Fault lines emerge within the US Democratic party

Egypt’s Plans to Renovate its Synagogues

Brexit: Brought To You By Continental Europe

A Weekly Political News Magazine

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1744 - April - 19/04/2019

Issue 1744 - April - 19/04/2019

Jeddah: The Bride of the Red Sea www.majalla.com

Fault Lines Emerge Within the U.S. Democratic Party www.majalla.com

Editorial Political change can be brought about in various ways. Sometimes it’s a peaceful and smooth transition of power that happens calmly. An example of this is when a head of government abdicates his position after losing an election. Other times, a change in the political system can only come through violent or confrontational means such as civil wars, bloody coups or revolutions. This issue of Majalla takes a look at the various means by which political groups are trying to accomplish political change within their respective state’s political systems, as well as the implications that such change might have on the state.

This week’s cover story by Joseph Braude discusses the points of contention between the progressive and centrist wings of the American Democratic Party. The Progressive wing, led by presidential nominee Bernie Sanders, is pushing for a “Green New Deal” which would pave the way for “Medicare for all”, i.e. basic universal healthcare and free college education. To achieve this, they propose a system of progressive federal taxation in which those of higher earning brackets would pay higher taxes. Meanwhile, the centrist wing is doing all they can to push back such ideas and proposals.

Ayla Jean Yackley writes on the latest mayoral election that took place in Istanbul. The result of the election is a highly contested one as both Ekrem Imamoğlu of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the candidate from Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) claim victory. As one of the major AKP strongholds, Istanbul would prove too valuable to lose. The writer further explores how the pious Imamglu managed to change people’s views on the secular CHP. Yasmine El-Geressi and Ali El Shamy criticize British media outlets for being too inwardly viewing on the issue of Brexit and have taken it upon themselves to explore how the rest of continental Europe views this quagmire. The views from various European media outlets, politicians and governments are explored as well as the views from European citizens around the continent.

James McDougall summarizes the factors that led to Abdel Aziz Bouteflika’s demise and the steps the Algerian people took to depose the long term leader. The writer further stressed that the people are still not satisfied with Bouteflika’s resignation and shortly went back to protesting the streets.

In lighter news, Ali El Shamy and Mirza El Khowedy talk about the history and legendary tales that surround the Saudi port city of Jeddah. The article further discusses the various tourist attractions in the city and the various activities that its visitors can participate in.

Meanwhile, Yasmine El Geressi explores the best paintings that have come out of Egypt’s artists as well as the prices they were sold for. This article is not just a simple list, however, as the writer tells us the stories of both the artists and the background behind these paintings.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

28 Emerging Markets Aren’t Out of the Woods Yet

Issue 1744 - April- 19/04/2019

24 The Fall of Abdelaziz Bouteflika

20 Have Turkey’s Elections Produced a Challenger to Erdogan?

32 14 Brexit: Brought To You By Continental Europe

44 The Best of Egypt’s Art Heritage

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Ahmed Gaid Salah: The Last Vestige of the Revolution’s Old Guard Leads Algeria’s Transition Period 3

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54 How Yoga May Enhance Heart Health

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Smoke ascends as flames rise during a fire at the landmark Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on April -15 - 2019 (Getty)

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Racing camels and their handler arrive at the Al Marmoom Camel Racetrack at the Al Marmoom Heritage Festival on April 2019 ,09 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The festival promotes the traditional sport of camel racing within the region. (Getty)

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U.S. Officially Designates Iran's Revolutionary Guards a Terrorist Group The United States officially designated Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organisation, according to a notice published in the U.S. Federal Register on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump said last week he would make the symbolic but unprecedented move, which immediately was condemned by Iran and created concerns about reprisal attacks on U.S. forces. The IRGC is in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs. It also is involved with the country’s banking and shipping industries.

The new designation makes it easier to prosecute companies or people in the European Union that do business with Iran. U.S. law already punishes U.S.

persons who deal with the IRGC with up to 20 years in prison because of the group’s designation under the U.S. Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, a different U.S. sanctions programme. A day after, Iran’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a bill labelling US forces in the Middle East as terrorist.

During the debate, some hardline lawmakers had demanded listing the entire US army and security forces as terrorist.

UN Weighs Measure Demanding Immediate Cease-Fire in Libya Britain has presented a draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding an immediate ceasefire in Libya after forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive on Tripoli, according to the text obtained by AFP on Tuesday. The proposed

measure said the offensive by Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) “threatens the stability of Libya and prospects for a United Nations-facilitated political dialogue and a comprehensive political solution to the crisis.” The council “demands that all parties in Libya immediately de-escalate the situation, commit to a cease-fire, and engage with the United Nations to ensure a full and comprehensive cessation of hostilities throughout Libya,” the draft says. Dozens of people have been killed and more than 18,000 displaced since fighting broke out on April 4.

Toppled Bashir Moved From Residence to Khartoum's Kobar Prison Deposed ex-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been moved to Khartoum’s grim high-security Kobar prison from the presidential residence, family sources said on Wednesday, as military rulers announced steps to crack down on corruption.

Sudan’s military ousted Bashir after weeks of mass protests that climaxed in a sit-in outside the Defence Ministry compound. Protest leaders say demonstrations will not cease until the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) hands power to a civilian-led authority ahead of elections. The Sudanese Professionals’ Association (SPA), leading the revolt, has called for sweeping change to end a violent crackdown on dissent, purge corruption and cronyism and ease an economic crisis that worsened during Bashir’s last years in power.

Egypt to Hold Referendum on Extending Sisi's Rule Egypt’s election commission said on Wednesday

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rebuilt “more beautiful than before” within five years. Pledged donations from French billionaires, companies and ordinary citizens for the restoration of fire-ravaged Notre-Dame cathedral are approaching 900 million euros (780 million pounds) after just two days, a reflection of the landmark’s resonance in the national psyche.

that a referendum potentially allowing President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to stay in office until 2030 will take place on April 22-20. The ballot, featuring several constitutional amendments, was given final approval in parliament on Tuesday. The changes, if approved, would extend Sisi’s current term to six years from four and then allow him to run again for a third term lasting six years. They would also grant the president new powers over the appointment of judicial officials, bolster the role of the military and create an upper parliamentary chamber. Sisi’s supporters say the changes are necessary to give

Fire Guts Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris; Macron Pledges to Rebuild A massive fire consumed Notre-Dame Cathedral on Monday, gutting the roof of the Paris landmark and stunning France and the world, though firefighters saved the main bell towers and outer walls from collapse before bringing the blaze under control.

Flames that began in the early evening burst rapidly through the roof of the eight-centuries-old cathedral and engulfed the spire, which toppled, quickly followed by the entire roof. Emmanuel Macron has announced he wants to see the cathedral

playing to their nationalist, Hindu-first base and attacking rivals they accuse of appeasing minorities.

The election, in which almost 900 million people are eligible to vote, began last week and ends next month, with vote counting set for May 23 and results expected the same day.

Climate Change Activists 'SHUT DOWN' London Thousands of environmental activists paralysed parts of central London starting on Monday by blocking Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge in a bid to force the government to do more to tackle climate change. The protests are being led by the British climate group Extinction Rebellion and are to involve demonstrations in 33 countries.

More than 200 people have been arrested. Police said they expected the demonstrations to continue in coming weeks and had to strike the right balance between allowing the right to peaceful protest while ensuring disruption was kept at a minimum. him more time to complete major development projects and economic reforms.

Sporadic Violence as Millions Vote in Second Phase of India's Mammoth Election Millions of voters across swaths of southern India cast ballots early on Thursday in the second phase of a mammoth, staggered general election, as sporadic violence flared in the east and the insurgencywracked state of Jammu and Kashmir. More than 155 million people are eligible to vote in 95 constituencies in 12 states on Thursday, with results of the election to India’s -545member parliament expected on May 23. Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have run an aggressive campaign,

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Trump Attorney General's Ruling Expands Indefinite Detention for Asylum Seekers

The U.S. Attorney General on Tuesday struck down a decision that had allowed some asylum seekers to ask for bond in front of an immigration judge, in a ruling that expands indefinite detention for some migrants who must wait months or years for their cases to be heard. The first immigration court ruling from President Donald Trump’s newly appointed Attorney General William Barr is in keeping with the administration’s moves to clamp down on the asylum process as tens of thousands of mostly Central Americans cross into the United States asking for refuge. U.S. immigration courts are overseen by the Justice Department and the Attorney General can rule in cases to set legal precedent. Barr’s ruling is the latest instance of the Trump administration taking a hard line on immigration.

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Fault Lines Emerge Within the U.S. Democratic Party

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The party is undergoing a protracted contest for leadership that will take at least a year to play out in full.

LEFTWING DEMOCRATS CALL FOR SWEEPING ECONOMIC CHANGES Leaders in the progressive wing of the Democratic party have proposed ambitious changes to America’s healthcare and educational system. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a leading contender for the presidency, has been calling on the party to embrace “Medicare for All,” a phrase usually understood to signify a single-payer healthcare system funded by the federal government. Ten senators of the 16 now running have embraced the plan, estimated by the Mercatus center to cost over 32$ trillion over ten years.

In the House of Representatives, the policy agenda for the new Congress was largely dominated by debate over the “Green New Deal” propounded by freshman congressional representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York. It is a far-reaching series of proposals to overhaul environmental regulations and reduce carbon emissions. In a move indicative of its appeal within the party’s progressive wing, five Presidential candidates hastened to endorse the plan before it had been fully released.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks while introducing health care legislation titled the ‹Medicare for All Act of 2019› with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), during a news conference on Capitol Hill, on April 2019 ,9 in Washington, DC. (Getty)

by Joseph Braude As the contest for Democratic presidential nominee gains steam, several progressive voices within the party have floated aggressive proposals for tax increases, healthcare expansions, and realigning U.S. foreign policy.

The initiatives have drawn broad and sometimes sharp criticism from more centrist elements of the party’s leadership, highlighting a contest underway with implications for the country and the world.

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Several candidates have also proposed significant tax increases in order to fund new spending on healthcare and education.

Beginning in January, Ocasio Cortez called for a 70 percent income tax rate on incomes over 10$ million. Others have followed her lead. In the same month, Senator Warren of Massachusetts proposed a wealth tax of 2 percent on Americans with more than 50$ million in assets. Senator Sanders of Vermont, for his part, has endorsed a 52 percent income tax rate on top-bracket earners.

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MODERATE DEMOCRATS PUSH BACK The first of these progressive initiatives to garner significant opposition was the Green New Deal.

