A New War of Words Between Tehran and Washington

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The Fall of Daraa

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A New War of Words Between Tehran and Washington While Opponents of the Tehran Regime Worry About a New Diplomatic Process Which the Mullahs Will Brilliantly Exploit 10

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Whereas Pompeo’s language appeared calculated to encourage Iranian citizens to resist their regime, Trump may have inadvertently helped unify society and state in Tehran against a perceived aggressor Donald Trump responded later that day on Twitter — in capital letters: “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!”

President Trump issued a strongly worded all-caps, late-night tweet after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (right) said that war with Iran would be «the mother of all wars and peace with Iran is the mother of all peace.» (AP)

by Joseph Braude A rising war of words between the White House and the Tehran regime dominated headlines this week. The exchange commenced with a statement by Iranian president Hassan Rouhani during an address to an international diplomatic gathering July 22 in the Iranian capital: Americans, he said, “must understand that war with Iran is the mother of all wars and peace with Iran is the mother of all peace.” He then warned President Donald Trump explicitly, “Do not play with the lion›s tail, because you will regret it eternally.”

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It was not the only harsh statement from the Trump Administration. The same day, during an appearance at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “The level of corruption and wealth among regime leaders shows that Iran is run by something that resembles the mafia more than a government … These hypocritical holy men have devised all kinds of crooked schemes to become some of the wealthiest men on Earth while their people suffer. … We are asking every nation who is sick and tired of the Islamic Republic›s destructive behavior to join our pressure campaign. This especially goes for our allies in the Middle East and Europe, people who have themselves been terrorized by violent regime activity for decades.” The following morning, White House National Security Adviser John Bolton stated that the president had told him “[I] f Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.»

This verbal escalation, in turn, triggered the following words from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Twitter July 23: “COLOR US

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UNIMPRESSED: The world heard even harsher bluster a few months ago. And Iranians have heard them — albeit more civilized ones — for 40 y[ea]rs. We’ve been around for millennia & seen fall of empires, incl[uding] our own, which lasted more than the life of some countries. BE CAUTIOUS!” Zarif was joined the following day by Bahrain Qassemi, a foreign ministry spokesman. Referring to U.S. pressure on other countries to stop importing Iranian oil, he said, “If America wants to take a serious step in this direction it will definitely be met with a reaction and equal countermeasures from Iran.”

Some American observers, striving to interpret the war of words, saw Trump’s Tweet as either more evidence of an erratic, impulsive personality or an attempt to divert attention from Trump’s problematic performance alongside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Others cited the concurrent statements by Pompeo and Bolton as indicative of a more reasoned, coordinated campaign of public pressure. In this more charitable reading, the recent summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was sometimes held up as cause for optimism: Trump’s verbal attacks on the Pyongyang regime had come along with unprecedented international sanctions. The two factors together appear to have brought Un to the table. Washington is now three weeks away from reapplying international secondary sanctions on Tehran following Trump’s departure from the JCPOA. Between new financial pressure, ongoing domestic unrest in Iran, and the apparent

Between new financial pressure, ongoing domestic unrest in Iran, and the apparent campaign of psychological warfare, perhaps a new breakthrough is on the horizon

campaign of psychological warfare, perhaps a new breakthrough is on the horizon.

Yet Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment, warns that one should be careful about what one wishes for — as Trump may veer from bluster and threats to an overindulgence of Tehran that would make the Obama-Kerry

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An Iranian woman checks her mobile walking past an antiUS graffiti depicting the Statue of Liberty on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran, 10 May 2006. (Getty)

negotiations seem hard-nosed by comparison: “The reality is he›s such an erratic President that you could see him dropping bombs on Iran or you could see him trying to build hotels in Iran.”

Eli Lake of Bloomberg meanwhile lamented that Trump’s language undercut the nuances of Pompeo’s speech, which, in addition to its harsh words for the regime, called for empowering and

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protecting the Iranian people. Whereas Pompeo’s language appeared calculated to encourage Iranian citizens to resist their regime, Trump may have inadvertently helped unify society and state in Tehran against a perceived aggressor. And if, as in the North Korean example, the bluster yields a new diplomatic process, Trump may prove far too quick to cut a deal.

The Fall of Daraa Why Syria's Rebels Continue to Fight Assad

by Suha Maayeh and Nicholas A. Heras On July 6, after more than two weeks of hard fighting, forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad stood triumphant at the Nasib gate. The gate, which lies on the Jordanian-Syrian border on the edge of Syria’s southwestern Daraa province, controls the highway leading from Amman to Damascus; its seizure by anti-government rebels in April 2015 had been a serious blow to

Assad. Now, with the government’s recapture of the Nasib gate, Daraa—the rebel stronghold where the uprising that sparked the country’s civil war began—lay open to Damascus. A little more than a week after Nasib’s fall, the city of Daraa agreed to surrender to Assad. For southwestern Syria’s opposition, things weren’t supposed to end this way.

Rebels in Daraa once had high hopes for defeating Assad. In

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Despite the odds stacked heavily against them, many of the armed Syrian opposition commanders wanted to exact a cost on the Assad government for every meter that it gained in Daraa province behalf of the regime made it nearly impossible for the rebels to win by military means. Although they did not know it at the time, Southern Storm had been the last, best hope for the rebels in Daraa.

A Free Syrian Army fighter in Yadouda, in Syria's Daraa Province, May 2018. (Reuters)

mid2015-, on the heels of major rebel advances throughout Syria, Daraa’s armed opposition was convinced that it could expel the regime from its corner of the country. In June of that year, forces led by the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) launched an offensive, dubbed Southern Storm, to evict the regime from the province’s capital city, also called Daraa. Although trumpeted by Syria watchers, Southern Storm garnered little in the way of attention from the international media and barely any support from the opposition’s main foreign backers, Jordan and the United States. And despite initial advances, the rebels failed to take the city. Within a month the offensive had ground to a halt—a de facto defeat for the opposition.

After the failure of Southern Storm, the battle for southwestern Syria—including the provinces of Daraa, Quneitra, and opposition-held areas of Sweida—settled into a stalemate.

Neither Assad nor the opposition could make major gains, although Russia’s September 2015 military intervention on

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In July 2017, Jordan, Russia, and the United States agreed to create a “de-escalation zone” covering Daraa, Quneitra, and Sweida in order to halt the fighting between government and opposition forces and avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. The agreement achieved a type of equilibrium in southwestern Syria that had kept the regime out of rebel-ruled areas while assuring Assad that he would not have to worry about a rebel offensive launched from the region. The de-escalation zone more or less held for most of the year, as the Syrian government, its Iranian allies and their proxy militias, and the Russians focused their attention on conquering what one European diplomat based in Amman described to us as “the low-hanging-fruit areas of Syria.” Between the late summer of 2017 and the spring of 2018, Assad won took large swaths of the lightly populated deserts of eastern Syria back from ISIS and crushed stubborn rebel-held pockets in the spine of western Syria, most notably north of Homs and in the Ghouta region east of Damascus.

