. By the end of the summer, the country’s judicial and law enforcement systems had ceased functioning.

Policemen disappeared from traffic stands; pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles could move freely, without anyone directing traffic. There was a serious proposal to change the traffic light system entirely. Why should people stop at a red light, the symbol of revolution?

No. Red should signal go and green should signal stop.

Still, the role reversals at schools seemed particularly dramatic. Later that summer, a few friends and I

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Service staff wearing the costumes of the 'Red Guard' work at a 'Red Guard' themed hot pot restaurant on January 2015 ,10 in Pingliang, Gansu province of China.

(Getty Images)

went to the nearby No. 13 Girls Middle School to watch a mass meeting known as a “struggle session.”

Such meetings were now being held everywhere in Beijing, including in almost all of its middle schools. Red Guards hauled onto a stage people whom they had identified as “counterrevolutionaries,” including school administrators and teachers. The counterrevolutionaries were forced to confess their crimes; Red Guards placed tall white-paper dunce caps on their heads and heavy wooden plaques around their necks, listing their names and their misdeeds. One by one, students took the stage to denounce their teachers.

Before long, the action had settled into a monotonous pattern. My friends and I snuck out of the struggle session and walked around the campus. It was dark, with just a few lamps glowing. In the corner of the sports field, we saw a shapeless lump on the ground, covered by what appeared to be a blanket. Someone told us that it was the body of the school’s principal.

A group of teenage girls from the school—all Red Guards—had apparently beaten her to death earlier

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that day. The angry crowd was simply too busy to dispose of the corpse.

As we were leaving the campus, we heard shouts coming from a nearby building. Curious, we peeked through a window. In a dimly lit room, we saw four or five girls standing in a circle, each one swinging a large leather belt. In the center of the circle knelt an old woman who appeared to be in her 60s. Her head and body were covered with blood. She was in great pain, moaning and crying in a weak voice. The girls took turns striking her with the belts. They beat her relentlessly. Later, I learned that the woman was the school’s vice principal. She did not survive that night.

Mao had promised that the Cultural Revolution would bring “great chaos leading to great rule.” But I had begun to think that it was leading only to more chaos. *This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs. com. * WEIJIAN SHAN is Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PAG, an investment firm based in Hong Kong.

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Trump, Huawei, and the Politics of Extradition Making Sense of the Meng Case

By Chimène Keitner* On December 1, Canadian police, acting at the request of U.S. authorities, arrested Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou during a layover in Vancouver. A judge in New York had issued a warrant for Meng’s arrest on August 22, alleging that between 2010 and 2014, Meng had conspired to commit bank fraud by concealing links between Huawei and two shell companies that it used to conduct business in Iran, enabling Huawei to access the dollar-based financial system in violation of U.S. secondary sanctions.

Washington is now seeking Meng’s extradition to the United States.

The arrest was a bombshell. Huawei is the world’s largest manufacturer of telecoms equipment, and Meng is the daughter of the company’s founder and chief executive, Ren

Zhengfei, a former military engineer believed to be well connected within the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing was outraged. In an op-ed for a Canadian newspaper, the Chinese ambassador accused Ottawa of “western egotism and white supremacy” and of “mocking and trampling the rule of law.”

The Chinese government arrested two Canadian citizens in China on national security charges, apparently in an attempt to put pressure on Canada. It may be working—just yesterday, the Canadian Ambassador to China told Chineselanguage media that Meng has a “strong case” and that her extradition to the United States “would not be a happy outcome.”

Extradition requests can walk a fine line between law enforcement and politics, as illustrated by the furor over Meng’s arrest. American authorities claim to be simply enforcing U.S. law. China, however, believes that her arrest

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If the suspect is found legally eligible for extradition, the decision whether to extradite is generally made by a political official—in Canada, the minister of justice; in the United Kingdom, the home secretary; and in the United States, the secretary of state. dangerous consequences for individuals caught in the crossfire.

THE LAW OF EXTRADITION

Supporters Ada Yu and Wade Meng (no relation) stand with a sign outside BC Supreme Court before the bail hearing for Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou on December 2018 ,10 in Vancouver, Canada.

(Getty)

was politically motivated—part of a larger U.S. campaign to thwart China’s technological ascendance.

Western countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have expressed confidence that Canada is following proper legal procedures in Meng’s case. Yet U.S.President Donald Trump exacerbated Chinese suspicions when he indicated, in an interview given a few days after the arrest, that he would “certainly intervene” in the Meng case if he thought it would be good for securing a trade deal with China—comments that her lawyers are sure to use to fight her extradition.

Trump’s comments about the Meng case jeopardize the presumption of good faith and regular process that make cross-border law enforcement cooperation possible. They also risk making it harder to draw a credible line between lawful arrests and “hostage diplomacy,” with potentially

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The textbook scenario for extradition arises when an individual commits a crime in Country A and flees to Country B. Since Country A lacks law enforcement authority in Country B, Country A will ask Country B to arrest the individual and send (extradite) him or her back to Country A. International treaties specify the appropriate procedures, including the acceptable grounds for refusing an extradition request. The United States has entered into extradition treaties with more than 100 countries. These include Canada and Turkey, but not China or Russia.

