How Religious Fundamentalism and Right-Wing Populism Contributed to Amazon Forest Fires

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

The Amazon Rainforest is one of the world’s most vital ecosystems.

As the world’s largest rainforest, it plays the important role of removing a large portion of the world’s carbon dioxide and providing the oxygen that all animals, including humans, rely on for survival.

However, for the past few years, the Amazon Rainforest has been undergoing a series of wildfires that have slashed down its flora and killing its fauna. The situation has only worsened in recent years as religiously fundamentalist far-right governments in Brazil and Bolivia have actively encouraged the act of slash and burning trees to clear forests for economic gain. This week’s cover story by Bryn Haworth focuses on how the Bolivian political crisis replaced the environmentally concerned Morales government with the religiously zealous Áñez administration which largely abandoned its predecessor›s environmentally protective policies.

In recent weeks, the Russian-backed Assad regime has been fighting Turkish forces in Idlib, Syria. Until relatively recently, the consensus in Washington over the crisis was ambiguous, as it seemed that it was adamant with letting the forces fight on without getting involved.

Joseph Braude rights on the recent reactions from both sides of the American political aisle which now seem to be leaning more towards the Turkish faction. Democrats have called for a ceasefire to allow for aid to be delivered to civilians, while Republicans have called for more support towards Turkey as it is a NATO ally.

Earlier this week, Washington and the Taliban have signed a peace deal that would effectively end the US’s war in Afghanistan. Under the deal, the US would leave Afghan soil in 14 months, provided that the Taliban revoke all its ties with Al-Qaeda. As the Afghan government wasn’t involved in the talks, the deal greatly favoured the Taliban. Despite the fact that the Taliban was meant to comply with a “reduction in violence” it resumed attacks on civilians just days after the deal. Ali El Shamy argues that the deal will fail and that the Trump administration is using it for election fodder to appease his supporters who want the American troops to come home from the Middle East.

This week, Israel held its third election in a -12month period.

Incumbent Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu was hoping that the election would finally break the political deadlock that has persisted over the last year, but once again he finds himself short of a majority in the Knesset. Ali El Shamy explores the options that the Prime Minister can take to end the political crisis, as his most likely option is to persuade three opposition members of the Knesset to defect and join his coalition.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

32 The Price of Peace in the Donbas

Issue 1790- March - 06/03/2020

20 Why the US-Taliban Deal is Bound to Fail

28 Controlling Coronavirus Wil Mean Keeping People Apart

36 Only Migration Can Save the Welfare State

movies to Concerts: Five Ways the Coronavirus 46 From is Affecting Hollywood and Entertainment

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Majalla Celebrates40 Years Since Its First Issue 3

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Physical Problems that 42 Common Threaten Your Driving Skills

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A guest is seen wearing a Chanel mask outside the Balmain show during Paris Fashion Week: AW20 on February 28, 2020 in Paris, France. - Getty

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An NGO member helps a girl as a dinghy transporting 27 refugees and migrants originating from Gambia and the Republic of Congo lands in Lesbos island after they were rescued by a war ship during their sea crossing between Turkey and Greece on February 29, 2020. Greece blocked hundreds of migrants trying to enter the country on Friday after Turkey said it would open the gates for refugees from Syria to enter the European Union. - Getty 7

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tarian crisis of the nine-year-old Syrian civil war.

Deadlocked After 3 Elections, Israel Seeks Ways to Avert a 4th

After three brutal campaigns, three elections and three failed attempts at forming a government, Israel now finds itself right back where it was over a year ago: deadlocked over the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His devotees in Parliament still insist he should stay. They remain outnumbered by lawmakers who want him gone. But the outcome this time, after Monday’s election, may be different.

Netanyahu’s trial on bribery and other seri-

Iran Reports 107 deaths, 3513 Infections from Coronavirus

One hundred and seven people have died and 3513 have been infected with coronavirus in Iran, Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur announced on state TV on Thursday. “In the last 24 hours the lab samples that have been confirmed include 591 infections from COVID-19 ...so we have 3513 cases of COVID-19,” Jahanpur said. “Unfortunately 15 people died in the past day which brings the total of our dear countrymen who have passed away from COVID-19 to 107.” All schools and universities will be closed until the end of the Iranian calendar year on March 20, Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced on state TV.