But throughout this period Assad continued to keep an eye on Daraa, waiting for an opportunity to reassert control over the southwestern border regions, restart trade with the wider Arab world via overland traffic through Jordan, and remove the Jordanians’ ability to back his enemies. At first, Assad tried to win back southwestern Syria through Russian-led reconciliation talks. These talks, which broke down in early June on the eve of the regime’s offensive, reportedly would have given the opposition local authority in its areas and a share of the revenue from the Nasib border crossing in exchange for the rebels’ agreement to surrender most of their weapons and recognize Damascus’ authority. When the opposition balked at these terms, Assad decided to win southwestern Syria with force.

With the Russians agreeing to provide air support for the regime offensive, the battle was, for all intents and purposes, decided before it began.

On June 17, the regime, supported by Russian airpower and

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Iran-backed foreign militias, launched an offensive to crack the stalemate in the southwest. The fighting had displaced over 325,000 civilians from their homes, more than 70 percent of whom had fled to areas near the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, according to the United Nations. ETANA, a Syrian-led research organization based in Amman, counted 352 civilians killed and over 630 wounded as a result of the offensive, and the UN estimated that more than 720,000 residents of southwestern Syria were at direct risk of being displaced by the fighting.

Now, as in June and July 2015, the rebels were operating without the blessing of Jordan and the United States, which preferred that the opposition to stand down and strike a deal with Assad that would end the humanitarian catastrophe.

The logic was simple: the Southern Front could not fight the regime effectively because it was a shadow of its former self, and both the Southern Front’s foreign backers and the Assad regime knew it. Boasting more than 50 constituent groups and more than 40,000 fighters at the start of Southern Storm, by June 2018 the Southern Front had withered to 15 constituent groups with approximately 15,000 combat-ready fighters, according to interviews with a senior Southern Front leader conducted just prior to the start of the regime offensive. The opposition had been wasting away due to leadership disputes, lack of military support from foreign backers, a dwindling ability to pay its fighters, and apathy among the rank and file caused by the years-long stalemate.

Despite the odds stacked heavily against them, many of the armed opposition commanders wanted to exact a cost on the government for every meter that it gained in Daraa. The regime and Russia continued to engage in reconciliation talks throughout the campaign, trying to convince the rebels that there was no path for them other than surrender. Russia, negotiating on behalf of Assad, and Jordan, negotiating on behalf of the opposition, tried to resuscitate the talks after each breakdown.

Despite the military setbacks and the pressure caused by the humanitarian crisis, many of the rebel leaders in Daraa tried to remain defiant, tapping into a current of resistance within their communities, which have lived outside Assad’s rule for the better part of a decade

Yet even as the rebels lost more and more ground, their leaders remained steadfast in their demand that Damascus grant them effective autonomy in exchange for peace. They were playing a high-stakes game of diplomatic poker with a weak hand, and they knew it.

Some Syrian opposition leaders believe that the history of Daraa offers lessons as to why this region so stubbornly refused a deal. “Daraa fought the French for twenty years and lost,” said a Syrian national who is a top adviser to the Higher Negotiations Committee, which represents the opposition at the UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks. He was referring to the French Mandate era, which lasted from 1923 to 1946, when southwestern Syria, including Daraa, was a center of agitation and resistance to the French authorities. “These are the type of people who fight to defend their lands,” he explained, “even when they know they are losing.”

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general mobilization of the Daraa population. Daraa is unique in rebel-ruled Syria for its government structure, composed of mixed civilian and military committees in which armed and civilian opposition members make joint decisions. The decision to release the statement was made separately by the civilians, although in the end it did not stave off the surrender of the opposition, area by area throughout Daraa. “We haven’t witnessed a battle like this since we started fighting the regime,” said a senior leader in the Revolutionary Army, one of the largest armed opposition umbrella organizations in the eastern countryside of Daraa and the one that had controlled the Nasib crossing.

Despite the military setbacks and the pressure caused by the humanitarian crisis, many of the rebel leaders in Daraa tried to remain defiant, tapping into a current of resistance within their communities, which have lived outside Assad’s rule for the better part of a decade. Their opposition was powered by a cold, even morbid, logic that had been activated by their observation of how the regime has operated over the course of the civil war, including how it has treated the former opposition areas that have surrendered to Damascus.

“It is impossible for anyone who has fired one bullet against the regime to remain alive. If it doesn’t kill him, he will be tried on terrorism charges and then killed,” said one armed opposition commander based in Daraa, whose group is still actively fighting the regime’s advance. “We are now defending our homes, our children, and our women. After half a million martyrs, we will not allow anyone to live in our homes and lands. It is either we live in dignity or die in dignity.”

Two Syrian boys walk down a street amid destroyed buildings in a rebel-held area in the southern Syrian city of Daraa, on September ,6 2017. (Getty)

Despite the reconciliation talks, moreover, important opposition figures in southwestern Syria rejected the notion that anyone who took up arms against Assad would be able to prosper once his rule was reimposed. “I have served with the regime for 30 years, and I know how cunning it is,” said Saber Sifer, a defected Syrian army officer who is now the chief political representative of Hamza Division, one of the most powerful umbrella rebel groups in Daraa. “There are no guarantees with the regime nor the Russians. The Russians did not evict the Iranian militias and there are no guarantees that the regime will not go after people and kill them. The military intelligence is already asking about the FSA names.”

Pushback against accepting the reconciliation agreement with Assad had been strongest among the civilian leaders, who on July 3 took the extraordinary step of releasing a public statement that rejected the regime’s demands and called for the

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This belief that they were as good as dead under Assad anyway, which is common among the opposition leaders, has had devastating consequences for Daraa. Ultimately, it only slightly delayed the inevitable conclusion of all the fighting: Assad won, and the regime is returning to Daraa with a vengeance. Was the resistance against Assad and his Russian partners, in the face of a massive humanitarian crisis that eventually forced their surrender, worth it in the end for the opposition leaders? The one thing they had hoped to do was to hold on to their dignity through honorable resistance against Assad. To Sifer, it is this moment of honorable resistance in Daraa that will be remembered by future generations of Syrians. “We pinned our hopes on the Americans, but now the alternative is resistance,” he said. “We refuse to live in humility. The revolution was for our dignity.”

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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The U.S. Needs a Russia Strategy Now More Than Ever The Real Lesson From the Helsinki Summit

by Michael McFaul U.S. President Donald Trump shocked the world earlier week when, standing side by side with Russian President

Vladimir Putin, he refused to accept the basic facts of the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Trump appeared to back Putin over his own intelligence community, saying during a press conference

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In the face of a growing Russian threat to the interests of the United States at home and around the globe, Washington still lacks anything resembling a grand strategy to meet it Affairs(“Russia as It Is”), U.S. interests will be further compromised and Putin will be further emboldened.

A TALE OF TWO RUSSIA POLICIES

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold a joint news conference after their meeting in Helsinki, July 2018.

(Reuters)

in Helsinki, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia that hacked into Democratic Party servers. In that one answer, Trump guaranteed that the Helsinki summit would become a historic moment in U.S.-Russian relations. Although he later tried to reverse course by claiming he misspoke, the damage was done. Never in previous summits with Kremlin leaders had an American president looked so weak.