Most extradition treaties follow a standard template. An extradition request for a suspect must be accompanied by an arrest warrant issued by the requesting state (which, in the United States, must be based on a finding of probable cause). The request must also contain sufficient evidence to support the warrant. In certain circumstances, the requesting state can ask for the provisional arrest of a suspect and then produce supporting evidence within a specified time period, which is what the United States has done with Meng. A judge in the state that receives the request then conducts a hearing.

If the suspect is found legally eligible for extradition, the decision whether to extradite is generally made by a political official—in Canada, the minister of justice; in the United Kingdom, the home secretary; and in the United States, the secretary of state.

Extradition treaties usually state that people cannot be extradited if they are charged with “political offenses,” that is, if the extradition request is intended to punish someone for their political activities. The political offense exception originated as a carve-out for crimes committed in connection with a fugitive’s participation in (or defense against) a political rebellion or uprising; it was designed to preserve the neutrality of the requested state. During the period of political violence in Northern Ireland from 1968 to 1998, a number of U.S. judges prevented the extradition of alleged members of the Irish Republican Army from the United

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States to the United Kingdom, ruling that their crimes— including the killing of British soldiers—qualified as political acts. Ultimately, the United States and the United Kingdom modified their extradition agreement to specify that acts such as murder, hostage-taking, and possession of explosive devices would not be considered political offenses, unless the executive branch determined that the extradition request was “politically motivated.”

The requirement that requesting countries submit evidence to support their requests can also prevent countries from using extradition on spurious charges to silence dissidents.

Since 2014, Turkey has been demanding that the United States extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania, whom it now also accuses of masterminding a failed coup in 2016. Turkey has also requested that the United States extradite more than 80 alleged followers of Gulen, including a professional basketball player for the New York Knicks, Enes Kanter. To date, the U.S. Department of Justice has spent hundreds of hours reviewing evidence submitted by Turkey, but it has not moved forward with Turkey’s request, claiming that Turkey has provided insufficient evidence to justify Gulen’s extradition under the terms of the treaty and U.S. law. Turkey, meanwhile, has announced that it will not extradite any terrorism suspects to the United States until Washington surrenders Gulen.

HOSTAGE DIPLOMACY Extradition, which is governed by international treaties, differs from what is commonly referred to as “hostage diplomacy,” or arbitrarily detaining a foreign country’s citizens in order to gain leverage over their government.

North Korea has a long history of locking up Americans and South Koreans to use as bargaining chips, as do Iran and Turkey. A 2018 report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies documents Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s prolific use of hostage diplomacy: more than 30 Western nationals have been jailed in Turkey since the

Since Meng’s arrest, China has detained Canadian citizens and imposed the death penalty on a Canadian who was convicted of drug smuggling.

2016 coup attempt, and Ankara has been eager to use them to gain political concessions. In October, Turkey released the American pastor Andrew Brunson in exchange for U.S. sanctions relief.

Countries with more transparent judicial processes do not, as a rule, take foreign citizens hostage in this manner, even though other countries might impute political motivations to charging decisions—as the Chinese have done in the case of Meng. Yet the role of top government officials in approving extraditions means that the line between political and law enforcement decisions can blur. In 2000, for instance, British Home Secretary Jack Straw blocked the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to face charges of torture. Straw claimed that he had rejected the request on “humanitarian” grounds, pointing to Pinochet’s supposed ill health. But this was a pretext: the Chilean government had allegedly negotiated a secret deal with the British to allow Pinochet to return to Chile.

Although the British decision in the Pinochet case was swayed by normal diplomacy rather than hostage-taking or overt threats, it illustrated that states can interfere with attempts to extradite or prosecute their citizens. Because extradition ultimately requires a political green light, diplomatic considerations cannot help but play some role.

That said, government officials risk making the process seem

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Pizza is delivered to the residence of Huawei Technologies Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou after she was released on bail in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 2018 ,12. (Getty)

CANADA, STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

supplied by the United States satisfy the treaty requirements, a Canadian judge would likely leave the question of the United States’s potential political motivation to the minister of justice. A Canadian judge has granted her release on 10$ million bail pending resolution of the extradition proceedings, which could last for years.

Even though Meng’s arrest was undeniably politically charged, there are reasons to think it was not politically motivated in the first instance. Shortly before her arrest, U.S. deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein announced that DOJ plans to prioritize prosecuting individual executives for corporate wrongdoing. That supports the United States’ claim that Meng’s arrest is a matter of law enforcement priorities that are separate from the Trump administration’s trade war with China.

Trump’s comments, however, have thrown a wrench in the works. Meng’s arrest took place on the same day that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a “truce” over dinner at the G20- summit. As noted above, when asked about the extradition, Trump responded: “If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made ... I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary.” Those who perceived the arrest as politically motivated to begin with—as the Chinese undoubtedly did— understandably felt vindicated by Trump’s remark.