Turkey, Russia Face Off in Syria as Fighting Escalates, Plane Shot Down

Turkey shot down a Syrian government warplane on Tuesday over northwest Syria, where fighting has intensified in recent days, bringing Turkish and Russian forces close to direct conflict in the battle over the last swathe of Syria still held by rebels.It was the third Syrian warplane Turkey has shot down since Sunday in an escalating campaign against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. NATO-member Turkey supports the rebels, while Assad relies on his superpower ally Russia. With more than a million refugees amassing since December on the Turkish border, the battle for Syria’s Idlib province has brought what the United Nations fears might be the worst humani-

ous corruption charges starts in less than two weeks. His opponents appear wounded and exhausted after he outfought them to win a solid plurality for his right wing and religious coalition in this election. And no one in the country appears eager to contemplate a fourth.

Greece Blocks 35,000 Migrants, Plans to Deport Arrivals After March 1

Greece has repulsed nearly 35,000 migrants trying to cross onto its territory illegally since Turkey opened its border nearly a week ago, government sources said on Thursday, as it prepares to deport hundreds of others who made it through. Thousands of migrants have made for Greece since Ankara said on Feb. 28 that it would let migrants cross its borders into Europe, re-

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to disrupt an attack on an Afghan National Security Forces checkpoint.

Biden Sweeps Southern States as Sanders Wins California

The former vice-president Joe Biden surged to Super Tuesday victories in neging on a commitment to hold them on The strike was the first by the US against nine states, sweeping the south and takits territory under a 2016 deal with the Eu- the Taliban in 11 days, when a reduction in ing the key state of Texas in a remarkable ropean Union. Ankara has accused Greek violence agreement began between the two comeback on the most pivotal night of forces of shooting dead four migrants, a sides in the lead-up to Saturday’s pact. In a the Democratic presidential primary race. charge rejected by Athens, which says statement on Twitter, Colonel Sonny Leg- His rival, Bernie Sanders, won the crucial Turkish forces are helping the migrants to gett, a spokesman for the US forces in Af- state of California, according to the Assocross the border. Both sides used tear gas ghanistan, said it was a “defensive strike” ciated Press, where 415 delegates – more at the Kastanies border post on Wednesday. Turkey’s interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, visited Edirne province bordering Greece on Thursday and announced the deployment of 1,000 special police to the area to halt the pushback of migrants towards its territory.

US Conducts First Air Strike on Taliban Since Deal

The US signed a deal with the Taliban on Saturday aimed at bringing peace to Afghanistan after years of war. But a US forces spokesman said it launched an air strike on Wednesday in response to Taliban fighters attacking Afghan forces in Helmand province. The Taliban called for de-escalation. than any other state in the Democratic primary – were up for grabs. Exit polls indicated that the Vermont senator had an approximate 15-point lead, though final results may not be confirmed for days.

The win gave Sanders a much-needed boost after a rejuvenated Biden swept the southern states of Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Oklahoma, propelled by black voters, and scored surprise wins in Massachusetts and Minnesota, before topping the winning streak with the delegate-rich state of Texas. On Thursday, Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential primary, following her disappointing performance on Super Tuesday.

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Part Three

Of Cannibals

How Religious Fundamentalism and Right-Wing Populism Contributed to Amazon Forest Fires

by Bryn Haworth When the Brexit fever was at its height, and the words ‘febrile’ and ‘torrid’ seemed to be on every pundit’s lips, along with ‘free movement,’ ‘cake and eat it’ and the godawful ‘Brexit’ itself, I read a story about the Pope that really cheered me up. It’s not that I have anything against the present pope, you understand – even in the recent film, I preferred the new pope to the old one, despite the fact that Benedict was played

by Anthony Hopkins – but believe me, in the dog days of a very dog’s Brexit, I needed all the relief I could get.

It’s already been lost to collective oblivion, but there were moments there – such as when the present prime minister tried to prorogue parliament, for instance; or when Michael Howard menaced Spain with threats of war over the rock – that I had trouble sleeping, so it’s hardly surprising I found some consolation when I read that Pope Francis was embroiled in a controversy over pagan idols. ‘Ha, those crazy papists,’ I thought, ‘whatever will they find to hyperventilate over next?’ It’s a sure sign that your country has taken leave both of its senses and its self-respect, indeed that it has abandoned all claims to dignity on the world stage, when you have to resort to controversies in the Vatican for more ridiculous examples.

It all began in the grounds of the Vatican during a

prayer service. The Guardian reported that, on the eve of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, something outrageous appeared at what was an otherwise innocuous picnic.

There, on a cloth weighed down with stones to prevent them being blown away, knelt two pregnant women.

Except it was far worse than that, for these women were not actually human, but idols representing the earth goddess, Pachamama. Alarm bells rang as loudly as the peal of apocalyptic trumpets. Soon after their brief appearance in the Vatican’s inner sanctum, the ‘pachamamas’ were stolen from a church nearby where they’d been stored and unceremoniously dumped in the Tiber. It took a dredging operation by the police to rescue the figurines, but this did not end the matter. Cardinal Müller, a theological conservative, defended the attack on the figurines, saying that ‘the great mistake was to bring the idols into the church, not to put them out.’ This was only slightly less combative than Michael Howard broaching the idea of war with Spain.