The controversy surrounding the press conference is more than understandable, but it should not overshadow another, perhaps more consequential, source of U.S. weakness on display in Helsinki. In the face of a growing Russian threat to the interests of the United States at home and around the globe, Washington still lacks anything resembling a grand strategy to meet it. Trump’s Helsinki performance showed the world that a year and a half into his administration, he has yet even to start crafting an approach. Unless that changes, as I argue in the July/August issue of Foreign

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Trump’s questioning of the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment at the summit was all the more alarming given the long-standing and well-documented evidence for Russian interference. A year and a half before the summit, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published an unclassified report that stated clearly and definitely that “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.” It went on: “We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.

We have high confidence in these judgments.” The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence affirmed the report’s findings in its investigation, stating, “The Committee believes the conclusions of the ICA are sound, and notes that collection and analysis subsequent to the ICA’s publication continue to reinforce its assessments.”

And just days before the Trump-Putin summit, Special Counsel Robert Mueller added amazing details to the Russian operation when publishing an indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers who took part in it.

Putin had clearly ordered an attack on the sovereignty of the United States designed to help Trump win the election. Yet when asked about this Russian operation with the whole world watching at the Helsinki summit, Trump equivocated, saying that he had confidence in both parties. Trump’s answer must have surprised even Putin, but it most certainly jolted Americans watching, triggering widespread condemnation by members of Congress, former national security officials, and foreign policy experts. Republican Senator John McCain called Trump’s statement in Helsinki “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in

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memory.” Former CIA Director John Brennan went even further, calling Trump’s press conference performance “nothing short of treasonous.” The press conference triggered a more intense search of explanations for Trump’s views on Russia. More and more commentators started to speculate about ties between the Russian government and the U.S. president forged during the 2016 presidential campaign, and maybe even earlier.

Trump’s performance was also telling in what it said about the greater U.S. approach to Russia. The juxtaposition of his public statements with his own administration’s stated policies underscores the dangers of not developing a grand strategy. In some actions, the administration appears to be following a strategy of containment. It has continued several policy initiatives of deterrence adopted by the Obama administration in response to Putin’s annexation of Crimea, such as imposing sanctions on Russian individuals and companies, strengthening NATO, and assisting Ukraine. In a few policy areas, the Trump administration has even gone beyond what the Obama administration was prepared to do, including, most importantly, the provision of lethal assistance to Ukraine and the closing of Russian consulates in San Francisco and Seattle.

When Trump speaks about his personal approach to Russia, however, he often contradicts his administration’s policies, as was on vivid display at the Helsinki summit. At the press conference, he not only refused to affirm the facts about Russian actions during the 2016 presidential election but did not denounce Crimean annexation, Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine, Putin’s unwavering support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, or a whole host of other belligerent Russian activities around the world. Instead of containment, Trump made clear that he wants to befriend Putin. Instead of labeling Putin an adversary,

During the Cold War, no American president lavished praise on his Soviet counterparts as being great or strong leaders

he called him a “good competitor” and meant that as a compliment. And as he has done for years, Trump reiterated that it would be a “good thing” if the United States and Russia got along. Even advisers in his own government told reporters after the summit that Trump was riffing, not following the agreed-upon script for the Helsinki summit. The Trump administration thus has two Russia policies, not one.

HOW NOT TO ENGAGE There is nothing wrong with simultaneously using both engagement and containment means for pursuing U.S. foreign policy objectives with respect to Russia. During the Cold War, American and Soviet leaders met at summits even when the consensus, bipartisan grand strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union was containment. But Trump’s approach to engagement, at least as practiced in Helsinki, was different from the Cold War encounters in two important ways. First, no American president during the Cold War lavished praise on his Soviet counterparts as being great or strong leaders. That came after the end of the Cold War. Second, previous American presidents both during and after the Cold War used summits to pursue concrete U.S. foreign policy objectives, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. In Helsinki, the goals of engagement were not clear, and no concrete deliverables were produced as

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Previous American presidents used summits to pursue concrete U.S. foreign policy objectives, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. In Helsinki, the goals of engagement were unclear, and no concrete deliverables were produced as a result of the meeting.

US President Donald Trump (L), Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and others wait for a working lunch meeting at Finland's Presidential Palace on July 2018 ,16 in Helsinki, Finland.

(Getty)

a result of the meeting. Even the agenda moving forward was vague. The only concrete productive proposal hinted at by Putin was a suggestion to negotiate an extension to the New START treaty.

On issues where the bilateral agenda for cooperation was more granular in Helsinki, the “deals” proposed sounded dangerous. Most disturbing, it appears that Trump and Putin discussed the possibility of having Mueller and his investigative team interview Russian military intelligence officers indicted for conspiracy against the United States in return for Russian legal authorities having the opportunity to interview U.S. government and former government officials (including the author) regarding alleged money laundering out of Russia by British businessman Bill Browder and his firm, Hermitage Capital Management. To add to the craziness of this story, Putin suggested that Browder used some of these alleged laundered funds to finance the Clinton campaign in 2016. There is no equivalency whatsoever between Russian government operatives violating U.S. sovereignty during a presidential election and the completely invented Russian allegations against Browder and U.S. government officials who supposedly helped him. Putin appears to have lied to Trump about Browder and his alleged confederates as a way to silence Putin critics. Yet at the Helsinki press conference, Trump called this outrageous Putin proposal “a great idea.” And who knows what other “great ideas” were

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discussed behind closed doors when the two presidents met one-on-one. Already, the Russian government is affirming its commitments to implement the security agreements negotiated in Helsinki, yet Americans have yet to learn what security agreements were discussed.

Presidential engagement that produces these kinds of outcomes does not advance but undermines U.S. national interests.

A COHERENT GRAND STRATEGY Finally, the absence of a coherent, unified grand strategy for dealing with Russia makes it difficult to forge bipartisan support at home or allied support abroad. The beauty of the elastic term “containment” during the Cold War was that U.S. presidents and their partisan opponents outside of government could at least agree on the basic strategy, even when arguing over some of the concrete policy issues. What is striking today, especially after the Helsinki summit, is how little support Trump has generated for his Russia policy even within his own party, let alone among Democrats or allies.

To be effective over the long run in containing Putin’s Russia, the United States needs unity at home and support from allies abroad. A necessary step for advancing this united front is agreement on the basic tenets of the strategy. Conceptual work for devising such a grand strategy needs to be done now more than ever, especially in the wake of the Helsinki summit, even if the product of such strategizing might become usable only after the Trump administration.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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The Chequers Plan and Its

By Jonathan Hopkin Brexit was always going to involve a tricky tradeoff between satisfying the political pressures at home to reduce immigration and diversify the United Kingdom’s regulatory regime on the one hand, and facing the reality of life outside the European Union’s markets for a country deeply embedded in them on the other. This tradeoff has been compounded by another: Theresa May’s tenure as British prime minister has required her to navigate the tensions between Leavers and Remainers in her own parliamentary majority while

negotiating with the European Union on the terms of Brexit. These various tensions have up to now been resolved by stalling. But the fast-approaching deadline for agreeing to the conditions for the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU and to move to the transitional phase of Brexit means that real choices have to be made. These choices have placed a time bomb under the May government.

A TRADEOFF-FREE FANTASY The unravelling of the May premiership began with the special cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s

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ing Down s Government?

May’s carefully crafted negotiating position forced a split in her own government, only to be largely rejected by her European counterpart

Discontents

cooperation, alongside a greater British freedom to diverge in regulating services such as finance.