If China hoped to secure the moral high ground in this dispute, it has failed miserably. Since Meng’s arrest, China has detained Canadian citizens and imposed the death penalty on a Canadian who was convicted of drug smuggling. Faced with these apparently retaliatory measures, the United States and Canada have issued travel advisories warning their citizens about the risk of China’s “arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” This is not the only recent example of retaliatory arrests by China. When the United States sought to extradite Chinese businessman Su Bin in 2014 for conspiring with Chinese military officers to hack into U.S. defense contractor computer networks, China arrested a Canadian couple and accused them of spying. One of them spent six months in detention, and the other was detained for 775 days before being allowed to return to Canada. (Su ultimately pled guilty and was sentenced to 46 months in prison, with credit for time served.)

Individuals have long been used as pawns in disputes between states. Nevertheless, countries should resist talking about extraditions in transactional terms. Doing so risks obscuring the line between legitimate law enforcement efforts and political hostage-taking—a distinction that should not be solely in the eye of the beholder. Trump’s transactional approach to problems at home and abroad conflates the two and emboldens other countries to do the same.

Meng is not a hostage, but her lawyers are sure to argue that the U.S. extradition request falls under the political offense exception. Assuming that the allegations and evidence

*This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com. *CHIMÈNE KEITNER is Alfred & Hanna Fromm Professor of International Law at the UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco.

purely political when they openly indicate their willingness to interfere in extradition cases, even when those cases are based on solid evidence and seek to further legitimate law enforcement goals. The more they do this, the less they will be able to defend their own requests and decisions as governed by the rule of law—the very distinction relied upon by those countries that expressed confidence in Canada’s judicial procedures while questioning the motivations for China’s recent arrests.

This is precisely what Trump has jeopardized, and not just with regard to Meng. In December, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu claimed that Trump had told Erdogan at the G20- summit that his administration was “working on” Turkey’s extradition request for Gulen, suggesting that the cleric’s fate could form part of a quid pro quo. Such statements can give treaty-based extradition requests the flavor of political negotiations, and undermine claims by democratic countries that they are simply upholding the rule of law.

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conomy

Oman Vision 2040

The Sultanate aims to double the per capita share of GDP to reach a 6 percent growth, with non-oil sectors anticipated to contribute to 93 percent of GDP 28

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Oman’s diversification strategy is focused on shifting its economy towards 5 critical sectors: tourism, logistics, manufacturing, fisheries and mining. been the major engine of economic growth in the country.

Held under the patronage of His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, Minister of Heritage and Culture and Chairman of Oman Vision 2040, the two-day event was hosted at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre and was a culmination of 7,000 events, 15,000 surveys and 22,00 participants. It hosted more than 3000 participants including decision makers and experts from both the public and private sector from within and outside of the Sultanate, representatives of community associations, young entrepreneurs, public figures and the general public.

The conference is one of the milestone events in the development of the vision and provided a platform to promote wide community participation and to discuss and review the initial details of the vision and best practices regarding sustainable development and international cooperation in preparation for the final Vision Document that is being formulated based on the Royal Orders of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, H E Talal Sulaiman al Rahbi, deputy secretary general of the Supreme Council for Planning, told Majalla that Vision 2040 will be the “guiding document for developing all the national implementation plans, like the next -5year plan which will take place between 2021 and 2025.”

H E Talal Sulaiman al Rahbi, deputy secretary general of the Supreme Council for Planning speaking during Oman Vision 2040 national conference.

THE PILLARS OF THE VISION

by Yasmine El-Geressi In the last few decades, economic diversification has been a top priority of all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

Even prior to the drop in oil prices in mid 2014, their leaders recognised that their economies relied too heavily on the oil and gas industry. Nonetheless, although the share of non-oil GDP has increased steadily in each of these countries, their exports and government revenues remain reliant on oil and gas.

The drop in oil prices has consequently resulted in a economic crunch, adding urgency to the need to transform.

Oman, which has the lowest GDP per capita among the GCC countries, held its Vision 2040 National conference on January 28-27 where it laid out its road map that seeks to rebalance the country’s economy away from oil and natural gas which have

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The Sultanate aims to double the per capita share of GDP to reach a 6 percent growth, with non-oil sectors anticipated to contribute to 93 percent of GDP, by focusing its diversification strategy on shifting its economy towards 5 critical sectors: tourism, logistics, manufacturing, fisheries and mining, as identified in the Ninth Five-Year Development Plan. It also aims to increase the rate of Omani nationals in the private sector to %42 by 2040 and to increase foreign investment to 10 percent of GDP. Such comprehensive plans are critically important not just for economic growth, but also for the ambitions of millions of young people in the region.

Speaking at the conference His Highness Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, “The strategic directions were identified in line with preliminary goals that comprised

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education, scientific research, the empowerment of national capacities, realising a sustainable welfare based on a state-ofthe-art healthcare system, as well as economic diversification, job market development, and giving the private sector the initiative for a national economy. They also included environmental sustainability and geographic decentralisation.”