But if it sounds a tad intemperate, you should read the reaction of George Neumeyr in the American Spectator, which, frankly, made the cardinal sound like a bit of a wuss. Neumeyr is no mincer of words.

He calls his Holiness a ‘dilettantish modern Jesuit’ (mee-ow) and the ‘first non-Christian pope.’ Let’s pause to digest that charge, shall we. It amounts to saying that, contrary to appearances, not only is this new-fangled pope not a Catholic; he is not even,

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What, naked earth goddesses? Nah, you must be imagining things.

according to the definition by Merriam-Webster, one who ‘professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ.’

If the plot of ‘The Two Popes’ is to be believed, then Benedict made a big mistake inviting Bergoglio over to Rome, thinking he was going to present his resignation letter, and then resigning before Bergoglio got the chance. A bi-i-i-g mistake, as he let the Antichrist in, something popes have tried to avoid doing for centuries, allegedly. At least, so some of his supporters (and they have the lousy T-shirts to prove

it) strongly believe.

Readers who saw my first piece entitled Of Cannibals may be feeling perplexed at this point. Wasn’t the whole point about Pachamama that, as long ago as the seventeenth century, she and her guinea pig sidekick had been accepted parts of every good Andean Catholic’s repertoire? I mean, syncretism, it’s the way to go right?

Wrong. Mr Neumeyr continues, ‘Day after day during the synod, the faith has taken a battering, as clerics lecture Catholics on the virtues of syncretism, a mindless multiculturalism that extols Amazonian women who breastfeed animals…’

That’ll be the guinea pigs with lucky faces. ‘…and now even flat-out paganism.’

Flat-out pagans are presumably the first ones to get where they want to go. He goes on (and he really does, so brace yourself) that only someone like Francis: ‘…would have the gall to present this synod, which is a monumental act of manipulation and condescension, as a blow against “Western colonialism.” In truth, it is simply a new and far sicker form of it: the cross

Senor Salvini showing whose Papa

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has been replaced by the blue flag of the UN. In its shadow, an alliance of UN creeps and heretical Vatican officials will let the Amazonians play with their little Pacha idols as long as they give up their political power to Brave New World bureaucrats. The last thing they want is for Amazonians to order their own affairs. And unlike the Catholic missionaries of old, the new colonialists of the UN seek not to liberate primitives from perversions like infanticide, but to introduce them to new ones: Planned Parenthood, sex ed programmes, gender-neutral bathrooms, abortion on demand, eugenics, euthanasia, ubiquitous porn, and countless other modern forms of degradation.’

I shall stop him a moment there, if only to say I’m glad he managed to include gender neutral bathrooms in that list, they are seldom given the prominence they deserve.

Around this time, a cartoon appeared that showed the Anti-pope out in a boat on the Tiber and the fiend looking on, saying “I will make you fishers of…

Pachamama.”

You start to see why this came as welcome relief during the closing stages of our second breach with Rome… the treaty of, that is. What a comfort to know that somewhere, in the depths of the papacy, or even in darkest Peru, or maybe just in the good ole US of A, there were people who concerned themselves

with such stuff enough to froth at the mouth about it. According to the Guardian’s editorial (31 October 2019), the pachamamas ‘have not been seen in public since they were fished out of the Tiber. They should be placed back on display soon.’ So liberal and highminded, it was almost as if they gave a shit.

Well, maybe the virtuous souls at the Guardian don’t lose much sleep over the fate of a few wooden idols. Nor are they likely to care much about the outcome of the struggle for possession of the Catholic soul that rages without cease between progressives and reactionaries and formed the subplot of the conversation in The Two Popes. It is one thing to enjoy two old actors getting peevish with one another as they pace around the papal flower beds. It’s quite another to pretend one has a dog in the fight. Only the other week the retired pope was weighing in on the issue of celibacy in the priesthood. In all honesty, could any hard-bitten journalist in north London be expected to give a tinker’s cuss either way? But the Pachamama controversy signifies a lot more than a turf war among old men who like wearing frocks. Back home, she is also a totem for the environmentalists.

In 2011, under the first indigenous president in the country’s history, Bolivia passed the Law of Mother Earth. Agreed by politicians and grassroots social groups, this law would lead to radical new conservation measures to reduce pollution and control industry.