While leftwing activists proved eager to embrace the plan, Congressional Democratic leadership showed markedly less enthusiasm. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the plan as “one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive,” adding, “The green dream or whatever they call it, nobody knows what it is, but they’re for it, right?” When the Green New Deal came up for a vote in the Senate, it garnered no votes, with 43 Democrats voting present.

Key centrist contenders have taken similar stances on progressives’ healthcare and education initiatives. On education, Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, during a CNN town hall meeting, declined to endorse Bernie Sanders’ proposals to make college tuition free, saying, «If I was a magic genie and could give that to everyone and we could afford it, I would.”

Likewise, former Congressman Robert “Beto” O’Rourke, previously considered one of the leading contenders for the nomination, reversed his earlier support for Senator Sanders’ singlepayer healthcare, explaining that he is “no longer sure” single payer is the “fastest way to get us” to universal coverage.

Other primary contenders and their allies have also moved to distance themselves from progressives’ more audacious ideas. One of Vice President Joe Biden’s allies, former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, recently summed up many criticisms of the party’s leftward drift: “The only way that

Trump can win is if the nominee is too far to the left.” Asked how he defined “too far left,” Markell said, “The giving-everything-away-for-free lane” of the party.

FOREIGN POLICY SCHISMS

Key differences have also emerged between moderate and progressive camps within the Democratic party on foreign policy.

Key differences have also emerged between moderate and progressive camps within the Democratic party on foreign policy. Leading in the progressive camp, Senator Sanders has called for significant cuts in U.S. military spending and a triangulation between traditional U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia on the one hand and their adversaries, notably Iran,

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US Representative Alexandria OcasioCortez, Democrat of New York, and US Senator Ed Markey (C), Democrat of Massachusetts, speak during a press conference to announce Green New Deal legislation to promote clean energy programs outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, February 2019 ,7.

(Getty)

on the other. In a recent interview, Sanders denounced “a bipartisan assumption that we’re supposed to love Saudi Arabia and hate Iran.”

He argued that the U.S. should play a more neutral role between the two countries: “We’re not going to be spending trillions of dollars and losing American lives because of your longstanding hostilities.”

Other Democrats, such as Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Joe Biden, have steered clear of such rhetoric, instead sounding more traditional notes about bolstering U.S. global leadership. Harris and O’Rourke have often claimed that President Trump

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has diminished U.S. standing abroad and shown undue deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Most Democratic presidential hopefuls have advocated — in general terms, at least — restoring frayed ties with European allies while taking a more aggressive posture towards Russia.

Resolution to these and other issues is unlikely to come soon. The party is undergoing a protracted contest for leadership that will take at least a year to play out in full. Whoever prevails — whether a progressive, a moderate, or a hybrid candidate — will set the Democrats’ agenda for 2020 and beyond.

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Brexit: Brought To You By Continental Europe How the Rest of Europe Views the Quagmire By: Ali El Shamy and Yasmine El Geressi Ever since June 2016 23, British media outlets have been reporting non-stop on the complex issue of Brexit.

Three years on and the 24 hour news coverage in the UK has shown no signs that it will stop it’s Brexit marathon any time soon, especially since the EU recently gave

the British government an extension until October 31 to agree on a new deal. Despite, this extensive reporting, few media outlets have discussed how Brexit is viewed from continental Europe and has instead taken a very inward view on the issue. As such, Al Majalla has decided to give a brief overview of how European media, governments and general populace views Britain’s fiasco.

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MEDIA COVERAGE FROM EUROPE

British Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel share a joke at a round table meeting on April ,10 2019 in Brussels, Belgium. (Getty)

As the Brexit deadline loomed ever closer, Europe’s media saw that it was time that the EU took over the Brexit process to save the British government from its state of increasing chaos and confusion. Germany’s Die Zeit said the EU27 had “firmly taken the lead in the Brexit chaos, and ruled out a disorderly Brexit – for the time being,” which they wrote was a reaction to May’s disappointing presentation which “obliged the EU to take over the job.”

Spain’s El Pais was equally critical of the Prime Minister’s performance. The paper wrote that the EU’s plan “basically boiled down to a short extension with May or a long extension without her”. The sensation of “being in negotiations with a prime minister who is unable to find a viable solution has hardened the position of most member states”, the paper said.

France’s Le Monde wrote that Europe’s plan is “to avoid May’s trap, which was either to blame the EU27 for a chaotic no-deal Brexit or shatter its unity and win an unconditional delay for Brexit”.

Marc Roche, Le Monde’s former correspondent in London says that “In some parts of the French elite, Brexit is seen as a catastrophic mistake that will make you the new sick man of Europe.”

During the anti-Brexit demonstration in London on March 23, the European media covered the event in “ill-concealed relish”, reported the Guardian. France’s Le Monde praised the crowd, which was estimated at 1 million people, as “calm but determined, a sea of European blue…with not a single policeman in sight, but not a single incident either.”

The protest was “rather more about the failings of Theresa May’s government, and rather less about Europe” when compared to previous anti-Brexit marches, Le Monde wrote.

Germany’s Die Zeit commented on the UK’s meltdown and the timing of the demonstration which it wrote came “at the end of one of the most dramatic weeks in British politics in many years … May’s negotiations with the EU have failed, she has lost control of the Brexit process, and the danger of a no-deal Brexit looms” While European press coverage of the Brexit appears to be increasingly critical of Theresa May’s handling of the process, a study of European media coverage of Brexit published in July 2018 by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford in cooperation with the media research specialist, PRIME Research, found that almost 80 percent of the news items adopted fact-based neutral position when reporting the Brexit negotiation.

Where a vow was taken, it was mostly negative towards Britains decision to exit the EU and the way in which the government had handled the process. The study also found that while the media across the continent followed the Brexit debate closely, they appeared unconcerned about the UK’s EU departure - regarding it as Britains

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While European press coverage of the Brexit appears to be increasingly critical of Theresa May’s handling of the process, a study of European media coverage found that almost 80 percent of the news items adopted fact-based neutral position when reporting the Brexit negotiation. own problem rather than a collective challenge for Europe which would impact their own country’s national interests.

“Only one in ten reports, on average, covered the issue from a perspective of national self-interest. However, there was a notable variation between countries. French media reported Brexit as more of a challenge for the United Kingdom rather than for the French or the EU; interest in the future of the EU was highest in Sweden and Greece.

Spanish and Irish media, in particular, expressed a strong view against Brexit, while Italian and French media were slightly closer to presenting a mixture of arguments”, the study concluded.

The study, which was based on 39 media outlets and spanned over six months, from September 2017 until February 2018, also found European politicians were rarely quoted in articles on Brexit, which they point is in contrast with the impression often given by the British media that EU politicians are trying to “meddle” in Britain’s politics.

“When protagonists were quoted, the tone of the debate was set mainly by UK Conservatives (12.4 percent) and EU institutions (10.4 percent). UK Labour politicians played a negligible role: they were quoted in only %3 of news items, while vocal Leave campaigners, such as Nigel Farage and UKIP, were even less present (combined share of 0.3 percent).

French, German or other EU national politicians were barely quoted (in fewer than 1 percent of reports). The most quoted person of all protagonists was British Prime Minister, Theresa May, with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier following some way behind”, the report said.

Diego Bironzo from PRIME Research said: ‘Not only is Brexit not prompting too much soul-searching about the European project – at least not across the mainstream media we analysed – but often the underlying narrative is that it is posing a challenge first and foremost to the UK, and

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only to a lesser extent to the continent and its institutions.

Moreover, the impact of Brexit on EU citizens’ lives has been given limited space so far in the news. Considering the potentially huge implications, it may be worth it for media organisations to reflect on how to address this.’

A book published in the summer of last year ‘Reporting the Road to Brexit’ which examined how the referendum and the Brexit process was represented and framed by the UK and International media, suggested that there is evidence of a division in attitudes in the northern and southern EU member states, where the northern countries, such as Norway and Austria, often conveyed a narrative that Brexit is a disaster for democracy. While in southern Europe, in countries such as Greece, the referendum was reported by some media as a victory for democracy over German dominance in Europe.

PUBLIC OPINION Research into public opinion on Brexit and the EU go some way to explaining why EU leaders have been so unwavering in their Brexit stance as statistics indicate that their own citizens seem to be non-plussed about the impacts of the UK’s departure and have shown little indication of a willingness to follow suit. Trust in the EU stands at 42 percent, ten points up since 2015 and the highest level since 2010. A majority of Europeans (56 percent) are now optimistic about the future of the EU, with the biggest increases in France, Denmark and Portugal. About 61 percent of European Union citizens do not expect Brexit to have any “noticeable impact” on the rest of the bloc and about 44 percent of citizens from the remaining 27 member states think that the UK itself will be worse off after Brexit. In neither the French nor the German national elections last year did Brexit attract much attention. ‘In France, after the initial shock, Brexit has become a non-subject… and most French people now

«I am still convinced that we need an orderly exit of the U.K, this is not just in the U.K.’s interest ... but it is also in the German interest, especially in the German interest and in the interest of the 27 [EU] member states.»

swing between complete indifference and bewilderment,’ says Sonia Delesalle-Stolper of Libération.

The official response of the European political class to the Brexit negotiations also seems to broadly be the unofficial response too. Professor Stephanie Walter of the London-based think tank The UK in a Changing Europe has conducted systematic surveys of EU27 public opinion in -6month intervals since the start of the negotiations in the summer of 2017. Walter says that the main insight of her research is that the European public supports the EU’s approach to the Brexit negotiations. «In December 42 ,2018 percent of EU27 voters stated that the EU should take a hard or very hard line in the Brexit negotiations, meaning that it insists on a large ‘Brexit bill,’ secures special rights for EU citizens living in the UK, and denies the UK privileged access to its single market. In contrast, only about 12 percent supported an approach that would accommodate many of the UK’s demands,” she wrote, adding that these preferences have been largely stable throughout the negotiations.

Walter, who is a professor for international relations and political economy at The University of Zurich, also highlights that her research suggests that people who live in regions more heavily exposed to Brexit are surprisingly not more likely to support a softer Brexit and those who have trade ties with the UK tend to favour a harder stance from the EU. She also says that her findings indicate that

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France›s President Emmanuel Macron talks to journalists as Germany›s Chancellor Angela Merkel walks behind him after a European Council meeting on Brexit at The Europa Building at The European Parliament in Brussels on April 2019 ,11.

(Getty)

VIEWS FROM GERMAN GOVERNMENT Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and de-facto leader of the European Union, has been firm on two fronts; first that both the UK and EU should do all they can to avoid a no-deal scenario.

Second, like her British counterpart, she has supported the negotiated withdrawal agreement which has been rejected in the House of Commons on multiple occasions.