Oman has set out three key themes for the vision: People and Society, Economy and Development, and Governance and Institutional Performance. Within these pillars the Sultanate has identified a list of national priorities: Education, Learning, Scientific Research and National Talents - Inclusive Education, Life-long Learning, and Scientific Research that Lead to a Knowledge Society and Competitive National Talents Health - A leading health system adopting global standards Citizenship, Identity, National Heritage and Culture - A society that is proud of its identity and a culture that reinforces citizenship Welfare and Social Protection - A Decent and sustainable life for all Economic Leadership and Management - A dynamic economic leadership possessing capabilities and operating within an integrated institutional framework Economic Diversification and Fiscal Sustainability - A diversified, sustainable and competitive economy that is based on knowledge and innovation, operates within integrated frameworks, adapts with the industrial revolutions, and achieves fiscal sustainability Labor Market and Employment- A dynamic labor market that is attractive to talent and responsive to demographic, economic, knowledge and technical changes

“Our goal is for Oman to be ranked among the developed countries in 2040.

The goal is not easy but we are certain that we can achieve it. We need a lot of reforms.” H E Abdullah bin Salem AlSalmi, head of the Oman 2040 economy and development committee.

The Private Sector, Investment and International CooperationAn enabled private sector driving a competitive economy that is integrated with the world economy Sustainable Development in Governorates and Cities - Geographical sustainable development that follows a decentralized discourse, develops a few urban centers, and utilizes land in an ideal and sustainable way Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability - Balanced utilization and sustainability of natural resources, to support energy security and the national economy Legislative, Judicial and Audit System - A participatory legislative system, an independent, specialized and swift judicial system and an effective and transparent audit system Partnership and Integration of Roles - A balanced partnership and an effective regulatory role for the government Governance of the Administrative Apparatus, Resources and Projects -An administrative apparatus that is flexible, innovative, future-oriented and adhere to good governance Economic leaders know that economic transformation is not a simple undertaking and requires a holistic approach incorporating a variety of measures. On the sidelines of the National Conference, H E Abdullah bin Salem Al-Salmi, head of the Oman 2040 economy and development committee the Executive President of The Capital Market Authority (CMA) told Majalla: “Our goal is for Oman to be ranked among the developed countries in 2040. The goal is not easy but we are

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His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, Minister of Heritage and Culture and Chairman of Oman Vision 2040.

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Vision 2040 aims to increase the rate of Omani nationals in the private sector to %42 by 2040 and to increase foreign investment to 10 percent of GDP. workshops are held in all governorates where key issues are identified and used to shape the long-term objectives of the vision.

Speaking at the conference, H E Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq Al Said, said: “We are keen to ensure the participation of all segments of society and partners in formulating their priorities and aspirations.”

“Accordingly, the competent committees and task forces have proceeded with identifying specific themes and pillars for the vision to serve as a framework for the project,” he added.

certain that we can achieve it. We need a lot of reforms in law, investment, the education system and pensions and others, and we must start working on them. We have 20 years ahead of us and we are confident that we will succeed.”

Within the frame work of Vision 2040, there are also joint ventures with the Media Ministry on the future of the Media, the Minister of Information Abdulmunim al-Hasani, told Majalla.

“There are joint ventures between the Media and Vision 2040 on plans for the future of the media. At the end of this week we will hold a detailed seminar on the media in the future. A few days ago, we began the Media Dialogue Council to discuss what the media look like in the near future, not only in Oman but on an global level, and what our role is in Oman, and how we can be present within this global system,” he explained.

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION At the heart of Vision 2040 are policies that deliver stronger economic growth together with better sharing of the benefits of increased prosperity among social groups. These benefits go beyond income to include inclusive outcomes across the different dimensions that matter for societal well-being, not least jobs and health. Translating these multidimensional objectives into concrete deliverables requires joined-up efforts that cut across policy areas and require the ability to coordinate actions across administrative boundaries and levels of government. To ensure that the preferences and concerns of all stakeholders are captured and reflected in decision making,

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Speaking to Majalla on the sidelines of the National Conference, H E Talal Sulaiman al Rahbi, deputy secretary general of the Supreme Council for Planning, underlined the need to involve the all segments of society and particularly the youth, which make up 46.7 of the population, in efforts to guide and shape policy that are closer to society’s needs and advancing the goals set out in the 2040. “The formulation of 2040 was done by wide public participation. Youth were a big focus, not only in their participation to formulate vision but also in the teamwork and the task force we formulated, we made sure we had a great representation of Youth,” al Rahbi said.

During a discussion on the role of society and youth in realizing the vision, Sayyid Haitham underscored the need of engaging students abroad to inform policy design and reinforce government’s capacity to implement them: “I salute every young man and woman with ideas and who would like to be heard, and I invite them to put those ideas forward because when the future vision is discussed, it is the future of their children. We do not differentiate between our youth at home and abroad.”

“I call on young people to take the initiative, seize opportunities, accept the private sector and not wait for a government job.”

Looking ahead 20 years, H E Talal Sulaiman al Rahbi, deputy secretary general of the Supreme Council for Planning told Majalla that he sees Oman in 2040 as prosperous, while “maintaining its national values and the pride of the Omanis.”

“We see it as a knowledge based society. We see Omanis having the right skills and knowledge to compete locally and internationally,” he added.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1733 - February 01/02/2019

Annabella Hilal: My choice of clothing is bold, but not provocative www.majalla.com

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The Latest Diet Everyone is Talking About Should You Try the Keto Diet?

Harvard Health: It›s advertised as a weight-loss wonder, but this eating plan is actually a medical diet that comes with serious risks.