May’s hope was that this proposal could prove a realistic starting point for negotiations with Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator for Brexit, in the run-up to March.

Theresa May, U.K.'s prime minister, gestures as she delivers a speech in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Friday, July 2018 ,20.

(Getty Images)

country residence, Chequers, on July 6, a meeting which lasted through the weekend and produced an agreed Brexit White Paper. This document, which outlined the United Kingdom’s formal proposal for its relationship with Europe after Brexit, emerged more than two years after the referendum, 14 months after May formally informed the EU of her country’s intention to leave, and less than nine months before the official exit date next March.

The White Paper proposes an awkward mix of high levels of integration in the European single market for goods, based on adherence to a “common rule book” in goods and a complex system of customs

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Yet even before the document had been translated—awkwardly—into the EU’s 22 other official languages, the political sands were giving way below the May government. The minister in charge of leaving the EU, David Davis, resigned immediately after the meeting, complaining that “the ‘common rule book’ policy hands control of large swaths of our economy to the EU and is certainly not returning control of our laws in any real sense.” Days later, after some apparent hesitation, Foreign Minister Boris Johnson followed him out the door, lamenting May’s “fog of self-doubt” that he felt would mean a “semi-Brexit,” leaving the United Kingdom with the “status of a colony.” And from the backbenches of Parliament, Jacob ReesMogg, leader of the intensely Euroskeptic European Research Group faction of the Conservatives, dismissed May’s plan as “an unfortunate U-turn” and argued that the United Kingdom should be prepared to walk away from negotiations if the EU did not offer a better deal.

Meanwhile, in Brussels, Barnier poured cold water on the Chequers plan, expressing concerns about both the fairness of the British proposal for market access outside the EU regulatory framework and the bureaucratic and legal complexity of the British “maximum facilitation” plan for a shared customs space. Barnier also warned that just 13 weeks remain to find an agreement that protects Northern Ireland’s open border with the Irish Republic—the so-called “backstop”—so that the post-Brexit transitional period, which keeps the United Kingdom in the

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single market until a definitive trade deal can be negotiated, can be triggered on March 2019 ,29.

May’s carefully crafted negotiating position forced a split in her own government, only to be largely rejected by her European counterpart. Her weakness was compounded by desperately close votes in Parliament on the government’s trade bill, where only a combination of parliamentary chicanery and help from Labour rebels saved the prime minister from defeat on key amendments.

This close shave has brought a shift in tone, with the government now publishing alarming contingency plans for a “no deal” Brexit involving turning the M26 motorway into a temporary truck parking lot to cope with customs backlogs at Dover and using the army to ferry food and essential medicines around the country. All negotiations involve an element of bluff and brinksmanship. The supporters of the “no deal” approach—including, apparently, the new Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, who this week argued that the United Kingdom should refuse to pay its “divorce bill” if Brussels did not offer a better deal—claim that the EU would meet British demands if only the government were courageous enough to threaten to walk away. But both the trading arithmetic and Europe’s legalistic approach to decision-making suggest otherwise. The IMF report published last week predicted a four percent hit to British GDP and a 0.5 percent hit to the EU27 under the no-deal scenario. These numbers give little reason for the EU to blink first, even if it were possible to concede the United Kingdom’s demands

During the campaign, Leavers promised that the United Kingdom could keep all the benefits of EU membership while freeing itself of the burdens: Johnson famously claimed to be “pro- having my cake and pro- eating it.”

without blowing apart the Union’s constitutional and regulatory framework.

So what do the no-dealers actually want? A small fringe genuinely appears to be pursuing a radical realignment of the United Kingdom’s place in the global economy, either because of a romantic belief that the country can restore its imperial role in the world or because it is committed to extracting the City of London from the regulatory restraints imposed by Europe. But for others, “no deal” represents a dignified retreat from the fantasy that Brexit sold to the British electorate at the time of the 2016 referendum. During the campaign, Leavers promised that the United Kingdom could keep all the benefits of EU membership while freeing itself of the burdens: Johnson famously claimed to be “pro- having my cake and pro- eating it.” But in the past two years, the European Union has shown no signs of wavering from its original, and logical, position: no market access for the United Kingdom unless it accepts all relevant EU rules and European Court of Justice oversight and protects the Irish

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divergence between Dublin and Belfast.

The fate of the Brexit White Paper shows why the British government has taken so long to produce any detailed plan for Brexit: the project that the electorate voted for, of access to the European market but with independence to set its own regulations, customs arrangements, and free trade agreements with the rest of the world, simply could never come to fruition. By drawing the red lines of departure from the single market and customs union early on in her premiership, May won the temporary support of the hard Brexiters but made a Brexit acceptable to the British business community and the majority of Parliament and the public impossible. She has occupied 10 Downing Street for two years by promising a Brexit without tradeoffs, but as the deadline for agreement approaches, she has had to choose.

With choice comes division, as the Brexit coalition fundamentally disagrees about which point of the tradeoff between sovereignty and economics that the United Kingdom should be aiming for.

Theresa May, U.K. prime minister, right, speaks with an employee ahead of a question and answer session with an audience at Reece Group, an engineering firm in Newcastle, U.K., on Monday, July 2018 ,23. ( Getty Images)

peace agreement by resolving the border question.

So for Leavers, the choice now is to either admit the trade-off and the huge costs and risks of the Brexit project and reach an unsatisfactory compromise or to bail out of government and lambast the more pragmatic Theresa May for betraying the dream of a hard Brexit without consequences.

The defection of the hard Brexiters leaves May short of the votes she needs to pursue even the hybrid Brexit of the White Paper, which itself has little chance of being accepted by the EU27.

Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, also riven by a deep internal divide over the issue and keen to face down a weakened May in a general election, is equally unwilling to throw the government a lifeline, even though the majority of Labour MPs would prefer a softer Brexit. The Democratic Unionists, whose votes provide May with her majority in Parliament, will not accept any Brexit deal that treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom, while the Irish government and the EU negotiators will not agree to any regulatory

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WILL MAY STAY? Yet May could still survive. The paralysis of negotiations may suit her internal rivals and the opposition but could also leave the United Kingdom facing a cliff-edge Brexit in the spring of 2019, with planes grounded, customs posts overwhelmed, and supermarket shelves empty.

May’s internal opponents can blame all problems on the failure to make Brexit hard enough from the comfort of the backbenches, but they too fear the collapse of the government, for two reasons. First, they have neither the numbers nor the credibility to take over the process themselves. Second, the chief beneficiary of a government collapse could be Corbyn’s Labour party, currently edging ahead in the polls. Forced to choose between an ignominious retreat from hard Brexit or the risk of an exasperated public voting for the most leftwing government in British history, it may be the Brexiters who blink first.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Macron's Reformist Victory And What It Says About the Future of Unions in France

By Sophie Pedder

time a strike fizzles out. On April 3, the unions at the French national railway, the Société Nationale When French trade unionists strike, the public pays des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF), initiated a attention. Industrial actions in Paris are traditionally series of strikes, and the public lost interest even accompanied by manifs, or demonstrations— more quickly than usual. What is most newsworthy theatrical, festive events that often involve beating about these strikes, however, is not why they began, drums, flares, and barbecued meat. Tales of stranded but why they ended. French President Emmanuel commuters and packed train stations fill the airwaves, Macron has refused to bend to long-standing taboos in and the world’s media turns its gaze, fleetingly, to the French culture against defying the SNCF’s unions, as indicated by his insistence on reforming the railways.