Merkel has stated that an orderly Brexit is paramount for both British and European interests, this is evidenced in what she told the Bundestag: «I am still convinced that we need an orderly exit of the U.K, this is not just in the U.K.’s interest ... but it is also in the German interest, especially in the German interest and in the interest of the 27 [EU] member states.»

During the emergency EU Summit, many photos emerged of Merkel and May smiling and exchanging friendly talks, so it is safe to say that while the Prime Minister is losing more friends in Parliament day by day, she has secured a close ally abroad. It should be noted that Merkel’s staunch approval of the negotiated deal will just further hurt its chances of going through the British parliament as it will only deject staunch Brexiters such as the members of the European Research Group.

Financially, Merkel has expressed the immediate impact that Britain’s withdrawal would have on the EU, as she stated that there would be a € 12 billion (10 billion GBP) hole left in the upcoming 2027-2021 EU budget, since the UK is the third largest financial contributor to the EU after France and Germany, respectively. This deficiency would make it difficult for planned EU migration and defense projects, but Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) have expressed a willingness to contribute more to make up Britain’s absence. However, the CDU-SPD coalition has yet to agree to such new conditions and on a proposed contribution figure.

In this Photo Illustration, the front covers of newspapers, ‹El Mundo› and ‹ABC›, display headlines about British Prime Minister Teresa May›s Brexit speech yesterday on January 2017 ,18 in Madrid, Spain. (Getty)

punishment is the least frequently mentioned goal of the Brexit negotiations, and the preference for a harder Brexit stems from a concern for the EU’s long-term stability.

As the UK got a six-month extension to come up with a new Brexit deal, governments around Europe had varied reactions regarding the quagmire that the British government has found itself in. It can be inferred that the quick approval from the EU27- of the extension indicates that the EU has accepted the outcome of Britain’s exit, but would want the exit to be a smooth one.

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The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has naturally had an entirely different reaction towards the entire Brexit process. Jörg Meuthen, one of the AfD’s co-chairmen, has blamed Merkel for the entire Brexit debacle noting that she was the one that drove to the UK to make such drastic decisions. In his view, Merkel’s decision to welcome millions of refugees unto European lands was one of the major contributing factors that persuaded British voters to choose leaving the organization.

As EU parliamentary elections have loomed further, the AfD has started meeting to come up with campaign manifestoes for their candidates. Among the party’s platform is to campaign for Germany’s exit out of the EU

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in the case that no major reforms in the organization’s structure occurs. Ironically, the party also campaigns for the dismantling of the EU parliament itself as it views it as undemocratic; moreover, it views that the law legislation should fall unto individual states rather than a supranational organization.

VIEWS FROM FRENCH GOVERNMENT Unlike Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron has had a much tougher stance on Britain’s predicament. While the UK got a six-month extension, Germany and indeed a majority of the EU27- favored a longer extension that would have potentially stretched to December 31. Macron had decided to speak last in the EU Summit on Brexit where he attempted to block a long extension. Such an action reportedly angered many EU members and was only supported by a small handful of states, namely Belgium. France’s rigid attitude toward the UK has historical precedence as France, under the presidency of Charles De Guile, had blocked Britain’s application to the European Economic Community (the EEC was the precursor to the EU) twice in 1963 and 1967, respectively. It wasn’t until 1973 when the bloc finally approved of the UK’s application to become a fully-fledged member of the EEC. It is evident the French government’s patience is waning thin and desires the process end as quickly as possible, but it does not seem that the rest of the EU shares this sentiment, yet.

VIEWS FROM SPANISH GOVERNMENT The biggest issue that concerns the Spanish government

France’s rigid attitude toward the UK has historical precedence as France, under the presidency of Charles De Guile, had blocked Britain’s application to the European Economic Community (the EEC was the precursor to the EU) twice in 1963 and 1967, respectively.

with regards to Brexit is the status of Gibraltar. The Spanish government has always had a claim to Gibraltar citing the fact that it was a Spanish territory until British and Dutch forces captured it in 1704. The fact that Gibraltarians overwhelmingly voted in favor of remaining in the EU has reopened debates over Gibraltar’s sovereignty. If the UK is to leave the EU, then Gibraltar will have to follow suit, as such Spain could theoretically offer the island the opportunity to remain in the organization by choosing to be a Spanish territory rather than a British one. The Brexit crisis has given Spain a special leeway as it can now veto the prospect of Gibraltar gaining a trade and security agreement between Brussels and the British government.

Theoretically, it can now also request co-sovereignty over the island after the Brexit transition period ends in January 2021. Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, has also said that his cabinet has planned for the scenario of a no-deal Brexit and has protocols in place which would protect the rights of Spanish citizens living in the UK and British citizens living in Spain. The protocols also aim to protect normal trade flow between both states.

Madrid will also undoubtedly closely watch how

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People draped in EU flags protest against the Alternative for Germany (AfD) farright party as they launch their European Parliament election campaign in Offenburg, western Germany on April 2019 ,6. (Getty)

events unfold in Scotland, since its First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has reopened the prospect of Scottish independence since it also overwhelmingly wanted to remain a member of the EU. If such an event were to happen, then it might have a domino effect that would inspire Catalonian separatists to intensify campaigns for Catalonian independence.

VIEWS FROM HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT Hungary’s Prime Minister, Victor Orban, has long been a critic of the European Union, which he views as being run by elite bureaucrats who have lost touch with reality. Orban has especially been critical of Angela Merkel’s immigration policies and has been refusing to allow refugees into Hungary. In spite of this, he has not campaigned on the prospect of leaving the organization, as a matter of fact, his party, the Fidesz Party has been part of the European People’s Party (EPP), the main conservative bloc in the European Parliament and the bloc with the most seats. However, the EPP recently decided to suspend Fidesz from its bloc, which will surely push Orban to become more hostile towards the EU. He has gone on record to say that the UK should not be punished over its decision to leave the bloc and wants to ensure that it continues to have good relations with the EU27-, but recent developments might lead him to take a much less diplomatic stance which might favor the UK, or rather the hard brexiters in the UK, over the European Union.

Co-leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) far-right party Joerg Meuthen gestures as he arrives for the launch of their European Parliament election campaign in Offenburg, western Germany on April ,6 2019. (Getty)

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Have Turkey’s Elections Produced a Challenger to Erdogan?

The Rise of Ekrem Imamoglu

By Ayla Jean Yackley* On the eve of Istanbul’s mayoral election, opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu was drawing small crowds of the party faithful to lowkey campaign rallies. Two days after his stunning upset victory, thousands of supporters thronged the presumptive winner as he paid his respects at

the mausoleum of the founder of modern secular Turkey.

Visiting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s tomb is a tradition for election winners in Turkey. For Imamoglu, it was also an act of defiance. A bitter dispute has broken out between his supporters and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) over his narrow vote lead. The -48year-

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old challenger is energizing the once moribund Republican People’s Party (CHP). Banished from power for four decades, the CHP is now tantalizingly close to controlling Turkey’s biggest cities.

Imamoglu and his rival, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, have both declared themselves Istanbul’s mayor-elect. Less than 0.2 percent of the more than eight million votes cast separate them. A recount has entered its second week, and anxiety is mounting within the opposition over whether the AKP will relinquish its quartercentury hold on Istanbul should the final tally confirm Imamoglu’s victory.

Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate for Istanbul mayorship Ekrem Imamoglu (L) addresses the crowd with the attendance of his wife Dilek Imamoglu (2nd L) during his visit to congratulate Kemal Cebi (not seen) on receiving the certificate of election for Mayorship of Kucukcekmece district in Istanbul, Turkey on April 2019 ,11. (Getty)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has waded into the fight. He sees evidence of “organized crimes” marring the vote and has said that he backs his party’s demand that the election board cancel the Istanbul results outright. A newspaper close to the ruling party denounced a “ballot box coup d’etat”; another saw the machinations of international conspirators behind Imamoglu’s sudden ascent.

And a prosecutor in the northern town of Samsun is weighing a criminal complaint against Imamuglu over the visit to Ataturk’s mausoleum.

The backlash is a case of sour grapes, Imamoglu says. The AKP is “looking for a remedy after their loss at the ballot box, because they’re not accustomed to losing,” he told me. “After [the AKP] ran the city for 25 years, people developed a mindset that it would never change. This shows that democracy wasn’t working. [But] on the street, I see a need for hope, and that this hope is associated with me has given me a great responsibility.”

Before the election, Imamoglu was a largely unknown district mayor of a far-flung Istanbul suburb. His campaign addressed everyday grievances, such as traffic congestion and job creation. Since the vote, he has shown a tougher side, holding impromptu press conferences to accuse the AKP of “acting like they’ve had their toys taken away,” although he has also tried to project a sense of normalcy to reassure a nervous public.

For the AKP, last month’s local elections were

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Two days after his stunning upset victory, thousands of supporters thronged the presumptive winner as he paid his respects at the mausoleum of the founder of modern secular Turkey. anything but normal. The party suffered its most serious electoral setback in its 16 years in power, as an unusually united opposition tapped into widespread economic discontent to flip control of Ankara and nine provincial capitals.

The Islamist-rooted AKP and its ultranationalist partners still clinched a majority of the votes cast and will remain at the helm of the national government for another four years. But the decline in the AKP’s support in Turkey’s political and economic centers exposes cracks in its city-dwelling base. That decline also threatens the AKP’s longstanding practice of awarding lucrative municipal infrastructure projects to businesses loyal to Erdogan.

Losing Istanbul would not just be a financial hit to the AKP; it would also be a deeply personal blow for Erdogan. He grew up in a poor, waterfront neighborhood in the city and gained national prominence after becoming mayor in 1994, setting the stage for his election as prime minister, in 2003, and as president, in 2014.

Since gaining power, Erdogan has ruled Turkey with an ever-tightening grip. After fending off a military coup in 2016, he launched a sweeping crackdown on those he blamed for instigating it, jailing tens of thousands of his opponents. Last year, he won election to a presidency with vast new powers and little parliamentary oversight. He enjoys unwavering support from a pliant press, almost all of which is run by the government or companies close to it.

During the local elections, Erdogan campaigned

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relentlessly for his mayoral candidates, turning what would have been mundane contests among municipal managers into a referendum on his authoritarian style of rule. At campaign events, the mild-mannered Yildirim was largely sidelined, just the opening act before Erdogan took the stage to warn that the nation’s survival was at stake and to accuse the opposition of consorting with “terrorists” by reaching out to a pro-Kurdish party.

Despite Erdogan’s theatrics, many voters went ahead and punished the AKP for policies that have unleashed soaring inflation and unemployment.