In the world of weight-loss diets, low-carbohydrate, highprotein eating plans often grab attention. The Paleo, South Beach, and Atkins diets all fit into that category. They are sometimes referred to as ketogenic or «keto» diets.

But a true ketogenic diet is different. Unlike other low-

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carb diets, which focus on protein, a keto plan centers on fat, which supplies as much as %90 of daily calories. And it›s not the type of diet to try as an experiment.

«The keto diet is primarily used to help reduce the frequency of epileptic seizures in children. While it also has been tried for weight loss, only short-term results have been studied, and the results have been mixed. We don›t

A ketogenic diet has numerous risks. Top of the list: it›s high in saturated fat. McManus recommends that you keep saturated fats to no more than %7 of your daily calories because of the link to heart disease. know if it works in the long term, nor whether it›s safe,» warns registered dietitian Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women›s Hospital.

HOW DOES IT WORK? The keto diet aims to force your body into using a different type of fuel. Instead of relying on sugar (glucose) that comes from carbohydrates (such as grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits), the keto diet relies on ketone bodies, a type of fuel that the liver produces from stored fat.

Burning fat seems like an ideal way to lose pounds. But getting the liver to make ketone bodies is tricky: It requires that you deprive yourself of carbohydrates, fewer than 20 to 50 grams of carbs per day (keep in mind that a medium-sized banana has about 27 grams of carbs).

It typically takes a few days to reach a state of ketosis.

Eating too much protein can interfere with ketosis.

WHAT DO YOU EAT? Because the keto diet has such a high fat requirement, followers must eat fat at each meal. In a daily -2,000calorie diet, that might look like 165 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, and 75 grams of protein. However, the exact ratio depends on your particular needs.

Some healthy unsaturated fats are allowed on the keto diet — like nuts (almonds, walnuts), seeds, avocados, tofu, and olive oil. But saturated fats from oils (palm, coconut), lard, butter, and cocoa butter are encouraged in high amounts.

Photo showing young woman eating a bowl of salad. (Getty)

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Protein is part of the keto diet, but it doesn›t typically discriminate between lean protein foods and protein sources high in saturated fat such as beef, pork, and bacon.

What about fruits and vegetables? All fruits are rich in carbs, but you can have certain fruits (usually berries) in small portions. Vegetables (also rich in carbs) are restricted to leafy greens (such as kale, Swiss chard, spinach), cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, bell peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, cucumber, celery, and summer squashes. A cup of chopped broccoli has about six carbs.

KETO RISKS A ketogenic diet has numerous risks. Top of the list: it›s high in saturated fat. McManus recommends that you keep saturated fats to no more than %7 of your daily calories because of the link to heart disease. And indeed, the keto diet is associated with an increase in «bad» LDL cholesterol, which is also linked to heart disease.

Other potential keto risks include these: Nutrient deficiency. «If you›re not eating a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and grains, you may be at risk for deficiencies in micronutrients, including selenium, magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins B and C,» McManus says.

Liver problems. With so much fat to metabolize, the diet could make any existing liver conditions worse.

Kidney problems. The kidneys help metabolize protein, and McManus says the keto diet may overload them.

(The current recommended intake for protein averages 46 Those risks add up — so make sure that you talk to a grams per day for women, and 56 grams for men). doctor and a registered dietitian before ever attempting a Constipation. The keto diet is low in fibrous foods like ketogenic diet. grains and legumes.

Fuzzy thinking and mood swings. «The brain needs sugar What about the other diets? from healthy carbohydrates to function. Low-carb diets The popular low-carb diets (such as Atkins or Paleo) may cause confusion and irritability,» McManus says. modify a true keto diet. But they come with the same risks if you overdo it on fats and proteins and lay off the carbs.

So why do people follow the diets? «They›re everywhere, and people hear anecdotally that they work,» McManus says. Theories about short-term low-carb diet success include lower appetite because fat burns slower than carbs. «But again, we don›t know about the long term,» she says. «And eating a restrictive diet, no matter what the plan, is difficult to sustain. Once you resume a normal diet, the weight will likely return.»

But a true ketogenic diet is different. Unlike other low-carb diets, which focus on protein, a keto plan centers on fat, which supplies as much as %90 of daily calories.

Originally published in the Harvard Health Letter

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Photo showing young woman eating salad while looking at a laptop. (Getty)

Illustration showing the benefits of a keto diet.

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Unseen Causes Poor Mental Health Can Lead to Physical Ailments

By Aneri Pattani* When she was 14 years old, Diana Chao began having migraines. She often felt dizzy as she walked. Sunlight seemed to pierce her skull.

“It felt like shards digging into my eyes,” said Chao, now 20 and a sophomore at Princeton University.

After a week of constant pain, her parents took her to an optometrist. That’s when they learned she was “swelling

from the inside out,” Chao said.

She had uveitis, an inflammatory eye disease that can send the pressure inside an eye soaring and render people temporarily blind.

For the next four years, Chao visited ophthalmologists, rheumatologists and many other specialists in Los Angeles to find a cause. Episodes of temporary blindness resurfaced every few months.

“But every single test came back fine,” Chao said.

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One ophthalmologist said she’d seen the condition in several patients with mental illness. That’s when it clicked for Chao, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her body might be reacting to her mind.