The law enshrined eleven rights for nature, including

Photograph: Getty images

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Spanish and Portuguese-speaking parts of the world are shadowing the Englishspeaking parts in a surge of racial paranoia and atavism.

Then there have been vast funerals.

This funeral for eight victims in the capital, La Paz, turned into an anti-government demonstration and was also attacked by riot police. In the turmoil, the coffins had to be abandoned in the street.

Abandoned coffins.

Photograph Juan Karita/AP

the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right not to have its cellular structure modified or genetically altered.

Vice-President Alvaro García Linera enthused that the law “makes world history. Earth is the mother of all. It establishes a new relationship between man and nature, the harmony of which must be preserved as a guarantee of its regeneration.”

To be fair, the hard-bitten journalists in north London were not entirely taken in by all this happy clappy earth goddess stuff. The Guardian noted that ‘While it is not clear yet what actual protection the new rights will give in court to bugs, insects and ecosystems, the government is expected to establish a ministry of mother earth and to appoint an ombudsman.’ Does one detect a tone of flippancy in that reference to bugs and insects?

Still, the Ministry of Mother Earth certainly had a more lyrical ring to it than Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. ‘She is sacred, fertile and the source of life that feeds and cares for all living beings in her womb,’ the law went on to say. ‘She is in permanent balance, harmony and communication with the cosmos. She is comprised of all ecosystems and living beings, and their selforganisation.’ This was the kind of clout that the most well-intentioned mandarins at Defra could only dream of.

All that seems a very long time ago. Since then, terrifying fires have torn through Bolivia’s forests and her first indigenous president has been ousted, fleeing first to Mexico, then to exile in Argentina. There have been vast demonstrations and people have been shot.

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With Morales gone, Christian right-wingers have set about reversing the tide on thirteen years of wealth redistribution, bashing the people who benefited most from it, with truncheons and with the bible, like reborn conquistadors. One indigenous demonstrator

Effigy of interim president dragged through street Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP

was actually heard yelling at a policeman to go back to Spain.

A makeshift replacement for Morales has come in the form of Jeanine Añez Chávez, who declared herself interim president while holding up a large bible. The good book has rarely been so gleefully accessorised.

Next to her stood Luis Fernando Camacho, a member of the Christian far-right. After Morales’s resignation, Camacho stormed the presidential palace, a flag in one hand and a bible in the other, while a pastor by his side announced “The bible is returning to the government palace. Pachamama will never return.

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Woman in traditional bowler hat carrying Whiphala

Today Christ is returning to the Government Palace.

Bolivia is for Christ.”

This was an attempt to unravel Bolivia’s plurinational model according to which the Wiphala (the indigenous flag) was flown next to the tricolour, and no less than thirty-six languages became official national languages alongside Spanish. Since the coup, the police have been spotted ripping the Wiphala off their uniforms. The flag has been burnt in the streets.

The interim president is, predictably, of the same mind as Camacho. In 2013, while still an opposition senator, she tweeted that she dreamt of a Bolivia ‘free of satanic indigenous rites.’ It’s the kind of language Mr Neumeyr would understand. ‘The city is not for the Indians,’ she added. The term ‘Indians’ is itself a disrespectful archaism. Unsurprisingly, the ‘Indians’ displayed a similarly low opinion of her.

The whole reactionary playbook has more than a whiff of the Vox movement in southern Spain, singing Franco era anthems and openly talking of reconquest at the bull fights. Spanish and Portuguese-

Eliana Paco Paredes

speaking parts of the world are shadowing the English-speaking parts in a surge of racial paranoia and atavism. Bolivia, like Brazil, is the scene of a backlash against the very people who lived in these lands before the Europeans first made it over, by accident, in the shape of the world-historically jammy Christopher Columbus. The right and left of the political spectrum have resolved into a standoff between the inheritors of Spanish conquest – the ones ostentatiously waving the bible around – and the ‘heathen’ natives.

In a way, none of this is surprising. Most of the support for Morales and his Movement Towards

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Undeniably chic

Socialism came initially from the Aymara. These are the people whose ‘cholitas’ wear bowler hats and billowing skirts. In the past, these women were shunned by city dwellers like Jeanine Áñez. They were even prevented from using public transport or sitting in restaurants, and the word ‘cholita’ was used as an insult, a state of affairs Áñez would gladly return to.

But the world has moved on, not least through the work of Eliana Paco Paredes, who has made the traditional costume of las cholitas chic. In 2016, she took her designs to the New York Fashion Week where twelve international models presented a collection entitled – you guessed it – Pachamama.