Although Imamoglu refrained from attacking Erdogan, who remains Turkey’s most popular politician, he hammered a ruling elite ensconced in “their palaces” while “Istanbul is in a spiral of hunger, poverty and unemployment.” Largely ignored by the media, Imamoglu took to Facebook to livestream visits to street markets, where he hugged fans and politely engaged AKP supporters who refused to shake his hand.

Pious voters have long shunned the centrist CHP, repelled by its rigidly secularist ideology and stodgy, elitist image. But nominating Imamoglu,

Pious voters have long shunned the centrist CHP, repelled by its rigidly secularist ideology and stodgy, elitist image. But nominating Imamoglu, a practicing Muslim who scheduled time on the campaign trail to attend Friday prayers, allowed the CHP, humbled by so many years in the political wilderness, to broaden its appeal.

a practicing Muslim who scheduled time on the campaign trail to attend Friday prayers, allowed the CHP, humbled by so many years in the political wilderness, to broaden its appeal. It last ran Ankara and Istanbul in the 1970s, and has been in the opposition in parliament since then as well.

“Imamoglu doesn’t carry the baggage of a classic CHP politician,” said Akif Beki, a former press adviser to Erdogan who now writes a column in Karar, a conservative newspaper. “Efforts to discredit him by saying he’s an enemy of the azan [the call to prayer] or will knock down mosques just don’t stick.”

Imamoglu grew up in a religious family in the conservative Black Sea region, and he attended Quran courses in primary school. At university, his politics shifted left. He joined the CHP and a few years later, in 2014, unseated the AKP incumbent to become mayor of Istanbul’s

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President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan greets people ahead of the general assembly of Onder Imam Hatipliler Association in Istanbul, Turkey on April 2019 ,13.

(Getty)

is a worthy pursuit,” said Imamoglu.

The CHP may be coming around to the old adage that all politics are local. It is moving away from its top-down approach of handing out coveted offices to party stalwarts and former bureaucrats, Emre Erdogan, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Bilgi University, told me. “In Imamoglu, it found a politician who got his start in local politics, with natural reflexes and who genuinely knows how to communicate with the man on the street,” he said.

That common touch is something Imamoglu shares with Erdogan. Some observers think the challenger has national ambitions. “Like Erdogan, Imamoglu believes he possesses the secret formula for continued political success,” said Emre Erdogan.

Canan Kaftancioglu, the chief strategist of the CHP’s Istanbul campaign, said the campaign and the recount fight have provided the CHP with a new roadmap. Whether the party will deploy that battle plan in a do-over vote in Istanbul in the coming months or the general election in 2023 remains to be seen.

charmless middle-class Beylikduzu district. As mayor, he won plaudits for building parks and a facility with a modern library and a concert hall.

On religious holidays, he handed out traditional sweets to residents.

The CHP says it wants to win votes from across the political spectrum, and it formed an alliance with a small rightwing party for last month’s elections. Its candidate in Ankara—who also faced a recount but was declared the winner this week after a far more decisive victory—hails from a far-right movement.

The CHP also welcomed support from millions of Kurdish voters, who likely swung the election in Istanbul, after the left-wing Peoples’ Democratic Party, whose base is overwhelmingly Kurdish, tacitly backed the CHP by not fielding candidates in western cities. “I believe this election brings to an end the period when elections were won with polarization … and shows that a unity candidate

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“There used to be a perception that the CHP didn’t work hard enough, that it easily gave up,” Kaftancioglu said. “This time, we’ve made it clear we are in this till the end, until Imamoglu receives his mandate. This strategy has not only consolidated and motivated our base, but has earned the respect of AKP voters.”

That’s the trap in front of Erdogan. Should he succeed in forcing a rematch in Istanbul, he risks compromising his own supporters’ faith in the ballot box. For all the criticism Erdogan faces over the erosion of Turkey’s democracy, his own mandate derives from what he calls the “national will”: his 15 successive electoral victories.

“There’s nothing to be done but to accept that we lost the kingdom of Istanbul,” said Mehmet Kaya, a -59year-old shopkeeper and lifelong supporter of the AKP and its predecessors. “If they cancel this election to hold another one, we will vote for Imamoglu. Turks always stand by the downtrodden.”

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com. * AYLA JEAN YACKLEY is a freelance journalist

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The Fall of Abdelaziz Bouteflika Algerians Want Their Country Back

By James McDougall* The movement began with chants of “No fifth mandate!”

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria since 1999 and just shy of his 82nd birthday, was preparing to run for a fifth term in office, and Algerians decided that they had had enough.

In mid-February, demonstrations against Bouteflika

began in two provincial towns in eastern Algeria, Bordj Bou Arréridj and Kherrata. On Friday, February 22, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in the capital, Algiers, and other cities. Public TV and radio stations tried to ignore the news, but senior journalists resigned and staged their own protest the following week. Over the next five Fridays, demonstrations swelled, with first hundreds of thousands and then millions of people

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The announcement in February that the president, who was receiving medical treatment in Geneva, would run again served to bring all of Algeria’s local dissatisfactions together around a single point: “No fifth mandate!”

Algerians take part in a demonstration demanding the departure of all officials affiliated with the regime of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who stepped down last week after two decades in power in Algiers, Algeria on April ,12 2019. (Getty)

turning out to protest the regime in every town and city across the country. During the week, army veterans, firefighters, judges, journalists, lawyers, students, and teachers marched. The popular movement (or hirak), demonstrators insisted, was peaceful (silmia) and civicminded (madania). It was sudden, spontaneous, and overwhelming. It caught a complacent and sclerotic regime completely off-guard.

Algeria’s décideurs, the backstage “decision-makers” in the military and security services and their political and business associates, had failed to decide. Having run the country for 30 years, they were unable to conceive of an alternative to the aging president.

THE AGING PRESIDENT A coterie of generals brought Bouteflika to power in 1999

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in order to turn the page on a decade of bloody conflict.

That “dark decade,” as it is known in Algeria, began in January 1992, when the army, which had been the real center of power since independence in 1962, canceled the country’s first multiparty legislative elections to prevent an Islamist victory. The coup sparked a violent Islamist insurgency, which in turn spiraled into a brutal civil war. Bouteflika came with a platform of “national reconciliation” and although his 1999 election was recognized as a sham, he initially achieved some real popularity. He had been a charismatic foreign minister in the 1970s, and many Algerians still identified him with that happier era of state building and national pride.

In his first two terms (2009–¬1999), Bouteflika not only tamped down on violence but put the country back on the map.

Nor was Bouteflika just the public face of the army. He removed the generals behind the 1992 coup and created his own center of power. After the end of his second term in 2009, his supporters amended the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. He and his younger brother Said built a network of business and political affiliates, a “Bouteflika clan,” around the presidency.

Crony capitalism flourished in an economy flush with oil and gas revenues, a booming consumer goods market, and lucrative import deals.

But Bouteflika was aging, and in 2013 he had a serious stroke. He was obviously ill during the 2014 presidential election, but there was no credible alternative. Algerians—especially the 70 percent of them under 30 years old who have little or no memory of the 1990s—began to bridle. Although a multiparty system, the regime tightly controlled—and periodically, through elections, redistributed—access, privileges, and resources. Ordinary Algerians felt that their country had been stolen by the political and business elites of what they called “the system,” just as, after independence

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from France in 1962, it had been stolen by the “barons” of the National Liberation Front’s one-party state.

Algerians were not afraid to dissent. Bouteflika’s presidency faced constant, low-level, local protests almost from the outset and one major regional protest movement in the Berber-speaking, mountainous Kabylia region in 2001. What these protests had in common was an underlying demand for more accountable, responsible government. These recent protests were a means for a disenfranchised population to engage constructively with a state that had the money to address immediate, sectional demands. What the state lacked was a farsighted plan for addressing the deeper problem, let alone for managing the inevitable transition from Bouteflika to a successor. The announcement in February that the president, who was receiving medical treatment in Geneva, would run again served to bring all of Algeria’s local dissatisfactions together around a single point: “No fifth mandate!” But this was only the immediate demand: underlying it was already a maximal one, getting to the heart of the matter: “Time’s up for them all!” and “System get out!”

TIME'S UP? This year’s demonstrations, abundantly photographed and streamed on mobile phones via social media, have been a carnival of popular songs, football chants, and inventive, witty placards. Pithy slogans in Arabic, Berber, French, and English have festooned the signs of marchers and the banners draped from balconies, along with the ubiquitous national flag. Whole families have taken part: the crowds of demonstrators include not

The physical occupation of the street—and the organized act of cleaning it up, in groups, after demonstrations are over—has enacted one of the movement’s central demands: for the Algerian people to take their country back.

only young people but their parents and grandparents.

The hirak, for these millions of Algerians, has been a conscious, deliberate reappropriation of public space and national symbols. Portraits of the martyrs of the revolutionary war of independence, fought against French colonial rule from 1954 to 1962, have been prominent in demonstrations. The physical occupation of the street—and the organized act of cleaning it up, in groups, after demonstrations are over—has enacted one of the movement’s central demands: for the Algerian people to take their country back.

Among the most insistent slogans, chants and hashtags, two in particular stand out: Ytnahaw ga! (Get rid of them all!) and Klitou el-bled ya sarraqin, (You thieves have eaten the country). Finally on April 2, the army’s chief of staff, General Ahmed Gaid Salah,

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Algerian demonstrators collect garbage as security forces cordon-off a protest area during an anti-government demonstration in the capital Algiers on April 2019 ,10. (Getty)

repeated his demand, first made the previous week, for Bouteflika to be removed from office on the grounds of medical incapacity. This time, he said it should be applied “immediately.” Bouteflika, whose inner circle had repeatedly stalled since February 22, resigned that evening. A week earlier, Gaid Salah had still been identified as a principal ally of the president and a major figure in his circle. Now he was cutting Bouteflika’s “clan” adrift. Prominent, wealthy business figures affiliated with the president were arrested. A few days later, the chief of internal security and intelligence, who had reported directly to the president, was sacked and his office reabsorbed into the army. By abandoning the president and overthrowing his clique, the army chiefs—who have been the ultimate décideurs ever since independence—no doubt hope to save the system.

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Whether they can do so remains to be seen. Gaid Salah is 79 years old. Like Bouteflika, he is one of the last remaining veterans of the revolutionary generation, which has ruled the country for a half century but proven itself incapable of organizing its own succession.

Another popular slogan has become “1962, country liberated; 2019, people liberated!” On April 5, just a few days after Bouteflika stepped down, Algerians were back on the streets in greater numbers than ever. They don’t want just to see the back of an ailing president— they want their country back.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com. *James McDougall teaches history at the University of Oxford and is the author of A History of Algeria (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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Emerging Markets Aren’t Out of the Woods Yet How They Can Manage the Risks

by AgustĂ­n Carstens and Hyun Song Shin Emerging markets had a bumpy 2018. Over the summer, Argentina and Turkey saw their currencies fall sharply as their economies ran into trouble. Argentina had to turn to the International

Monetary Fund for a 57$ billion loan. Commentators sharpened their pencils, ready to draw parallels with the wave of financial crises that swept over emerging markets in the late 1990s.