French streets.

Unions will remain a powerful force in French But few foreign observers are still watching by the politics for a long time to come, but Macron’s recent

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The railway workers’ strikes this spring were billed as Macron’s “Thatcher moment” because they tested his reformist resolve and willingness to face down union leaders in the 1980s.) The railway unions chose a pattern designed to cause maximum confusion: strikes would last for two days out of every five, on a rolling basis, including weekends. Their grievance was a draft piece of legislation introduced by Macron’s government in March 2018, which they regard as part of a secret plan to privatize French railways and phase out underused train services in remote areas. The government argued, on the contrary, that the reform was intended to prepare the SNCF for changes set to take place in 2020, when the continent’s domestic passenger railways will be opened up to competition as per an EU agreement made in 2016. Macron’s recent legislation—which Parliament passed in June—turns the railway body into a publicly held company (société anonyme), relieves its debt burden of 35 billion euros (41$ billion), and puts an end to recruitment under favorable contracts that currently enable some SNCF employees to retire as early as the age of 50.

SNCF railway workers demonstrate, on April 2018 ,9 in Paris, as part of their strike over plans to overhaul the national state-owned railway company SNCF. (Getty Images)

In the three months since the strike began, participation has dropped rapidly, from 34 percent of all railway staff on the first day to just ten percent

by June 28. The share of train drivers participating dropped from 77 percent to 36 percent between early April and late June. Several holdouts—including the once mighty Confédération Générale du Travail, a win against the railway workers suggests that the days union that has historic ties to the French Communist of their unchecked power to block reforms may be Party—have continued to strike during the summer drawing to a close. holiday season, specifically targeting busy weekend travel. The first weekend of July saw several scenes TRADITION DERAILED of chaos at railway stations. But the remaining unions—including the more moderate Confédération The railway workers’ strikes this spring were billed Française Démocratique du Travail, which is now the as Macron’s “Thatcher moment” because they tested biggest union in the private sector—have called an his reformist resolve and willingness to face down end to the strikes and accepted Macron’s new law. union leaders. (Margaret Thatcher was famous for Quietly, almost imperceptibly, the French government weakening the power of trade unions during her has demonstrated that it is possible to break a longtenure as prime minister of the United Kingdom standing political taboo (reform of the SNCF),

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confront the unions, and win.

What does Macron’s success say about the impact of strikes on reform efforts in France today? Historically, French unions have not derived their power from membership. Trade union density is only eight percent in France—below that of both the United States (ten percent) and the United Kingdom (24 percent). The power of France’s union leaders rests on their ability to mobilize protesters as well as the statutory roles that they enjoy on works councils within firms and public-sector organizations and as co-managers of the country’s health and social security system.

Twelve years ago, Dominique de Villepin, a centerright prime minister who served under Gaullist President Jacques Chirac, attempted to change the labor contract for people under the age of 26 (the contrat première embauche, or first employment contract). The proposed changes were regarded as unfairly discriminatory against young people, and up to three million French people took to the streets nationwide in union-led protests. Chirac balked and repealed the legislation, even though it had already been voted into law.

Even more impressive, in the autumn of 1995, unions brought Paris and several other cities to a standstill as railway, post office, electricity, and other publicsector workers including teachers joined strikes against welfare reform introduced by Alain Juppé, another of Chirac’s prime ministers. Despite an icy snap in December of that year, some two million people joined the protests, forcing the stiff and technocratic Juppé to shelve his proposed pension

In the three months since the strike began, participation has dropped rapidly, from 34 percent of all railway staff on the first day to just ten percent by June 28.

reform altogether.

This year, however, the railway unions have drawn far fewer people into the streets. At most 500,000 protesters took part in the first manif against the SNCF reform in March. As the strikes dragged on, the numbers dwindled. The unions’ cause failed to capture the public’s imagination, even among a population that is remarkably tolerant of daily disruption in the name of contesting government policies.

ALL ON BOARD WITH REFORM What has changed since railway unions brought the city to a standstill in 1995? First, today’s strikers failed to win over public opinion. In 1995, even as public services were shut down, popular support for the strikers swelled as the weeks wore on. This year, support for the government increased over time: from 51 percent of the French population on the eve of the first day of strikes to 64 percent by early June. Despite student protests and sit-ins on university campuses this spring, unions failed to bring about a convergence des luttes, whereby workers and students unite, as they did in May 1968, in a moment of workerbourgeois solidarity. The railwaymen may hold a romantic place in the French collective imagination.

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approach to reforms avoids outright confrontation with the unions, which detracts from the value of comparisons with Thatcher, who actively sought a demonstration of force in order to assert her political authority. Throughout the drafting of the railway legislation, the French government under Prime Minister Edouard Philippe supervised meetings with union leaders to hear their grievances and make minor concessions. Yet Macron held firm against the SNCF, making it clear that there was “no chance” he would abandon the law.

SHIFTING NORMS

Employees of French state-owned railway transport company SNCF join a demonstration called by nine pensioner unions on June 2018 ,14 in Paris, to protest against French government policy. (Getty Images)

Finally, the impact of industrial action in France has diminished over the past few decades because of technological changes. In the past, when the railways or post offices shut down, activity in a city would cease almost entirely. Now, start-ups such as the carpooling app BlaBlaCar offer solutions—either explicitly or inadvertently—to those rendered immobile by strikes.

Other apps, including the SNCF’s own, supply live updated schedules to smartphones ahead of and during strikes, which takes the sting out of last-minute But French citizens are also finding it increasingly disruptions. Culture has adapted, too. Le télétravail difficult to defend what they see as the unfairly (working from home), for example, has become a favorable working conditions enjoyed by train drivers more acceptable practice. This year’s railway strikes and other railway employees. The government’s case have been inconvenient, confusing, and at times has proven more persuasive. The French want their exasperating. But in a break from tradition, they have treasured public services—railways chief among not paralyzed France. them—to be run well.

A second difference between today’s railway strike and that of 1995 is that Macron’s agenda has more political legitimacy than Chirac’s ever did. In 1995, Chirac was elected on a campaign promise to mend the “social fracture.” But when his prime minister drew up a tough package of measures designed to cut public spending and to help France meet the convergence requirements for European monetary union, voters felt betrayed and took their discontent to the streets.

It would be a mistake to suggest that French unions have been disarmed completely. They retain their role on works councils and in the management of publicly mandated health and welfare systems, and as such they remain players in the organization of public- and private-sector life in France. Strikes will surely continue to be carried out as unions exercise their democratic right to advocate for more favourable working conditions. Fifty years after the uprising of May 1968, protests remain firmly a part of French life. But the past three months have shown that when unions are handled with a strategic mix of respect and firmness, and when public opinion is persuaded that a new policy is good for them, governments need not capitulate to strikes. France is capable of governmentled reform—even if few outside observers are around to witness it.