Cropped Image Of Woman Eye. (Getty Images)

Until one ophthalmologist said she’d seen the condition in several patients with mental illness. That’s when it clicked for Chao, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Her body might be reacting to her mind.

Research shows that mental illness can often manifest as physical symptoms. Depression can show up as headaches, anxiety as gastrointestinal issues, or post-traumatic stress disorder as back pain.

The phenomenon is especially common among Asian-

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Americans, studies show. More research is needed to understand why, but psychologists suggest that it may relate to the stigma around mental illness in many Asian cultures that prevents people from discussing it openly, and traditional Eastern views of an interconnected mind and body.

But many clinicians are unaware of these somatic, or physical, symptoms of mental illness among AsianAmericans, leaving a population of more than 21 million underdiagnosed and undertreated.

Chao, a mental health activist and an avid researcher, looked into the connection between uveitis and psychological distress. While there have been cases linking the two since the 1980s, it isn’t known whether one causes the other.

Still, Chao finds some solace in thinking there might be an explanation for her uveitis. “It’s always been a big question for me,” she said.

The idea of physical reactions to psychological problems is not new, said Miwa Yasui, an associate professor at the University of Chicago who studies mental illness in ethnic minorities. “For anxiety, we think of racing heartbeat and sweaty palms.”

But it can be more pronounced in some cultures, where expression of emotion is discouraged. “Especially for East Asian cultures,” she said, “there’s a tendency to tone down talk about feelings — negative or positive.”

That was the case for Chao’s family, who emigrated from China to Claremont, Calif., when she was in elementary school. Although Chao experienced depression from a young age, she waited years to tell her parents.

Her father had been a traditional healer in China, where the mind and body are often seen as one. Chao said that in her culture, when you say mental illness, “people think there’s something wrong with your body.” And they treat it by addressing the physical ailment. Therapy or psychiatric medication is reserved for people considered “crazy,” she said.

“It’s something that comes from a lack of education, not

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bad intentions,” Chao said.

The uveitis diagnosis reinforced her family’s beliefs. “They thought I don’t actually have mental health problems,” she said. “It’s just an extension of my physical illness.”

For people in any culture, it can sometimes be difficult to verbalize experiences of trauma.

Nary Kith sees this daily in her work with Cambodian refugees in North Philadelphia. Many come to her with complaints of chest pain, headaches and stomach problems. Yet their doctors haven’t been able to find a physical cause.

They often have -term, untreated post-traumatic stress disorder from the war and genocide in Cambodia during the 1960s and ’70s, said Kith, executive director of the nonprofit Kith’s Integrated and Targeted Human Services.

“Having that experience doesn’t go away unless you process it,” she said.

Kith, who is also Cambodian, was born in a refugee camp in Thailand after her parents fled the war. Her family was forced to move twice more before settling in Philadelphia in 1984.

At first they pushed aside the trauma, focusing instead on finding a home, getting jobs and learning the language — just like many refugees Kith works with today.

“When you finally get to process the trauma years later, it’s so overwhelming you can’t function,” Kith said. “It’s going to come out in a physical sense.”

A 2013 study from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School documented neck soreness as a common symptom of PTSD among Cambodians in America. Researchers suggest that it relates to the mental trauma of people during the genocide being forced to carry heavy loads of dirt on a pole balanced on their necks.

“You wouldn’t typically find that in an anxiety inventory, but it may be one of the symptoms a person might report,” Yasui said.

For years, Chao kept quiet about her mental health

But many clinicians are unaware of these somatic, or physical, symptoms of mental illness among Asian-Americans, leaving a population of more than 21 million underdiagnosed and undertreated.

struggles. Even when she had thoughts of suicide, she rarely mentioned them at home.

Instead, she wrote letters to an imaginary stranger who she thought would understand her pain. That practice eventually led Chao to start a nonprofit called Letters to Strangers, which works to destigmatize mental illness and expand access to treatment.

Today, she is open about her mental illness, speaking at mental health conferences and TEDxTeen.

She has fewer episodes of uveitis — a trend she attributes to getting better mental health care and feeling “accepted as someone with mental illness.”

Among what she considers her most important work is speaking in Chinese cultural centers about recognizing signs of mental illness and seeking care. “Them seeing a Chinese person talking to them about it in Chinese helps

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Merry family having Chinese New Year dinner. (Getty)

the information get across a lot easier,” Chao said.

But the responsibility to address this issue shouldn’t lie solely with patients, experts say.

Primary-care doctors, often the first point of contact for patients, need to consider psychological causes for symptoms, two Boston-area psychiatrists wrote in Psychiatric Times.

But it’s a delicate balance. Doctors shouldn’t assume that every Asian-American’s physical ailment has a mental cause, said Jesse Suh, a Korean American psychologist based in Philadelphia.

Mental-health clinicians also need to ask about physical symptoms and cultural factors while making a diagnosis, he said.

Lovella Calica has suffered gastrointestinal issues since she was a teenager. In her 20s, she experienced daily

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stomach pain, nausea, indigestion, and heartburn. Now 37, the Filipino-American has traced it to being sexually abused as a child.