Yet most emerging-market economies came through the

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summer’s turbulence more or less unscathed. That is largely thanks to big improvements in economic and financial management since the last major wave of crises in the 1990s.

Most countries that succumbed to crises then have moved from pegged exchange rates to largely floating exchange rates and have adopted sounder monetary policies. Most also now have more resilient banking systems, the result of a general shift away from risky short-term bank funding in favor of long-term funding from bond markets.

Perhaps the most remarkable change since the crises of the 1990s has come in the way emerging-market countries finance their debt. Governments now borrow much more in their own currencies than in foreign ones, making them less vulnerable to runs and currency crises. But risks remain. Developing countries still have work to do if they are to shield themselves from the vicissitudes of global financial conditions.

ORIGINAL SIN Economists once thought that emerging-market countries that borrow from abroad were confined to doing so only in foreign currencies. Barry Eichengreen and Ricardo Hausmann called the phenomenon “original sin” because it seemed to doom developing countries to perpetual dependence on foreign financial conditions.

When a country’s currency fell, its government found its debts harder to pay. Debt crises turned into currency crises.

Buenos Aires' Stock Exchange, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

(Getty)

But since the 1990s, the share of emerging-market government debt issued in foreign currencies has fallen significantly.

Foreign investors have grown more comfortable owning government debt denominated in the local currency. In some countries, such as Peru, South Africa, and Indonesia, foreign investors now hold around 40 percent of government debt in the local currency. Many other large emerging-market economies have figures close to this level. Companies in these countries still rely on foreign currency borrowing, but for their governments, original sin has turned out to be less a fundamental weakness than a passing phase.

Developing countries need to build strong economic fundamentals if they are to benefit in a sustainable way from open global capital markets. central bank to keep inflation under control, the bank can raise rates to bring the economy back to an even keel. But expectations become self-fulfilling: if investors don’t trust the central bank, raising rates by itself won’t do the trick, and drastically tightening monetary policy will further damage an already weak domestic economy. If the political fallout is serious enough, policymakers may lose their nerve and reverse course.

It’s worth taking a step back, however, and asking why a big fall in the domestic currency causes problems at all.

After all, economics textbooks teach that when a currency falls, it gives the economy a boost by making exports more competitive. A stronger economy, the argument goes, then starts a virtuous circle and restores the confidence of global investors.

But although this effect is undoubtedly important over the medium term, it does not always seem to hold in the short term.

That's largely because of the pressure currency depreciations put on global investors. Those investors measure their returns in terms of dollars or other major currencies (such as euros or yen), so exchange-rate moves amplify their gains and losses. A sharp fall in a currency can push investors to sell even more of their assets before the boost to exports turns the economy around and attracts new investment.

Governments have gained greater control over their finances by developing local bond markets, shifting their economies away from relying on the kinds of short-term loans in foreign currency that left them vulnerable in the 1990s. But for all the good these changes have done, emerging-market countries have discovered that borrowing in their own currencies does not solve all financial woes. They are still vulnerable to the ebb and flow of global financial conditions.

Bonds are riskier for global investors than local investors, as we can see by a measure of riskiness known as a bond’s “duration.” The duration of a bond reflects the degree to which the percentage return on the bond depends on changes in interest rates. In general, when bond prices fall, interest rates rise, since the fixed payments to bondholders make up a larger percentage of the bond price. The reverse also holds: when interest rates fall, existing bonds rise in value. The higher the duration, the bigger this effect—that is, the more the bond’s returns will move when interest rates change, and thus the riskier the bond is for investors.

To see why, look at the effects of exchange-rate changes on domestic inflation. If global financial conditions worsen and capital starts flowing out of an economy, the domestic currency falls. When that happens, inflation tends to rise, since imports get more expensive. If investors trust the

Crucially, bond returns—and thus duration—can be expressed in terms of the local currency and in dollar terms. For many emerging-market countries, local currency sovereign bonds have significantly higher durations in dollar terms than in local currency terms. The graphs below show the weekly returns to

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investors from Brazilian sovereign bonds denominated in local currency, with returns in the local currency (on the left) and in dollars (on the right).

Exchange-rate changes and interest-rate changes push in the same direction. When yields rise, financial conditions tend to be tighter, so demand for the local currency falls and the currency depreciates against the dollar (at least in the short term). So dollarbased investors lose twice: because they must convert the local currency back to dollars at the lower rate and because the local currency price of the bond will have fallen in response to the rise in interest rates.

The reverse is also true. When yields fall and bond prices rise, financial conditions are generally looser and investor flows push up the value of the local currency, such that dollar-based investors gain from both the price rise and the more favorable exchange rate. In that case, confidence that the authorities have things under control will limits the sales of bonds, cushioning the joint movement of bond yields and currency movements. This broad pattern holds for emerging markets as a group.

Think of this effect like a wind-chill factor that dollarbased investors experience but local investors don’t.

Global investors have to deal with the effect of currency movements (the wind chill) on top of the underlying local currency returns (the temperature). For this reason, bonds in emerging-market countries tend to be riskier for global investors, who care about returns in dollar terms than they are for local investors, who care about returns only in their own currency. So dollarbased investors stand to gain and lose much more.

Emerging-market governments, it turns out, are still vulnerable to ups and downs in global markets even when they borrow in their own currency.

ORIGINAL SIN REDUX?

The slope of the lines shows the percentage return on the bond to a one-percentage-point change in the yield—that is, the duration.

The important point is that the slope of the red line (which gives the duration in dollar terms) is steeper than the slope of the blue line (which gives the duration in local currency terms). For Brazil, the dollar duration is 8.5 and the local currency duration is 4.3. The same pattern holds in Indonesia, as shown in the graphs below, where the dollar duration is 6.6 and the currency duration is 4.5.

For global investors, who care about returns in dollar terms even when they buy bonds in the local currency, these bonds are riskier than they are for local investors, who care only about returns in their own currency.

Original sin, then, may not have been vanquished after all. It may merely have shifted from borrowers to lenders. To illustrate the point, it helps to consider how global investors make their decisions. Major investors, such as pension funds and life insurance companies, have obligations to their beneficiaries and policyholders in their home currencies—dollars, euros, or yen. Many such investing giants put limits on how much risk their investment managers can take—limits denominated in their home currency. Investors may also be swayed by advice from consultants to give more emphasis to recent news.

Such risk aversion can cause problems. These investors hold assets in a wide range of currencies, including local currency sovereign bonds from emerging-market economies. But although their assets are spread over many currencies, they incur liabilities in only one, their home currency. When emerging-market bonds fall in value, the effect is amplified by the associated currency depreciation, which can trigger global investors’ risk limits, leading them to sell their assets.

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That in turn puts further downward pressure on the borrower’s local currency. If the currency and bond prices both fall far enough, they can set off even more selling by investors.

If that’s the case, then, emerging markets still suffer from original sin, although not in the way Eichengreen and Hausmann originally theorized. Borrowers used to contend with a currency mismatch, as they would take in revenues in the local currency but owe debts in foreign ones. Now, the currency mismatch problem may have moved to the investors, who lend in one currency but must pay their beneficiaries and policyholders in another.

Given this shift, financial analysts should pay more attention to lenders. Commentators tend to focus on the borrowers—their latest current account deficit numbers and budget projections, the twists and turns in their politics—and pay much less attention to what drives the supply of credit. But lenders’ actions matter, too.

THE ROAD AHEAD How should emerging-market governments deal with the new original sin? One way would be to develop a large domestic institutional investor base that sets its objectives in domestic currency terms and is thus insulated from exchange-rate swings.

National pension systems contribute to this goal, and many emerging-market countries, such as Chile and Mexico, have made solid progress in this direction.

But this prescription relies on countries already having large domestic pools of wealth. Some emerging-market countries fit this bill, particularly if they have experienced rapid economic growth and demographic changes, such as an aging population, that increase savings rates. But many developing countries can’t provide such large pools of investors to buy their government debt, at least not in the short run.

They can, however, deepen their domestic capital markets over time.

Take South Korea, which has moved past its unhappy history of financial crises. The country has a rapidly aging population and a large national pension fund, which gives it a deep pool of domestic investors to buy its government debt. As a result, bond yields on its debt don’t vary much and the wind-chill effect is much weaker than for other countries that suffered crises in the 1990s. Countries with a history of financial crises can, it seems, achieve greater resilience than in the past.

Many developing countries still lack deep domestic capital markets, however. In those countries, the central bank is often the largest investor. This arrangement creates a dilemma for policymakers.

When the local currency depreciates, import prices rise, driving up inflation. Policymakers would normally raise interest rates to fight inflation, but currency depreciation usually signals a weak domestic economy, which argues for lower rates. In most cases, external conditions win out and central bankers are forced to raise rates to tighten policy.

This dilemma has generated a long-running debate on how authorities should combine sound management of the economy with policies to mitigate risks in the financial system. One common approach is to use tools that lean against the prevailing winds. When domestic borrowing is rising rapidly, for example,

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Governments now borrow much more in their own currencies than in foreign ones, making them less vulnerable to runs and currency crises. policymakers can tighten monetary policy to prevent the boom from getting out of hand.

Another approach could be to build up foreign exchange reserves when investors are pouring capital into emerging markets. Recent research by the Bank for International Settlements suggests that building up reserves cools down the growth of credit by much more than one might expect from the normal mechanical effect whereby bonds sold by the central bank crowd out lending by commercial banks.

The big difficulty with any systematic intervention in the foreign exchange markets is that the government in question will be accused of manipulating its currency to boost its trade competitiveness. Such accusations bite hard, especially given the current political environment. International policymakers should perhaps allow room for governments to intervene temporarily in currency markets in order to slow the appreciation of their currencies but not to fix the exchange rate for long periods. But even here, the practical details will be difficult to thrash out.

When it comes to debt crises, analysts often see building up foreign exchange reserves as a distant second best to creating a global financial safety net, a collection of national and international policies and institutions designed to lower the risk of crises and tackle them when they occur. Analysts often frame the choice as one between costly self-insurance by emerging-market economies and a centralized insurance scheme.

But in practice, the arguments aren’t so clear-cut. The traditional reason for building up foreign exchange reserves during economic upswings is so that they can be used in a crisis. But building them up may also dampen the boom itself and thus make crises less likely in the first place.