When this look reached the runway, the result was pretty spectacular: Fourteen years ago, my best mate and I arrived in Bolivia just in time for the beginning of Evo Morales’ presidency. All round the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca it had rained incessantly. It was so cold and wet we listened to the Smiths to cheer ourselves up. Each humdrum town, despondent in the deluge, made us fear that Bolivia would turn out even worse.

Then, as we arrived in a place promisingly named Copacabana, the weather suddenly improved.

There’s a Bolivian joke that they got the Titi part of the lake, and the Peruvians got the caca. Taking the little boat out to the Isla del Sol, it was like a prophecy fulfilled. The sun was scorching. As we wandered along the sunlit ridge of the island, we watched as the Peruvians continued to get rained on in the distance.

These conditions persisted for days; it was enough to make you admire the meteorological intuition of

Evo in his pomp

the Incas who had named that place. The lake was turquoise, deep as any sea. To the east, the horizon was lined with snow-capped mountains. There were no vehicles. Across the terraced fields trudged goats

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Horrendous forest fires have devastated the country because of a change made to the law by the exiled president. Supreme Decree 3973 was signed in July. Within weeks, the slash and burn method of clearing forests had led to huge destruction of complex ecosystems. and the occasional goatherd. Women in bowler hats and big dresses ambled along the footpaths. It seemed like the simplest, most beautiful spot in all of Latin America, and we were the only tourists. I remember wondering why there were no rich mansions, just hovels. Surely Elon Musk will have bought the entire island by now, if only to be closer to his lithium.

Immediately after leaving the island and traveling into the Bolivian heartland, we started to see them: big signs, black letters painted on every available wall, shouting EVO. Being a naive tourist from the land of the gringos, I assumed it was some kind of product they were advertising. I had no idea it was the name of an obscure coca farmer who had just become, that very month, the first ever indigenous leader of the country they’d named after Simón Bolívar, the man who’d liberated them from the Spaniards. When we reached a crossroads, we found people in traditional dress playing music and dancing. At the time, I assumed this was the kind of thing people did round here. Only now does it occur to me that they were celebrating Evo’s election. Soon after that – though I can’t find a single piece of photographic evidence – the former coca farmer would present a portrait of Bolívar to the leader of the Venezuelan revolution.

The portrait would be made out of coca leaves.

“Struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle. That is where I come from,” says Morales from his present place of banishment. He complains that his only sin was being “indigenous, leftist and anti-imperialist” and that the environmentalists are “the best tools” of that imperialism.

Ah yes, what tools, those environmentalists. And yet why, one might ask, is the great indigenous champion of Mother Earth – the man whose administration liked her so much, they named a ministry after her – complaining about environmentalists?

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There are times when Montaigne’s scepticism is a tough example to follow, and this is one of those times, for even as one watches the right in Bolivia crow over the defeat and exile of the indigenous leader, it’s just possible that they have, however inadvertently, done Pachamama a big favour. They have ousted her mortal enemy.

Horrendous forest fires have devastated the country because of a change made to the law by the exiled president. Supreme Decree 3973 was signed in July. Within weeks, the slash and burn method of clearing forests, which it made provision for, had led to huge destruction of complex ecosystems, much of it documented by Dan Collyns in the Guardian.

The descriptions of what firefighters witnessed are harrowing: ‘The unprecedented destruction of wildlife was hard to stomach. Even following strict safety protocols, the men struggled psychologically, Manacá’s fire chief, Luis Andrés Roca, said. “The stench of burned flesh was unbearable. It’s nesting season and when the trees caught light the parrots died in their nests. My companions and I would cry, we felt so powerless.

It’s the worst tragedy we’ve ever seen here.”

A female firefighter concurred: “What we’re doing to Bolivia and the Amazon is something that can’t be fixed even if we put out the fire now,” said Olivia Mansilla, an architect who took

time off her job in Santa Cruz to volunteer. “What comes next will be a holocaust for nature” (Guardian, 2 September 2019).

But perhaps the most damning criticism came from the pan-Amazon indigenous organisation, COICA, which accused Morales, and his Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, of “gutting every environmental and social strategy to strengthen environmental governance of the Amazon”. These days, if you’re a self-respecting indigenous socialist, you really don’t want to be compared to Bolsonaro. The COICA went on to declare the two governments not welcome in the Amazon and held them personally accountable for the “cultural and environmental genocide” in the world’s largest wilderness.

This kind of thing might lead any sceptic to enquire what constituency the government had been trying to appeal to with its decree. Obviously not the one made up of ‘bugs and insects,’ nor of possibly five hundred rare jaguars. It is estimated that some 4,000 plant species and 1,600 animal species were affected by the fires, and that between 2 million and 18 million wild animals have been killed.