“I was in therapy during all that time, but I didn’t talk about stomach issues with my therapist,” Calica said. Nor did the therapist ask.

Instead, Calica saw countless doctors in Philadelphia, where she lived for 14 years before moving to Michigan last year. In that time, she was diagnosed with acid reflux.

But some symptoms persisted. She addresses them through therapy and medication.

“I still have gas bubbles in my throat,” she said. “They sound like frogs.” *Originally published in The Philadelphia Inquirer * Aneri Pattani is a health reporter at Philadelphia Media Network, focusing on health issues among young people

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Annabella Hilal, the presenter of “Duo Al Mashahir” (Celebrity Duets), is a certified lawyer who has practiced law in the past. She is also a loving wife and mother to four children

Annabella Hilal to Majalla: My choice of clothing is bold, but not provocative Beirut: Nour El Huda Bahlaq

Annabella Hilal has both the beauty and charm to make her stand out among a crowd of thousands. She is both eloquent and courteous but is not afraid to make choices that some might find offensive. She has the poise and confidence of a queen and speaks with a bewitching cadence. She appears every Sunday night on “Duo Al Mashahir” where she captivates millions of viewers with her innocent smile and her soft articulate voice.

It would be remiss if we didn’t mention the fact that she is also the most followed female Lebanese presenter on Instagram.

Hilal is a law graduate and was a practicing lawyer before becoming a successful media presenter and mother. Majalla had the pleasure of interviewing Hilal and she spoke to us about her latest work and the secret to her success.

Q: After three seasons on “Duo Al Mashahir”, are you considering hosting a new show made just for you?

A: Anything is possible and I am always open to change, I am also thinking of new and different ideas. However, I want to approach a winning concept that will match my success on “Duo”. I shouldn’t change just for the sake of change, I should change in a way that maintains my success and that is my number one priority.

Q: Does Annabella Hilal have any rivals in the media industry?

A: Your question shouldn’t focus on any of my rivals; your question should focus on the fact that there is currently no competitive rival for “MTV”. No channel has a program that is similar to ours airing during the same timeslot; our program is also a unique one that is cultural, social and fun.

Q: Would you consider going back to practicing law if you stopped appearing on TV? A: I don’t know what the future holds for me and I believe in living in the present moment. I am proud of all my present success and I also had

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a wonderful past that I will share with my children one day. At the end of the day I am ready for whatever the coming days and years have in store for me.

Q: You have quite a large fan base, is that something that makes you happy? And how would you describe your relationship with your fans?

A: I am happy that I get to connect with fans both in real life and through social media, and I love reading my fans’ comments, both the positive ones and the negative ones. Furthermore, I have over a two million followers on Instagram, making me the most followed Lebanese female presenter and that is something I take a lot of pride in.

Q: Has your relationship with your husband, Dr. Nader Saab, changed after 10 years of marriage?

A: My relationship with Dr. Nader Saab has evolved over the last 10 years and has become stronger than ever, these beautiful years and months seem to go by quickly, this is especially true since we had

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Hilal also said that she prioritizes maintaining her success, and she combines her professional ambitions with her familial obligations to ensure a bright future. our children and built a strong family unit.

Q: A lot of your colleagues who took part in Miss Lebanon have gone on to become actresses, what do you think of them as actresses?

A: I watch all of them and some of them have become real professionals in the field, which is wonderful sense acting is a really tough business to get into in the first place. I am not interested in nor am I considering acting at the present moment.

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Q: Some of Simon Al Asmar’s comments towards contestants in “Duo Al Mashahir” can be hurtful and some would consider them mean-spirited, what do you say to that?

A: That’s just the way Simon is, he won’t change the way he does things. As a matter of fact, his method of criticism is the secret behind many success stories in the industry, 90 percent of today’s stars have trained under Simon’s guidance and criticism which is why we respect his approach and comments.

Q: As someone who has successfully balanced their career, marriage and motherhood, what advice would you give to Arab women?

A: You need to coordinate between and balance all your roles and obligations.

Do not give up on your domestic life or your

In her interview with Majalla, Hilal asserted that she has no desire to immigrate out Lebanon, and is determined to stay in Lebanon through both good and bad times. professional life, as you can be successful on both fronts.

Q: Your bold sense of fashion has landed you some criticism, how do you respond to such criticism?

A: I do make bold choices in the clothes I wear and I believe that my fashion suits me; however I do welcome criticism if my clothes are indeed inappropriate for TV. While my clothes can be defiant in terms of their style and colors, I carefully choose my outfits and make sure that they are suitable for audience members and viewers at home.

(I avoid outfits that others might describe as “bold”, but I see as inappropriate).

Q: Do your four children know that you are a famous woman?

A: They watch my on “Duo Al Mashahir” during weekends, but they don’t catch me on school nights as they go to bed early. Sometimes during holidays I take them with me to the studio.

Q: Would you ever consider giving up your career and devoting all your time to your family?

A: If the time comes where they need me to spend a lot more time with them, then I would be more than prepared to halt my career for them.

Q: Have you ever thought about leaving Lebanon, considering the internal problems that the country is going through, the fact that many of your family members are residing in the United States and your husband often works outside of Lebanon?