Policymakers must recognize the importance of global liquidity for domestic financial conditions. It is all too easy for an economy enjoying abundant credit to mistake the cyclical upswing in investment for a vote of confidence in its domestic economic policy.

Governments need to be careful not to drink too much from the fountain of global liquidity during times of plenty.

Most important, developing countries need to build strong economic fundamentals if they are to benefit in a sustainable way from open global capital markets. Solving original sin has turned out to be harder than simply following a recipe of good policies, but the success of some countries in putting their debt crises behind them shows that it can be done.

This article was originally published in Foreign Affairs.

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Egypt’s Plans to Renovate its Synagogues Experts tell Al-Majalla: Egyptian President’s Decision to Renovate Synagogues is Significant Step for Coexistence among Religious Groups 32

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By: Khalid Makhlouf

Oriental Languages Professor at Cairo University “The Jewish temples are part of Egyptian heritage.”

Once upon a time, Egyptian Jews were a part of the country’s melting pot and lived harmoniously among all walks of life.

They greatly contributed to Egypt’s economy, society and culture and have left their mark on Egyptian history. The Jewish Quarter in central Cairo is a time capsule that has preserved this society’s accomplishments; as such Al-Majalla toured the Quarter and talked with some of the elders that still live there.

Al-Majalla asked the residents to share their views on the Egyptian government›s decision to renovate Jewish temples and monuments, thereby preserving the legacy of Jewish ancestry in Egypt. To gain an academic perspective on the renovations, AlMajalla also met a number of experts on Jewish affairs

process of renovation and marketing for the idea. If done right, these temples can be national treasures for Egypt which would push the tourism sector forward,” Dr. Najlaa said.

JEWISH CONTRIBUTION TO EGYPTIAN HISTORY

“All existing temples should be carefully documented, not just the famous ones,” she said when asked about the best way to achieve effective preservation.

At one point in time, Jews were an integral part of Egypt’s life, said Professor of Hebrew Language and its Literature in Cairo University’s Faculty of Arts Dr. Najla Raafat Salem, who is also director of the University’s Center of Oriental Studies.

She said synagogues are associated with a certain period of time in Egypt’s history, stressing that renovating these temples and ancient Jewish monuments as part of the Egyptian state’s preservation project is important.

She added that concerned parties should review everything related to temples and Jewish monuments that are considered among the country’s archaeological treasures.

Salem stressed that the project has the potential to attract the interest many people across the globe, as such the state should try market the project to both of ancient Egyptian antiquities and Jews from various world countries, such as the United States and those in Europe.

SIGNS OF RECOVERY Salem has further stated that these efforts will send an important message to the West regarding security and safety in Egypt, emphasizing that in spite of the hard times the country is going through it remains one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world. “This will affirm that Egypt has strongly recovered and is able to have a great influence in various fields, including tourism while maintaining its historical and cultural glamor,” she explained.

TOURISTIC ASSETS It is common knowledge that tourism makes up a large portion of Egypt’s annual GDP. Luckily, Egypt has many touristic assets such as religious monuments. While Egypt’s mosques and churches are well known, its synagogues have fallen into obscurity over the years.

“Specialist advice and historical accuracy are needed for the proper renovation of these temples,” Salem said.

She explained that this includes reviewing all that has been written about Egypt’s synagogues, knowing their origins and their different types.

NATIONAL TREASURES “Study, examination, and scrutiny are important factors in the

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She also pointed to the importance of this step in reviving the tourism sector in Egypt, which has only recently begun to recover.

PART OF EGYPTIAN HERITAGE “The Jewish temples are part of Egyptian heritage,” Professor at the Department of Oriental Languages at Cairo University’s Faculty of Arts Dr. Abdel Wahab Alloub told al-Majalla.

“Some Egyptian Jews still reside in Egypt. Sure, they are few in numbers, but there are still Jews who live in Egypt and consider it their home,” he stressed. He further pointed out the importance of renovating the temples and the existing monuments since they will yield an economic return that will contribute to the revival of the tourism sector.

“Religious coexistence has long been a staple of Egyptian society, and we have been living in a society in which neighbors never asked each other their religious beliefs,” he noted, adding that Egypt is among the prominent countries with interreligious tolerance.

Alloub also told us that “History of Religions” is a subject taught in Egyptian universities’ faculties of arts.

He explained that this subject introduces this history to students through an academic study rather than a religious one, adding that there are many studies in the faculties of archeology that explain this subject very deeply through academic writings.

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PART OF WORLD HERITAGE

The former head of Egypt’s antiquities sector Farag Fada told al-Majalla that the Egyptian State, represented by the Ministry of Antiquities, is renovating the registered Egyptian monuments through a plan that is part of the Ministry›s projects sector.

The renovation process is limited to registered antiquities, he said, stressing that the renovation is part of the Ministry’s strategy regardless of the religious background of the monuments, whether it is an Islamic mosque, a Christian church or a Jewish temple.

“Egypt is a touristic country. It has many monuments from prePharaonic eras, and renovating antiquities in order to preserve them is part of the Egyptian state’s plans,” explained Fada.

He said this project would revive the tourism sector and retain an integral part of the world heritage represented by Egyptian monuments.

THE RICH HISTORY OF JEWS IN EGYPT The history of Jews in Egypt is vast. In the late 12th century, Cairo was the world’s most important Jewish center, but only a few Jews remained in the country after the 1967 war.

Many of the rich Jewish families’ villas located on the Nile River’s banks have been transformed into museums and embassies.

Today the Jewish community in Egypt consists of fewer than 10 individuals. This community, according to Egyptian historians’ accounts, was part of the society’s fabric just like Copts and Muslims.

No one pushed the Jewish communities out of Egypt, but many historians have stated that many Jews started leaving after the nationalization process in Egypt in 1961. But, this wasn’t a kind of discrimination as the process was carried out against all Egyptian capitalists, regardless of their religion.

Many of them also migrated because they were persecuted for

joining the Egyptian Communist movement, yet they were not alone since Muslims and Christians were also persecuted for their communist affiliations.

Those who remained in Egypt enjoyed all their rights; as such Western theories about nationalization being the main driving force behind Jewish mass emigration are baseless.

FACTORS BEHIND JEWISH MIGRATION Egyptian historians attribute the migration of Jews from Egypt to several factors. These include the occupation of Palestine and their personal choice to live in the new Jewish state and the fact that many of them converted to Islam.

Moreover, the leaders of the July Revolution tried to reassure the Jews about their future in Egypt. Mohammed Naguib, the first president, visited the headquarters of the Jewish community and some of its institutions, such as the Jewish hospital in Cairo.

MULTIPLE CULTURES Egyptian Jews were not a single bloc. They came from different cultures and movements of multiple ethnic and racial origins. In spite of this, Egypt, according to many Knesset members, was a great homeland for Egyptian Jews of all sects.

SECTS OF JEWS THAT LIVED IN EGYPT Jews of Egypt were divided into two sects. The first one is the “Rabbanites,” the largest community to which most of the world’s Jews belonged to. They believe in the Torah and the Talmud, which is the commentary on the matters of faith, law and religious history.

The second sect is the “Karaites” Jews who only believe in the Torah and the “Old Testament” and don’t believe in Talmud.

Most of them were poor and lived in Cairo. They worked in various professions; including labor, business and banking and

Hebrew Language Professor at Cairo University: synagogues are associated with a certain period of time in Egypt’s history, stressing that renovating these temples and ancient Jewish monuments as part of the Egyptian state’s preservation project is important.

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they sent their children to Egyptian schools. This sect dissolved into the Egyptian fabric and did not respond to any sectarian calls from abroad. Egypt also had other Jewish sects such as the Sephardim, aka Orientalists, who lived for long periods in Eastern countries, including Egypt, Ashkenazim, who arrived from Eastern Europe.

Karaites, along with some Rabbanites, lived in Egypt for centuries and most Jews from those sects worked as laborers, craftsmen, shop owners, artists, and doctors. Jews of that certain sect were Egyptian through and through as they spoke Egyptian Arabic and looked just like Egyptian Muslims and Copts. They also didn’t live in any ghetto like Jews from Eastern Europe.

TRUE TOLERANCE TOWARDS JEWS OF EGYPT Jews of Egypt have lived in true tolerance for centuries and

were among the wealthiest and most stable Jewish communities in the world. They didn’t experience oppression like the Jews of Europe, thus they added much to the country’s culture, arts and economy. Cattaui Pasha was immersed in political activity and became Minister of Finance then Transportation after the 1919 revolution. He was a member of Egypt’s House of Representatives until his death.

Names such as Felix and Henry Mosseri and Jewish family names such as Harari, Ades, Suares, Samouha, Cicurel, and others were prominent. In addition, there was a group of JewishEgyptian artists who influenced the country’s artistic life which included Raqiya Ibrahim, Dawood Hosni, Leila Mourad, Yacoub Sanoua, Togo Mizrahi and Nagwa Salem.

MAJOR EVENTS THAT CHANGED JEWISH LIFE IN EGYPT Three major events changed everything for the Jews living in Egypt. The first event took place with the advance of German troops in Western Egypt, during World War II. At the time, the Jews of Egypt feared that Germans would win the war and oppress them, so they fled to South Africa. The rise and prominence of Hitler’s Nazi ideology caused a rise of anti-Semitism around the globe.

The second major event was the 1948 war, which caused a surge in Jewish identity politics and instilled a desire within many Jews to migrate to the Promised Land and live in what would eventually become Israel.

The last event happened in the wake of the 1956 war when nationalization decisions were issued and many Jews feared the prospect of losing their properties. They preferred to leave Egypt and smuggle their money through a secret network that was used

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to smuggle Egyptian Jews to Europe and to occupied Palestine.

In a tour inside one of the most crowded areas in Cairo, and perhaps in the world, Al-Majalla tried to investigate everyday life in Egypt›s modern history. We went to the Jewish Quarter’s neighborhood in which Jews of Egypt live along with many other Egyptians and make a living in trade.

Al-Majalla also met with a number of people who have shared many memories with Jews in this neighborhood. They said they all lived together, experienced joys and sorrows and came together on all occasions as one family that hasn’t been separated by religion.

They also praised the Egyptian government’s step to renovate their temples as an inherent right since they were a part of Egypt’s social fabric during a significant historical stage. They said this project sends an important message on the coexistence of religious groups in Egypt.

AN AMICABLE RELATIONSHIP Mogahed Ibrahim is an old resident of the Jewish Quarter. He and his family have been closely associated with Jews throughout his life in the neighborhood.

“Jews have been living among us in the area, and we had many Jewish neighbors. They were distinguished by their kindness and never saw anyone differently because of their religion,” said Ibrahim.