I won’t recite the grim statistics. Suffice to say, it is thought that swaths of forest covering an area larger than Costa Rica were consumed by the flames.

It appears the decree was aimed at fulfilling

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One unlucky constituent – an anteater

smoke rising from Amazon jungle

government pledges to triple the agricultural area and export beef to China, according to Claire Wordley (Desdemona Despair, 1 October 2019). Bolivia’s agricultural industry defended the legalisation, begging the president not to “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” As a result, the country’s entire population of golden geese were saved.

Ordinary Bolivians could see the real consequences of all this. Tensions ran high when protesters interrupted an event marking Bolivia’s first beef export to China in San Ignacio. Local media reported that, as Morales sealed the first container of 96 tonnes of beef, the demonstrators chanted: “Behind every fallen tree there’s a laughing cattle rancher.” It remains to be seen if the new regime will be any more inclined to dampen the ranchers’ spirits.

Meantime, the president who brought about this natural disaster is languishing in Argentina somewhere. Surely, given the way he has beaten up Pachamama, he will be lying low and hoping she doesn’t contrive to punish him, perhaps with a personalised tornado, or a bespoke bolt of lightning from on high. At the very least, he must be thinking “It’s a fair cop, I overstayed my welcome.”

Apparently not. In a recent interview, Evo complained about his treatment and defended his attempts to stay on beyond a third term thus:

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“whereas before I was planning to leave after five more years in government, now, after everything they have done to me, it’s possible I seek the candidacy after that.”

Perhaps he’s missing his brand-new palace, the towering Casa Grande del Pueblo, which he built at a cost of 34$ million to replace the Palacio Quemado (Burnt Palace) – not another of Evo’s victims, despite its name. The old palace has been turned into a museum for being too ‘colonial’.

Its replacement, a -29storey skyscraper in the middle of the historic quarter of La Paz, was opposed by the municipality as being in breach of height restrictions, but the government overruled the decision. It features a helipad, and the top two floors – which are reserved for the president – contain a gym, a spa and a jacuzzi. The bedroom alone is reported to be the same size as the average home provided by his government housing project. This conspicuous luxury led his neoliberal imperialist enemies to complain that Evo was ‘acting more like an emperor than a president.’

What a delicious irony! The building is decorated with indigenous motifs, for crying out loud. It was supposed to be used for indigenous ceremonies.

These sceptics were just displaying the kind of bad faith anti-imperialists always have to contend with.

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olitics

A Rare Consensus in Washington Forms Amid Turkey-Syrian Clashes

Democrats Call for More Humanitarian Aid, While Republicans Seek to Pressure Syria, Russia

by Joseph Braude As the tense calm that prevailed between Turkish and Syrian military forces has given way to open combat and increasingly lethal Turkish strikes, a new consensus has begun to form among key figures in Washington, with both Democratic and Republican leaders sounding similar notes.

DEMOCRATS CALL FOR GREATER AID TO CIVILIANS One of the first to comment on the conflict was Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland. On February 28, he tweeted that the recent escalation between Turkey and the

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It has not taken long for this bipartisan consensus to find expression on the ground.

On March 3, the State Department announced a new aid package of 108$ million in additional humanitarian assistance to Syrian civilians in response to the ongoing crisis, noting that it was “caused by Assad regime, Russian, and Iranian forces.”

NATO ally Turkey is doing the right thing. Putin and Assad must honor their commitments and stop the massacre.”

In a similar vein, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said he “very much appreciate[s] what Turkey is doing to stand with the people of Idlib, Syria. It is time for the world, including the United States, to declare a no-fly zone over Idlib before the humanitarian crisis escalates.” He went on to add that “Russia’s Putin and Syria’s Assad are behaving like war criminals. There is one thing I have learned from Syria: ignoring a problem always makes it worse.”

Smoke plumes rising following aerial bombardment on the village of Balyun in the southern part of Syria›s northwestern province of Idlib on March 2020 ,2 (Getty)

“Russian-backed Assad regime” put “innocent civilians in the crossfire.” Crucially, Cardin added that “the international community must seek an immediate ceasefire in Idlib, help get humanitarian supplies and assistance to displaced communities in need.”

Several days later, one of Cardin’s peers, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, no friend of the Trump White House, praised a decision by the administration to dispense humanitarian aid: “This is welcome news. The United States and our allies must continue to engage to alleviate suffering and push for an immediate ceasefire to stop the brutal violence and malign ambitions of the Assad regime, Russia, and Iran.”