Macron, however, made no secret of his reformist agenda during his campaign for the presidency. He laid out for voters his exact plans for reforms, down to the last detail of the special “ordinances” he would eventually use to accelerate the passage of a labour reform bill through Parliament last year. Elected with 67 percent of the second-round vote in the spring This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com. of 2017, he secured a firm mandate for change. His

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Privileges to Poverty A Place of Extreme Wealth and Deprivation Within the Same Land

By Maria Asaad I remember looking up towards the blinding ball of fire that stared back at me and the rest of the people in this ever-shining country. Having grown up in the UK for the majority of my life, it amazed me how much the sun came out and shone over this highly populated country. A part of me couldn’t help but feel sadness and

a longing to stay just that bit longer in this magnificent country of wonder.

I started my journey in Egypt just 7 days prior.

Mixed feelings of anxiety and excitement gripped me as I exited the airport to a flood of bodies lining the pavement eagerly waiting to greet their loved ones and visiting friends. The organised confusion of cars all over the road with no structured system reminded me of how

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Piles of rubbish and waste in streets of Cairo (Source- Maria Asaad).

Having spent the first couple of days of my trip in the hustle and bustle of Cairo, I was ready to indulge in a more secluded and peaceful environment. Just an approximate one hour’s drive away from the capital is the remote region of Ain Sohkna. Surrounded by mountainous landscapes, it seems like a world away from the chaos of Cairo.

Movenpick Resort in Ain Sohkna (Source- Maria Asaad).

far away I was from home.

I opened my window to breathe in the hot, polluted air that filled the hustle and bustle of the streets and tried my best to register the million and one things that were happening around me. The lack of systemised organisation both amazed and astounded me. I was ready to delve into the culture and unfamiliarity of this overwhelmingly interesting place.

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As I settled into the 5* resort I was about to spend the next four days in and looked out of my sea view balcony, I couldn’t help but appreciate the natural beauty of deep the blue sea and golden sand that lay just meters away from my room. Breathing in the crisp sea air was a huge contrast to the polluted smog I was used to inhaling just the day before.

Dinner time is usually my favourite time of day whenever staying in a fancy hotel. Aside from

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the chance to dress up and look prim and clean after a heavy day of sweating and sunbathing, I love the chance to admire the array of beautiful foods on offer. The buffets are always neatly presented with fantastic shapes and colours, from the salad bars to the dessert displays.

Taking in the wonderful smells and shapes of the food completes the whole exciting buffet experience.

My four days in Ain Sohka were a slice of heaven. I felt so privileged and lucky to have been able to spend a few days of my trip in such a breathtakingly beautiful place. From the astounding scenery to the unwavering service of amenities and cleanliness, my time in this place of paradise will never be forgotten.

As I made the one hour car journey back to Cairo, I rested in the back of the car still in the relaxation mode of the past four days. That, however, quickly came to an abrupt end. I was suddenly awoken by endless beeping horns and random shouts from drivers. It was clear that I was out of the luxurious cocoon of Ain Sohkna, and back to the hostility of Cairo.

I opened my eyes to the endless streams of brake lights and the smell of smoky car exhaust pipes. The hot air that came from my open window was overwhelmingly suffocating; the crisp sea air I had previously inhaled seemed like a distant memory now. I mentally prepared myself for the next couple of days I would have to spend in the Capital, away from the luxury of the resort I was just indulging in.

The main purpose of my trip was to conduct an interview with an Egyptian icon named Mama Maggie, deemed as the ‘Mother Theresa’ of Egypt. The bulk of her work is amongst the most unfortunate in Egypt who live in extreme poverty. I of course had to travel to one of

these remote areas to conduct this very special interview.

As soon as our car entered the region where we would be meeting Mama Maggie, I unintentionally held my breath; both from the smell and the anticipation. Piles of waste and rubbish lay in the streets, making it hard for even cars to get from one end of the road to another. The sight and smell of the area was a compete juxtaposition to what I had previously been immersed in just a couple of days ago.

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Movenpick Resort in Ain Sohkna (SourceMaria Asaad).

We stepped out of the safe hub of our car and attempted to cross the street amongst the piles of waste and rubbish. I couldn’t believe my eyes. How could places like this still exist in today’s modern world? How is it possible that just a few hundred kilometres from here lay a place of luxury and pure indulgence?

I couldn’t get my head around it. It was a shock watching young children play in the dirt of the street; compared to the children I had just seen playing in the clean, golden sand.

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On my plane journey back home all I had on my mind was the contrast and divergence of life I had just witnessed and experienced in my trip. How could the same country hold such riches and such scarceness on the same land? The wealthy live by one extreme and the poor by another. As I gazed out of the window onto the country that left so many questions on my mind, one thought left an imprint on my conscious- the blazing sun never fails to shine brightly on the people of this wondrous place, both rich and poor.

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How pregnancy and childbirth may protect some women from developing dementia

By Melissa Healy

direction or the other.

Women make up some 60 percent of Alzheimer›s disease patients in the United States, and over her lifetime, a woman is almost twice as likely than a man to develop the memory-robbing condition.

In a comprehensive study that tracked almost 15,000 U.S. women from middle age into their senior years, researchers found that women who gave birth to three or more children were less likely than those who had a single child to develop dementia.

New research offers tantalizing clues as to why that might be, suggesting that either hormonal influences or pregnancy-related changes in the immune system _ or both _ may nudge a woman›s risk for dementia in one

Reporting their findings Monday, the authors of the new research said also that women whose lifetime span of fertility was shorter appeared more likely to develop

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In other research presented Monday, a pilot study that captured the pregnancy histories of 133 British women offered evidence that a female›s likelihood of developing dementia declined as the number of months she had spent pregnant rose.

In many ways, those findings are consistent with the study suggesting a hormonal influence on dementia risk in women. But the author of the pilot study, UCLA anthropologist Molly Fox, said her findings suggest another influence on a woman›s dementia risk _ the profound changes in the immune system wrought by pregnancy.

Collectively, the new research marks a first-ever effort to explore the underpinnings of gender differences in dementia. That effort is certain to uncover insights into the factors that influence the risk of cognitive decline as we age, and possibly ways to counter that risk in both men and women.

For decades, researchers presumed that women were more likely than men to develop dementia because they are more likely than men to survive into old age. As a disease of aging, their reasoning went, dementia is more likely to affect the longer-lived sex.

By suggesting possible roles for hormones and the immune system, the new research has offered some intriguing alternative hypotheses: that women, who evolved to spend much of their fertile years in pregnancy, might long have accrued protections against dementia equal to a man›s. But as families have become smaller, women have lived longer, and their reproductive years have come to account for a smaller share of their lives, it›s possible that women›s dementia risk has risen.

New research on pregnancy, childbirth and dementia suggests that changes in hormones and the immune system may protect women from cognitive impairment later in life.

(Dreamstime)

dementia than were those who began menstruating earlier.

The new findings, reported at the Alzheimer›s Association›s International Conference in Chicago, offer an early clue that hormones, specifically estrogen, may exert some influence on a woman›s risk of dementia.

They emerged from the first study to explore women›s lifetime dementia prospects by tracking a very large group of women over a long period _ for some, as long as 53 years.