“We shared good neighborship with them, and we celebrated each other’s holidays in a loving atmosphere.”

“They were even very honest in their dealings, and we didn’t experience any troubles as neighbors and people living together,” he stressed.

WE RESPECT ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS When asked about his opinion in renovating Jewish temples, Ibrahim said: “We respect all Abrahamic religions, and this is

one of their rights.”

“Religion is to God alone, and every person has the right to freely practice their beliefs in a tolerant society.”

He went on to describe his amicable relationship with his neighbors.

“There was no kind of enmity between us, and they have always been honest in their trade activities and in everyday life in general. They were loved by everyone, and they owned shops and different grocery stores,” he explained, adding that coexistence with them had been distinct.

When asked about the most important professions Jews used to practice in the country, Ibrahim said many of them owned and worked in gold and jewelry stores in central old Cairo, which are still present to date.

“They owned shops for selling food and drinks and I remember Naguib and Thabit stores in the Jewish Quarter. They were brothers and partners in some trade and food production. Naguib

Former head of Antiquities Sector in Egypt: “Egypt is a touristic country.

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Residents of the Jewish Quarter in Egypt: They lived among us with respect and friendliness and were part of fabric of the society. temples.”

“I live near the large Jewish temple in Adli Street. The temple was there before I was born, and it was the official temple for the Jews,” he explained, pointing out that there is more than one small temple in central Cairo.

He said two Jewish ladies used to live in the neighborhood, but they had died. The neighborhood was also home to another Jewish man who had converted to Islam and married a Muslim woman, but he passed away 25 years ago. insisted remaining in Egypt and staying Egyptian so he converted to Islam when other Jews were preparing to leave the country.”

A DISTINGUISHED PARTNERSHIP Sherif Abu Ahmed owns a shop in the Jewish Quarter in which he sells children’s accessories and toys. He lived among Jews when they were part of Egyptian society. He has been living there for many years now, and his father had a partnership with a Jewish food dealer. Abu Ahmed described their partnership as “good,” adding that various movies and series portrayed this community negatively.

When asked about Egypt’s step to renovate their temples, he told Al-Majalla that this is a positive step taken as enmity with some Jews is not based on religion.

“We all believe in the Prophet of God, Moses, and in all religions.

Thus, we don’t have any problem with renovating their existing

ONE FAMILY Khaled Mogahed is one of the Egyptian merchants living the Jewish Quarter for more than 50 years now, and he sells house appliances and accessories.

“I have been living in this neighborhood for decades, working with my father in trade, retail and wholesale business,” Khaled said.

“We lived normally as a family among Jews,” he told Al-Majalla, describing Jews as “respectful people.”

NOTHING BUT RESPECT “We shared many businesses together in various sectors,” he said.

“My grandmother had a poultry shop, and they used to purchase chicken for the synagogues, and the dealing process was done with all respect.”

He said they were an essential part of society’s fabric. Coexistence was normal and the relationship was good.

POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS Mogahed said renovating their temples is something positive since this is their right after being part of the Egyptian society’s fabric.

“All religions must be respected. They are all divine, and as Muslims, we must believe in all religions, being a condition of our faith.”

He pointed to the positive impressions that the Jews left on the people who have lived with them in the area, including his father.

He said his father had told him many positive stories about his Jewish neighbors, stressing that everyone lived together without any discrimination.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1744 - April - 19/04/2019

Jeddah: The Bride of the Red Sea www.majalla.com

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Ahmed Gaid Salah: The Last Vestige of the Revolution’s Old Guard Leads Algeria’s Transition Period

by Moncef Mezghini Illustration by Ali Minadalou -1 Army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah, who called for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika›s departure, has until now been a loyal supporter of the leader who made him one of Algeria›s most powerful men.

2 - Gaid Salah was born in the Algerian town of Ain Yagout in the Batna region on January 1940 ,13. At the age of 17, in 1957, while Algeria was waging a war of liberation against the French occupation, he joined Algeria’s Liberation Army which battled French colonial rule for three years. Following Algeria’s independence in 1962, Gaid Saleh entered the ranks of the army before attending a Soviet military academy and moving up the ladder.

Gaid Salah successively commanded several military regions, before being appointed chief of staff of land forces in 1994, two years into the decade-long civil war between the Algerian army and armed Islamists.

3 - In 2004, just before he was about to retire, Gaid Salah was picked by Bouteflika to replace chief of staff Mohamed Lamari, who

was again the president serving for a second term. After returning from Paris in July 2013, where he spent 80 days in hospital following a stroke, Bouteflika gave him the added responsibility of deputy defence minister. His appointment was seen as an exchange for his support of Bouteflika for a fourth presidential term in 2014, in spite of his deteriorating health which confined him to a wheelchair.

4 - In recent months, Gaid Salah publicly supported Bouteflika›s bid for a fifth term, until his proposal to end the crisis triggered by the unprecedented opposition that his candidacy raised.

He invoked Article 102 of the constitution under which a president can be removed if found unfit to govern due to a “serious and durable illness” as a way out of the crisis. «It is necessary, even imperative, to adopt a solution to get out of the crisis which responds to the legitimate demands of the Algerian people, and which guarantees the respect of the provisions of the constitution and safeguards the sovereignty of the state,» the general said in a televised speech.

5 - His decision to oust the president, cast his other close associated adrift and declare

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that the army is aligned with the protesters demonstrated a recognition that drastic measures were needed to save the country.

While denouncing cliques of private interests, Gaid Salah claimed that Algeria›s army is «modern and professional”. Following the general’s actions, slogans included: «The army and the people are brothers, brothers» and «the army and the people are one hand”, signalling a vote of confidence in the Gaid Salah’s decisions.

6 - Gaid Salah›s demand for the immediate application of article 102 also mentioned articles seven and eight of the constitution.

These formally state that sovereignty in Algeria rests with the people. Protestor’s demands have been far-reaching from the start, and its momentum has been sustained from one week to the next, with students, lawyers, judges, journalists, academics and even firefighters and army veterans demonstrating on the days between each massive Friday protest.

A popular slogan is: «1962: country liberated, 2019: people liberated.”

7 - The big question now is whether Gaid Salah will permit a transition that really gives sovereignty to the people.

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The Best of Egypt’s Art Heritage A Look at Some of the Most Valuable Arab Artworks

by Yasmine El-Geressi Sarajevo by Omar El-Nagdi 1931-2019 $ 1,145,000

Omar El-Nagdi is a multifaceted master of calligraphy, expressionism, abstract art, making him one of the most celebrated contemporary

Egyptian artists. His paintings touch on the surrealist, the serene and the sensory. He began his artistic education at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Cairo under the tutorship of Ahmed Sabry (-1889 1955) before attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice in 1959, where he studied frescoes and mosaics. During his travels between Venice and

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Mahmoud Said is the only Arab artist to date to have three paintings selling for more than $ 1 million at auction and remains one of the most soughtafter modern Arab artists.

Omar El-Nagdi Sarajevo (1992) by Omar El-Nagdi.

(Image from Christie’s)

Rome in 60–1959, he found himself at the centre of avant-garde artistic and intellectual circles, with Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico becoming one of his most influential mentors. El-Nagdi was referred to in the press as ‘the Egyptian Picasso’ before turning 30.

El-Nagdi’s paintings translate Egyptian life into timeless symbolism that is deeply felt. “My artistic character developed between the Bab Al She’reya neighbourhood and rural Egypt. The influences of the popular area’s noise and the quietness of the rural environment were complete opposites. This affected my artistic personality by making me unable to commit to a certain artistic style,” El-Nagdi describes.

Painted in 1992, Sarajevo is the top selling artwork from the Middle East at auction from a live artist at 1,145,000$ and is widely considered to be “one of the most poignant depictions of the horrors of

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war ever painted since 1937, when Pablo Picasso realized his iconic piece Guernica,” writes writes British auction house Christie›s.

“Although El-Nagdi is generally known for his colourful folkloric depictions of daily life, Sarajevo demonstrates his ability to capture the essence of pain. The Sarajevo triptych is undeniably his most important and ambitious piece. As the title suggests, the work takes as its subject the tragedies that befell the city during the Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian conflict of 94–1990, particularly the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Bosnian and Croat population by Bosnian Serbs.”

Omar El-Nagdi was deeply affected by the persecution of the Bosnian Muslims and the ongoing massacres by Bosnian Serbs. He felt compelled to react to these monstrosities by spontaneously expressing himself in his monumental composition of Sarajevo.

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“El-Nagdi›s Sarajevo is an unprecedented example of its type in the History of Art not only because of the artist›s unparalleled imagination of the scene, but also because of its unique subject matter. El-Nagdi, a Muslim Egyptian painter represents the slaughter of his Bosniak brothers in Sarajevo and its surroundings on the traditionally Christian format of the triptych, a theme that no other artist has ever dared to paint on such a vast scale,” Christies explains.

El-Nagdi’s decision to tackle this difficult subject can be seen as reflecting a broader trend among Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern artists who often grapple with notions of identity, as well as with the cultural and political events that shape people’s thoughts and lives.

Construction of the Suez Canal by Abdel Hadi El Gazzar 1925 - 1965 $ 1,023,750 Born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1925, Abdel Hadi El Gazzar was one of the most important Egyptian artists of the postwar era. He moved with his family to Cairo in 1940 where they settled in the district of Sayeda Zeinab. His depiction of the stark poverty of Cairo’s ordinary working class people led to his arrest under King Farouk’s regime. Inspired by the socio-political issues following the Revolution in 1952 and the Suez Canal Crisis, Construction of the Suez Canal from 1965 is a study for perhaps one of the most

Painted in 1992, Sarajevo is the top selling artwork from the Middle East at auction from a live artist at $ 1,145,000

monumental and referenced works ever to have been painted by the artist. El Gazzar’s dramatic illustration of masses of helpless Egyptians is widely read as a critique of labor conditions and forced displacement in the construction of the High Dame. It is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo. The significance of this work and the fact that it was part of a major Egyptian corporate collection resulted in a record sale for the artist.

“The elaborate assessment of geometric depth of perspective emphasised by the long and curved lines heightens the underlying feeling of a difficult and long-winded path, a metaphor, once again, of the never-ending struggle. There is an element to his drawing that harks to the archaic style of hieroglyphs and Ancient Egyptian wall carvings and paintings and thus hints to the passage of time - after all the Suez Canal was originally used by the Ancient Egyptians before it was officially developed during the Khedive

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Construction of the Suez Canal (1965) by Abdel Hadi El Gazzar (Image from Christie’s)

Ismail reign. Within the drawing El-Gazzar pays particularly special attention to the facial expression displayed on the workers› faces.