REPUBLICANS CALL FOR PRESSURE ON SYRIA, RUSSIA While Democratic leaders have called for additional humanitarian aid to civilians, Republican leaders have toed a harder line, seeking to pressure Assad and Putin into retreat. Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas declared, “Russia and the Assad regime are to blame for the humanitarian disaster unfolding in northwest Syria. Our

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A WHOLE-OF-GOVERNMENT RESPONSE It has not taken long for this bipartisan consensus to find expression on the ground. On March 3, the State Department announced a new aid package of 108$ million in additional humanitarian assistance to Syrian civilians in response to the ongoing crisis, noting that it was “caused by Assad regime, Russian, and Iranian forces.” This aid package is set to comprise nearly 56$ million from the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration as well as over 52$ million from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

On the same day, while addressing reporters near the TurkeySyrian border, U.S. special representative James Jeffrey took the American response one step further, declaring that the American government would supply U.S.-made equipment to the Turkish military in its confrontation with Syrian regime forces. “We’re willing to provide — for example the President (Trump) mentioned this — ammunition.” Jeffrey added, “Turkey is a NATO ally” and “we will make sure that the equipment is ready. As a NATO partner we share information and intelligence … and we are going to ensure that they have what they need there.”

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Why the US-Taliban Deal is Bound to Fail A Repeat of Obama’s Mistake in Iraq NO PEACE DEAL IS VIABLE WITHOUT THE INVOLVEMENT OF Late last week, the Taliban and the US signed a ALL PARTIES

by Ali El Shamy

historic peace deal. This seemed like a landmark moment in the US’s almost two-decade presence in Afghanistan as for the first time a glimmer of hope started forming around Afghanistan and its people. However, even during the talks, there were many analysts who questioned the longevity of a deal brokered with the Taliban, and the trustworthiness of the Islamist group was put in doubt.

Lo and behold, just days after the deal was signed Taliban forces resumed fighting with Afghan security forces violating the “reduction in violence” agreed on. The Trump administration is desperate to fulfill one of its campaign promises, get American troops home and halt all the endless wars that the US has been involved in since the Bush Jr. administration. However, any rash moves could risk a repeat of the same mistakes the Obama administration did with Iraq, withdrawing too quickly and leaving a vacuum that terrorist groups filled almost overnight

Right from the start, the peace negotiations displayed one area of weakness, the lack of presence from the internationally recognized National Unity Government. This is critical since the government can easily deny any of the terms negotiated in the deal. Predictably, President Ashraf Ghani stated that he would not comply with the deal, which stipulated that the government would release 5,000 of the Taliban soldiers it had imprisoned. This is something that the Kabul government absolutely did not want as it would leave them with no leverage to negotiate within the upcoming intra-Afghan talks in Oslo. The Trump administration seemed adamant at first that the Afghan government would not be required to release any Taliban prisoners, and a recent tweet from US Representative Tom Malinowski stipulated that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised him

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US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar shake hands after signing a peace agreement during a ceremony in the Qatari capital Doha on February 2020 ,29.

(Getty)

that releasing Taliban prisoners would not be part of the deal, now it seems that the administration has backed away from this staunch approach towards the Taliban. In fairness, that part of the deal was not a one-sided demand for the Afghan government, as the Taliban is also required to release 1,000 government security forces personnel. However, as both sides do not have mutual trust, it is unlikely any of them will make the first move. Moreover, the fact that the government is required to release five times the prisoners that the Taliban is required to release gives off the impression that the deal is meant to appease the group rather than stop the fighting between both sides. The big prize that both Washington and the Taliban seek is the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, which under the deal would happen after a 14-month period. This stipulation alone caused the Taliban and its supporters to .jubilantly celebrate as if it won a long war

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Naturally, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani rejected the stipulations written down in the agreement and stated that Washington did not have the authority to make such concessions without the consent from the government.

EARLY CRACKS IN THE DEAL Naturally, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani rejected the stipulations written down in the agreement and stated that Washington did not have the authority to make such concessions without the con-

sent from the government. In the week running up to the signing, there was a period of reduced violence as the Taliban had halted its operations.

Washington had expected the Taliban to continue this period of peace at least until the intra-Afghan talks which are expected to start on March 10.

However, soon after Ghani showed his hardened stance against the deal, the Taliban returned to its old ways and started attacking civilians and security forces. Just on Monday, a blast hit a crowded football field in the Nadir Shah Kot district, killing three people from the same family and at least

This recent attack in Nadir Shah Kot shows that the Taliban is indifferent towards civilians and will gladly sacrifice innocent lives as long as such attacks serve its agenda.