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That the female hormone estrogen is at work is suggested by several of the large study›s findings. From 1964 to 1973, the undertaking enrolled female members of Kaiser Permanente ages 40 to 55. Researchers initially collected data on the number of children the women had birthed, how many miscarriages they had suffered, and the ages at which they began and ceased to menstruate. In addition to recording the women›s race and educational levels, they tracked other midlife health conditions, including smoking, high blood pressure and obesity, which are known to influence dementia risk.

Between 1996 and 2017, the researchers combed the women›s health records for evidence of dementia.

Compared with women with one child, women who had three or more children had a 12 percent lower risk of dementia. And that effect was still seen after accounting for the other factors collected by researchers. In

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addition, with each additional pregnancy miscarriage a woman reported, her average risk of dementia rose by 8 percent. Women who had suffered three or more miscarried pregnancies were 47 percent more likely to develop dementia than were women who reported no miscarriages.

Finally, women whose first menstrual period occurred between the ages of 10 and 13 were 22 percent less likely to develop dementia later in life than were women who did not begin to menstruate until age 16.

Paola Gilsanz, a Kaiser Permanente researcher in Oakland and co-author of the new study, acknowledged that the new findings will do little to help women stave off dementia. Many sex-related hormones are involved in reproduction, and they wax and wane in complex patterns. «And you can›t really change when you get your first period or whether you have a miscarriage,» she added, uncovering a link between pregnancies, periods and miscarriages.

«It›s more that these provide a window into sex-specific modes of action» that may underlie dementia, Gilsanz said. If researchers can get a better handle on what factors contribute to dementia, or to its prevention, they are a few steps closer to identifying drugs, dietary influences or behavioral changes that might mimic those effects.

The smaller of the two studies suggests that pregnancyrelated changes in a woman›s immune function may be at work. During pregnancy, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy, a woman›s immune system undergoes dramatic reorganization. To allow the implantation and development of a fetus that could be construed as a foreign invader, the immune system needs to selectively ease its normal level of vigilance.

This retrenchment helps explain why for some disorders linked to the immune system›s hypervigilance _ autoimmune disorders such as allergies and multiple sclerosis _ pregnancy reduces risk or eases symptoms, said Molly Fox, the author of the second study. And there›s evidence that some pregnancy-related changes in «immunoregulation» persist over a woman›s lifetime.

If immune over-reaction is a feature of dementias such as Alzheimer›s disease (and there is strong evidence that it is), then there might be some protective value to getting the immune system to «stand down» during early pregnancy, Fox added.

Fox found that for each additional month of pregnancy a woman experienced, her average probability of developing dementia declined by 5.5 percent.

Fox said the results of her pilot study «would hopefully ... expand the conversation beyond just one hormone _ estrogen _ and encourage larger studies and future research» to tease out women›s dementia risk.

Other research presented Monday expands the picture of women›s dementia risk in ways that offer other insights. One study uncovered a curious difference between men and women whose brains have begun to show the hallmarks of Alzheimer›s disease: that even as physiological evidence of Alzheimer›s mounts, women tend to perform better at verbal memory tasks, such as recalling words and names.

That advantage may act as a «cognitive reserve» for women, serving them well as they navigate the earliest stages of Alzheimer›s disease, the authors of the new

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Mother with her newborn baby in the hospital (Getty Images)

research said. But because families often seek help when they first detect a loved one›s «searching for words,» a woman›s verbal resilience may also delay recognition of the onset of dementia.

By measuring the effects of a female›s reproductive span and her childbearing history on her risk for dementia, the new research is also likely to refine efforts to identify women early who are at higher risk of the disease.

No medication has been found effective in altering the course of Alzheimer›s disease. But mounting evidence suggests that the processes leading to memory loss start decades before behavioral symptoms are evident, and that with widespread early interventions, some cases can be delayed or prevented. That has put a premium on early identification of those at risk.

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In an interview, Suzanne Craft, a professor of geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University, called the new studies an important first step in understanding dementia risk in women. Studies that look at women›s life courses can generate hypotheses about the mechanisms that drive dementia _ or that protect a woman›s brain from its ravages, said Craft, who moderated a panel on the new research Monday morning in Chicago.

Craft said that researchers now should explore these hypotheses in animal studies, clinical trials and in populations of women whose life courses and childbearing patterns are different than those explored here.

This was originally published by The Los Angeles Times.

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Sophia Loren: The Italian Screen Queen Majalla - London Drawing by Ali Al Mandalawi Italian actress Sofia Loren, original name Costanza Brigida Villani Seacolón, was born in Rome on September 1934 ,20. She began her film career in 1951 and rose above her poverty-stricken origins in postwar Naples to become universally regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful women and Italy’s most famous movie star.

Loren was born to Riccardo Scicolone, a contruction engineer, and Romilda Villiani, a piano teacher, who he met while hanging around the fringes of show business hoping to romance young actresses.

Although she would go on to be considered one of the most beautiful women in history, Sophia Loren›s wet nurse remembered her as «the ugliest child I ever saw in my life.»

Sofia said «the two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.» Her mother›s unmarried status lead to a life of poverty.

Things got worse when World War II ravaged the already struggling city of Pozzuoli. The resulting famine was so great that Loren›s mother occasionally had to siphon off a cup of water from the car radiator to ration between her daughters by the spoonful. During one aerial bombardment, Loren was knocked to the ground and split open her chin, leaving a scar that has remained ever since.

Sofia was so undernourished as a child she was called Sofia Stuzzicadente or «Sofia the toothpick.»

By all accounts she was a thin, shy, fearful and unattractive girl.

In -15 ,1950year-old Sophia Loren (born Sofia Villani Scicolone) competed for the Miss Italy title in her native Rome. While at a night club holding the Miss Rome contact, a stranger asked her to enter

the contest but she refused. The stranger returned a second time and told Sofia one of the judges, Carlo Ponti, suggested she enter. Entered under the name Sophia Lazzaro, the local starlet missed the top gong but did scoop the Miss Elegance’ prize, a title created especially for her. More importantly, she also won a screen test with Ponti, one of Italy›s leading film directors. Ponti gave her bit parts in films, believing there was something worthwhile there.

Her first film role was as an extra, one of many slave girls in the American production of Quo Vadis?

(1951). Under the tutelage Carlo Ponti (her future husband), Scicolone was transformed into Sophia Loren. Borrowing Marta Toren›s last name, she changed the spelling of her first and her last name to Sophia Loren. Her career was launched in a series of low-budget comedies before she attracted critical and popular attention with Aida (1953), in which she lip-synched the singing of Renata Tebaldi in the title role.

Her success in Aida lead Loren to parts in nine films that year. One was Anatomy of Love which co-starred Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio De Sica, two men she would successfully continue to work with over time. By the mid1950-s Loren had established herself as an Italian sex symbol. Loren once commented, «Sex-appeal is 50 percent what you›ve got and 50 percent what people think you›ve got.»

Loren’s beauty often overshadowed her enormous talents as an actress, but her earthy charisma is evident even in such early works as Vittorio De Sica’s L’oro di Napoli (1954; The Gold of Naples).

With Ponti’s help, Loren increased her international visibility by appearing in Hollywood films opposite such major stars as Cary Grant (Houseboat, 1968), Clark Gable (It Started in Naples, 1960), Frank Sinatra (The Pride and the Passion, 1957, also with Grant), Alan Ladd (Boy on a Dolphin, 1957), William Holden (The Key, 1958), and Paul

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Newman (Lady L, 1965).