The viewer›s eye is especially drawn to the expression of torture and sadness that fills the man›s face at the lower left of the composition”, writes Sotheby’s, one of the world’s largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewelry, real estate, and collectibles.

“A testament to his ability to impart a sense of socio-political statement, even into a work commissioned by the very regime he questioned, Digging of the Suez Canal is undoubtedly a seminal work in the artist›s oeuvre and in both Egyptian artistic and social history.”

El-Gazzar was one of Hussein Youssef Amin’s protégés from his youth and joined Amin’s Group of Contemporary Art, which rejected Western academic approaches to art and were dedicated

Abdel Hadi El Gazzar

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to reviving ‘genuine Egyptian history’ shaping national identity, promoting social reform, and freedom through art. Amin was the most important figure on the arts scene in Egypt in the mid-twentieth century. He belonged to the second generation of the modern Egyptian art movement and was considered a tour de force of talent; teacher, illustrator, painter and musician. As a dedicated teacher and mentor, he influenced many generations of art students at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo.

He became spokesperson for the unheard majority of the population living in poverty and would encourage artists from the poorest, least privileged of backgrounds, in his belief that such a grass-roots movement would lead to social transformation.

Following in the footsteps of the surrealist artists, Amin›s students condemned social injustice, political oppression and the bourgeoisie. “Amin followed the development of his students like a devoted father, even to jail, in his impassioned defence of their art and polemics, for Egyptian art of the modern period was highly controversial, dealing with socio-political issues that went hard against the party line.” Writes Sotheby’s.

The Whirling Dervishes by Mahmoud Said $ 2,546,500 1897 - 1964 Mahmoud Said is considered the father of Modern Egyptian Painting. Born into the aristocratic circle of Alexandria, he was the son of former Egyptian Prime Minister Mohamed Said Pacha (-1863 1928), and the uncle of the future queen of Egypt, Safinaz Zulficar, better known as Queen Farida.

He attended some of the most prestigious schools in Alexandria and Cairo and received training from the Italian artists Casonato Da Forno and Arturo Zanieere. Before becoming a full-time artist in the 1947 at the age of 50, Said studied at the French School of Law in Cairo and held high legal positions, first as a lawyer and later as

a judge.

Said broke away from academic art and the traditions of the West, using them as stepping stones to forge his own signature style which is somewhat figurative in style and classical in subject matter - making him a pioneer of modern Arab painting. His unique style is deeply rooted in

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The Whirling Dervishes (1929) by Mahmoud Said (Image from Christie’s)

the true Egyptian society and his groundbreaking artworks depict the working class, landscapes, formal portraits, and religious ceremonies such as Sufi whirling.

Even the rebellious young artists of the Art et Liberté group — the so-called Egyptian Surrealists, who were highly critical of all the other Egyptian pioneers of the First Generation — adopted Said as an honorary member and included his work in a few exhibits, selecting his famous painting, La Femme aux boucles d’ or «The Woman with Golden Locks» for the including the Mawlawi order performing in their cover of their first exhibition catalogue in 1940. Semahanes, these falling into decline with the advent of the Revolution,” writes British auction Painted in 1992, The Whirling Dervishes is a house Christies. unique subject for the artist whose body of work “In the best of Mahmoud Said›s painting one can consists mainly of landscapes and portraits. see his profound affection for the anachronisms “The Sufi mystic Mawlawi Order was founded and eccentricities of Egypt of his day. The in 1273 in Konya, central Anatolia, by followers Whirling Dervishes, emotionally charged and of Jalal al-Din Mohammed Balkhi-Rumi, and dynamic, powerfully encapsulates this lost facet arrived in Egypt in the wake of the 1517 Ottoman of Egyptian society.” conquest of Cairo. Much of the Egyptian aristocracy had Turkish and Ottoman roots, Mahmoud Said is the only Arab artist to date Mahmoud Said›s family was no exception. In to have three paintings selling for more than 1$ the earlier part of the twentieth Century Ottoman million at auction and remains one of the most traditions were still very much prevalent in Egypt, sought-after modern Arab artists.

The significance of Construction of the Suez Canal and the fact that it was part of a major Egyptian corporate collection resulted in a record sale for the artist.

Mahmoud Said

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Jeddah: The Bride of the Red Sea History and Modern Life in the Port City 48

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Jeddah has always served and still serves as the passage way to Makkah, as such it was a gate that people of varied civilizations and cultures passed through whenever they went to or left the Holy City HISTORY AND LEGENDS OF THE PORT CITY Jeddah has a long and fascinating history that dates back to before the birth of Jesus Christ.

Legend has it that when Adam and Eve descended onto Earth, Eve chose to descend to Jeddah while Adam picked the Indian subcontinent as his destination. To back this theory, there is a burial site located at central Jeddah, which many believe to be the final resting place of the mother of humanity, but the validity of the claim has yet to be confirmed.

Scenic view of Red Sea against sky during sunset in Jeddah.

(Getty)

By: Mirza El Khoweldy Situated in the tropical and sunny Red Sea, Jeddah serves as a great travel destination for those looking to escape the concrete jungles of the city and travel into a historic port city that has both nice resorts and historical sites.

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Nevertheless, archeological excavations have revealed 5,000 years of civilization on Jeddah’s land, for instance Alexander the Great passed through Jeddah sometime between 356 and 323 BC. The famous Arabian Quda’a tribe made Jeddah its home after the Marib Dam in Yemen collapsed in 115 BC. Warriors and knights fought to the death on its coasts, many a brave man lost his life on Jeddah’s lands, from Seljuk, Ayubi and Mamluk soldiers. As one of the jewels of the Red Sea, Jeddah was sought after by many invaders. During the 16th century, Portuguese attacked the city while Dutch pirates did the same thing during the 17th century.

Qunsah Al-Ghuri, one of the last Burji Mamluk sultans (1501-1446), wanted to protect this jewel so he built a fortress around it. This prevented any Portuguese incursions coming from the Red Sea. Unfortunately, the walls did not protect the

Night shot of the floating mosque, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Middle East. (Getty)

city for long as it eventually fell under the rule of the Ottomans. In spite of this, the city stayed fortified until 1947, when the walls were torn down.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF JEDDAH Jeddah has always served and still serves as the passage way to Makkah, as such it was a gate that people of varied civilizations and cultures passed through whenever they went to or left the Holy City. It was also a major vessel in the Middle East as it connected the significant hub states of Egypt and Yemen. There are also several folktales and historic stories that surround the neighborhoods and areas in Jeddah. For example there’s Al

The Corniche has a walkway that provides scenic views will instantly put you at ease, especially during sunset.

Mazloum neighborhood, which is named after a historic account which asserts that a scholar living Jeddah called Karim El Berzengy was hanged to death by the Ottomans who had accused him of sedition. As such, the neighborhood in the port city was called Al-Mazloum, which is Arabic for the unjustly accused.

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El Balad is an attraction to non-Saudis who visit Jeddah, with its traditional multistory buildings and merchant houses. (Getty)

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How Yoga May Enhance Heart Health The Ancient Tradition Can Help You Embrace a Healthier Lifestyle

Harvard Heart Many people think of yoga mainly as an activity that promotes flexibility and balance. But this ancient tradition also includes breathing exercises, relaxation, and meditation. Together, these practices can lead to measurable improvements in factors

connected with cardiovascular health, such as lower blood pressure, better sleep, and less artery-damaging inflammation. “There are four distinct but interconnected areas in which yoga has specific benefits, not just for heart disease but any disease,� says yoga researcher and neuroscientist Dr.

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Yoga also encourages deep, slow breathing, which helps lower blood pressure by an average of five points after a few months of regular practice, research suggests. moderate-intensity exercise in the federal exercise guidelines. But the less-vigorous forms of yoga (as well as the active forms) boost muscle strength, flexibility, and balance. These features, which are often overlooked in other forms of exercise, are vital for overall physical fitness and wellbeing, Dr. Khalsa says. Yoga also encourages deep, slow breathing, which helps lower blood pressure by an average of five points after a few months of regular practice, research suggests.

SUSTAINED SELF-REGULATION

Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Following are summaries of the four areas.

BETTER OVERALL FITNESS

The relaxing, meditative aspect of yoga can build up your emotional resilience, helping you to stay calmer during times of stress.

Stress — an unavoidable part of our daily lives — activates the body’s fight-or-flight response. This triggers a rise in heart rate, blood pressure, and the release of stress hormones, all of which are hard on your cardiovascular system. Yoga helps activate the opposite effect, known as the rest-anddigest response. Over time, a regular yoga practice cultivates this “relaxation response,” enabling you to be less reactive to stress and intense emotions, Dr. Khalsamaintains.

A single -90minute session of yoga can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol, according to one study.

GREATER MIND-BODY AWARENESS

Active forms of yoga, such as power or In a 2012 survey from the National Center Vinyasa yoga, are listed as examples of for Complementary and Integrative Health,

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more than %80 of yoga enthusiasts said the practice decreased their stress. Nearly twothirds reported that yoga motivated them to exercise more regularly. And four in 10 said they were inspired to eat healthier.

These changes may reflect the heightened mind-body awareness that yoga practitioners experience. “You’re more aware of the positive feelings you enjoy when you eat healthy foods and exercise. You’re also more likely to notice the negative effects of eating junk food and sitting on a couch all day,” says Dr. Khalsa. Making healthy lifestyle changes is perhaps the most important thing you can do to prevent heart disease, he points out.

TRANSFORMATION OVER TIME? After years of doing yoga, some people find that the practice transforms their lives to an even greater degree. “They have a different perspective on the meaning and purpose of their life, and their goals become less materialistic and more spiritual and charitable,” says Dr. Khalsa. While the relevance to heart disease may be tenuous, some research has found that people with a higher sense of purpose in life are less likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or related cardiovascular problem compared with people who have a lower sense of purpose.

Moreover, there’s good evidence dating back to 1990 that a lifestyle that includes yoga as one of its four key components (along with a low-fat vegetarian diet, moderate exercise, and the maintenance of loving, supportive relationships) can actually shrink blockages in arteries, without the use of medication

GETTING STARTED WITH YOGA If you’re new to yoga, seek out a beginner

or “gentle” class, especially if you’re over 65 or have any medical conditions. To reap the greatest reward, find a class that features all four pillars of yoga: postures, breathing practices, deep relaxation, and meditation. In addition to dedicated yoga studios, many health clubs and community or senior centers now offer classes.

You might need some persistence to find a teacher and style of yoga that resonates for you. It’s like buying a car, says Dr. Khalsa.

“You wouldn’t walk onto a car lot and buy the first car the dealer recommends. You shop around.”

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19/04/19

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19/04/19