A: I have never considered leaving Lebanon, despite the hard times that it is going through and my husband shares my sentiments. We will never abandon Lebanon and will stay there throughout both its good and bad times.

Q: What TV series have enjoyed watching lately?

A: In all honesty, I haven’t been keeping up with many series lately as my work on “Duo Al Mashahir” has been taking up most of my time. But I have been recently watched “Emm El Banet”.

Q: Of all the latest albums that have been released, which album has been Annabella’s car journey soundtrack?

A: Amr Diab’s newest album.

Q: Any final words for your Arab fans and advice for working mothers?

A: Don’t give up on your professional ambitions.

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2019 Screen Actors Guild Awards:

An Important Statement on Diversity Within the Film Industry Ali El Shamy The Screen Actors Guild Awards (SAG) ceremony came and went this past week. Like the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards are considered to be a precursor to the upcoming Academy Awards (Oscars), so if someone wanted to know which films and actors would be likely to win an Oscar this year then watching either or both the Golden Globes or SAGs would be a good way to do so.

One aspect that made this year’s ceremonies unique was the diversity in the participants and nominees in the awards; this comes after the academy received criticism for having no black or Asian actors nominated for the 2015 Oscars.

This would be repeated in the following year’s ceremony as no black actors received any 2016 Oscar nomination.

Black Panther, part of the critically acclaimed Marvel cinematic universe, was praised by critics and fans for its writing, themes and its largely African-American cast. Moreover, the film was one of the first critically and commercially acclaimed black super hero films since 1997’s Spawn. The film was nominated for two awards Best Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture and Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture, respectively. The

film won the first category beating films such as Crazy Rich Asians, which is another significant film due to its largely Asian cast, moreover other Asian languages are featured in the film such as Mandarin and Cantonese. Despite losing, the cast of Crazy Rich Asians stood up as Black Panther’s cast were announced as winners, furthermore both sets of cast members came together in the

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Emma Stone attends the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January ,27 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty)

Angela Bassett, Lupita Nyong'o, and Danai Gurira, winners of Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for 'Black Panther,' pose in the press room during the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 2019 ,27 in Los Angeles, California.

(Getty)

SAG after party and took photos together. Henry Golding, who played Nick Young in Crazy Rich Asians, posted the photo of both casts together on his Instagram with the caption: "Sadly @ crazyrichasians didn't come away with the result but so glad that both films have become a flag bearer for people of [colour] all around the world." Chadwick Boseman, who played the titular character Black Panther/T'Challa, gave the acceptance speech on behalf of his cast members and said: "We knew that we could create a world that exemplified a world we wanted to see. We knew that we had something to give.” Indeed, bringing people from differing backgrounds together is something that we need to see much more of in this world. The film would also win the Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble award beating out other films such as Mission Impossible: Fallout and Avengers: Infinity War. Egyptian-American actor, Rami Malek, won the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, for his performance in Bohemian Rhapsody in which he played the late Freddie Mercury, the front man for Queen. In preparation for the role Malek reportedly took many speech

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classes to be able to match Mercury’s distinctive Received Pronunciation accent as well as dance classes to imitate his dance moves. All that preparation paid off, as many audience members left cinemas in awe of the performance, citing that at some points of the film they forgot they were watching an actor playing Mercury and thought that Malek was Mercury himself. Malek is now widely expected to win Best Actor in the upcoming Oscars, as he now won Best Actor in the Golden Globes and SAG, respectively.

Malek wasn’t the only actor to play a late musician; Mahershala Ali played the African American jazz and classical pianist Don Shirley in The Green Book, and his performance also landed him a win in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role category.

Other significant moments in the night included veteran actress Glen Close won Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role for her performance as Joan Castleman in The Wife.

The TV series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, won three categories in a row: Rachel Brosnahan won

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Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, Tony Shalhoub won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series and the cast won Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble Cast in a Comedy Series.

Emily Blunt won Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for the series A Quiet Place, which is directed by her husband John Krasinski.

In her heartfelt acceptance speech, she tearfully thanked her husband who was in the audience and was also visibly crying tears of joy for his wife.

Critically acclaimed Canadian actress Sandra Oh, who is best known for her role as Dr. Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy, won outstanding performance by a Female Actor in Drama Series for her performance in Killing Eve.

Notable absences in the ceremony include the Netflix film Roma, despite the fact that it has been nominated for Best Picture in the Oscars.

This might indicate the Screen Actors Guild is still not as keen as the Academy with the prospect of Netflix films being placed in the same category as traditional Hollywood films, n it nevertheless important to note that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an Amazon Video series, won three categories in the ceremony. The British film The Favourite was only nominated for two categories (Best Performance by Female Actor in Lead Role and Best Performance by Female Actor in Supporting Role, respectively) and lost both.

Coincidentally, both The Favourite and Roma have 10 nominations the in the upcoming Oscars, the most out of any film and both are nominated for Best Picture.

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Cast members from Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther come together in the SAG after party. (Instagram/ henrygolding)

Sandra Oh arrives at the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January ,27 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty)

Chadwick Boseman arrives at the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on January 2019 ,27 in Los Angeles, California. (Getty)

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Rami Malek, winner of Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role in 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' poses in the press room during the 25th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards (Getty) 01/02/19