Such exposure was undoubtedly instrumental in helping her win an Academy Award (Oscar) for best actress in De Sica’s La ciociara (1961; Two Women), in which she delivered a powerful performance as the courageous mother of a teenage girl during World War II. Two Women was Loren’s most acclaimed performance of her career. In the film, which has some parallels to her own childhood, Loren played a mother desperately trying to provide for her daughter in war-ravaged Rome. The film transformed Loren into an international celebrity.

She was the first actress ever to win the award for a non-English-language film.

Throughout the 1960s, Loren continued to star in Italian, American and French films, cementing her status as one of the great international movie stars of her generation.

Sophia Loren moved back to her native Italy during the 1970s and spent most of the decade making highly popular Italian films. She had given birth to two sons, Carlo Hubert Leone Ponti, Jr. (born December 1968 ,29) and Edoardo (born January 1973 ,6), and during the 1980s she backed off her intense filming schedule to spend more time raising her teenaged children.

Since the mid1980-s Loren has continued making films, shifting towards television movies. She used her celebrity status on behalf of charity projects such as the Statue of Liberty, protecting GrecoRoman ruins and drought-relief work for Somalian refugees.

After turning 60 in 1994, Loren received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star and numerous lifetime achievement awards. International recognition for Loren’s distinguished acting career included a lifetime achievement Oscar (1991) and a career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival (1998). She also made headlines in the 1990s for her strong defense of animal rights. In 2010 she

received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for theatre/film.

In 2015, Sophia Loren released her definitive autobiography, ‘Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: My Life’ where she vividly recounts her difficult childhood in Naples during World War II,

remembers her parents and their tempestuous relationship, and reveals the pain of growing up in her grandparents› house with her single, unmarried mother and younger sister.

Loren retains her youthful energy and age-defying hourglass physique. She still can be seen strutting

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down the red carpet into award shows, looking fabulous in high heels and low-cut dresses that women several decades her junior would be happy to pull off. However, after more than 100 films and five decades in the spotlight, Loren remains true to her humble Italian roots.

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Rakeen Saad: "The Sky is the Only Limit To My Acting Ambitions" "I Find Great Pleasure in Taking Parts that are Drastically Different‌ I Like To Diversify in the Parts That I Take and I Don't Like Follow To a Certain Type"

by Farah Hashem From her school's theatre at the age of ten and as a student at the National Centre for Culture & Arts, Rakeen started her journey in theatrical acting to become now a star in theatres, TV and cinema‌ Rakeen Saad is a Jordanian actress who has done a lot of work and achievements in several series and global awards winning movies.

Her first appearance on TV was in the series "Jerusalem Gate" after she was nominated by the producer Albert Haddad, and from there she went on to form connections in the artistic community. Rakeen later continued pursuing her career in acting by participating in movies, some of which are "3000 Nights" and "The Worthy", in addition to many significant roles in series like "Sunset Oasis", "Paved Roads" and "Samarqand". And her last role in "Family Size" which she acted in next to big stars like Yehia El-Fakharany and Mervat Amin.

Now on to the interview about her artistic journey The roles we saw you in so far have been very different from each other. What is the drive behind this unique variation?

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Rakeen Saad

I find great pleasure in taking very different roles, a different environment, language and country, I really enjoy searching after these various characters and impersonating them. It's definitely not an easy thing to do and it takes a lot of effort and a deep research, for example, I obviously had to learn the Bedouin language and the Berbers language (Tamazight) in the "Sunset Oasis" series, I also had to master the Egyptian accent for my role in "Family Size", but of course doing these parts is much more than just learning the language, it's a whole different culture and spirit than I need to adopt and this is where I find my joy.

What did acting add to your personality?

What's beautiful about this job is what it actually takes to be in character, as it is not solely an impersonation of it, or just memorizing a few lines.. it really takes becoming one with the role the character is playing, throughout the whole preparation and acting period, I try to come as close as I can to the character, so I can become it and it becomes me, I go into a deep search and learn about it and its life , I would think and act in character all day in and out of work, exactly like someone getting addicted to reading a novel, to the point where it becomes part of him, and takes every opportunity to go back to it and read Apart from languages, I also find it a lot of fun to gain through it again until he also becomes part of it. I like to new skills like horse riding and playing the Oud in dig deep into it and learn all I can about its culture and "Samarqand" or making sculptures of clay in my role the country, city or area it came from, I would examine in "Sunset Oasis" series for example, which by the way its feelings and reactions and integrate it in myself, so as was a big challenge for me as I only had six months to once the shooting day arrives, my acting is nothing less prepare for the whole series and to build the character of than my natural self without thinking or improvisation.

"Malika" who speaks some Berbers language and makes And of course all this does more than just adding to my experience or career as an actress, it also adds to my sculptures.

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personal life and my general knowledge.

What do you think of your last role as “Amira” in “Family Size?”

I love it!! It's completely different, this has been my first time delivering an Egyptian role in a modern style through this kind of "light" series, the character is really different as "Amira" is a mother and a very tired mother, in a constant state of distress , she lives surrounded by people who make her feel different.

I usually take parts that are younger than my actual age, this is the first time I act in my own age, "Amira" is a 27 year old mother with a five year old kid. She's a bank employee and she's responsible for financing her family and doing both the mother's and father's job to an extent.

She's also very different from her husband's family, which makes it hard for them to accept her. All what "Amira" desires and wishes for is to live peacefully, she just wants to eat and sleep. Which is the funny part in her character, but it also serves to show how exhausted and drained she really is, as she barely finds the time to sleep and live, just like most working mothers, or like most working Arab women

who look after their households and kids all the while taking care of their husbands and their husband's family.

How did you find your experience acting in Egypt with Egyptian artists?

Egyptians are known to be masters of comedy and of "light" series, this formed a big challenge for me, as I had to perfect the role of "Amira" and to really do this Egyptian character its due without appearing in a way that's not authentic or credible.

How were you nominated for this role?

I was contacted by the Egyptian film director, Hala Khalil, she sent me the script and I read it and immediately fell in love with Amira's character, as she is crazy and easily irritated, but I was also scared of doing her part, I feared not delivering it the way viewers would want and expect.

I later shared my fear with the director who comforted me. I also later got very excited to work with the doctor and incredible artist Yehia El- Fakharany, and the briliant actress Mervat Amin, as they are a huge inspiration for me and I was really grateful to have had the opportunity to work next to them, all these aspects made me take on the role with a big heart.

What roles does Rakeen reject?

I like to vary the roles that I take and I don't like to follow one type, or to do similar acting roles to the one I've done before. When I accept a new part, I have to really love and highly empathize with the character so I can do it properly, I also love purposeful roles, this is why the offers I have rejected were mostly because I did not like the script or the message behind it, what’s really important for me is connecting with the character and for me to love it first.

What are your aspirations in acting?

There are two movies which I've done that have reached festivals and have won awards. I would love it if I got to do more parts in cinematic works, or to act globally of course. I really don't know… only the sky is the limit.

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27/07/18

Rakeen Saad

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27/07/18