10 others were wounded. Although no group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, the fact that it came just after Taliban leaders told its operatives to resume attacks makes the group the most likely culprit. It should be noted though that Taliban leaders have stated that no attacks should be conducted on foreign military personnel: “As per the (US-Taliban) agreement, our mujahideen will not attack foreign forces but our operations will continue against the Kabul administration forces.� Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid .said

WHO BENEFITS FROM THE DEAL This recent attack shows that the Taliban is indifferent towards civilians and will gladly sacrifice innocent lives as long as such attacks serve its agenda. The Afghan government is in no way a winner in this deal as it is forced to sacrifice so much and gain so little. Furthermore, the government has not been given any convincing reasons as to why it can trust the Taliban to maintain its part of the deal, especially after its leaders just

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Smoke rises from the site of an attack after a massive explosion the night before near the Green Village in Kabul on September 2019 ,3.

(Getty)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (C) meets with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani (R) during the Munich Security conference in Munich 2020 ,14 on February with US Secretary for Defence Mark Esper )(L). (Getty

called on operatives to attack government forces.

The women in Afghanistan certainly don’t benefit from the deal, the Taliban’s hardline Islamist stance views women as second class citizens, and most Taliban controlled areas have prevented women from seeking certain rights, namely the right to an education. The fact that Washington chose not to include any requirements that protected the rights of girls and women, is a travesty .on its part The Taliban is the clear winner in this deal, as it now has guarantees that Washington will withdraw its forces by May 2021, leaving it with much more breathing space to move around freely and control large areas in Afghanistan. Moreover, the Trump administration will surely use this deal as evidence that he is fulfilling his campaign promise of bringing American troops home. Nevertheless, the fact that the full withdrawal is not set to happen until May of next year gives the Trump administration some leverage to redeploy troops once again. The Trump ad-

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The Trump administration could, in theory, reverse the decision in the event that he is reelected and the situation in Afghanistan falters as a result of reduced American presence. ministration could, in theory, reverse the decision in the event that he is reelected and the situation in Afghanistan falters as a result of the reduced American presence. This is what happened in northeast Syria last year when Trump decided to send back US troops in order to keep Turkish forces in check. While the deal might end the US’s fight in Afghanistan, it will certainly not end the fighting in Afghanistan, and the civil war in Afghanistan will surely enter a new bloody chapter that .has no end in sight

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Third Time Unlucky: Hung Parliament Persists in Israel Netanyahu Fails to Secure Majority Despite Winning Third General Election

by Ali El Shamy On March 2020 ,2 Israel held its third election in almost 12 months, as a political deadlock that prevented both Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Alliance from

forming a governing coalition. During last year’s April election, both parties gained an equal 35 seats, the following one in September resulted in a Blue and White victory as it gained 33 seats, just one above the Likud. The exit polls seemed to indicate that the country was finally going to

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Evidently, it can be concluded that unlike other parliamentary democracies, such as Canada, minority governments in Israel are rare and largely undesirable.

Therefore, Netanyahu will most likely not seek to form a minority government as that would look like a defeat for him. counted and Netanyahu is still three seats short of a majority. This does not bode well for Netanyahu because back in April 2019 he had won 60 seats and only needed one opposing Member of the Knesset (MK) to defect to his side and secure the majority he required. If it was difficult to persuade one MK to come to his side, it will be a much harder task to persuade three.

NETANYAHU QUICKLY SEEKS DEFECTORS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech after the release of exit polls results of the Israeli general election, at the party headquarters in Tel Aviv, on March ,3 2020. (Getty)

move beyond its deadlock, and the early wave of results seemed to go in Netanyahu’s favour.

Nevertheless, as the night went on it became clear that the political establishment would be back to square one and no party had enough seats to secure a majority needed to form a government .

NETANYAHU CELEBRATES EARLY

The exit poll prompted Benjamin Netanyahu to celebrate on stage in front of his supporters, declaring the election as the “biggest win of my life”. After 90 percent of the results were shown, 59 seats had been declared for Likud, however, things would soon go downhill from here. Soon after more votes were counted and Likud actually lost a seat bringing the right-wing party’s total to 58, three shy of a majority. As of the writing of this article, 99 percent of the votes have been

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Though persuading opposition Knesset members will be a difficult task, Netanyahu has little options left at his disposal. Netanyahu could opt for forming a minority government, but these are rare in Israel’s history. Back in 1950, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion attempted to form a minority government, but the Knesset did not approve of it. Since then minority governments have formed not after elections, but rather midway through Knesset sessions after certain parties defected from governing coalitions. For instance, the 1999 Barak minority government was formed after Meretz, the National Religious Party and Shas withdrew from the coalition. Evidently, it can be concluded that unlike other parliamentary democracies, such as Canada, minority governments in Israel are rare and largely undesirable. Therefore, Netanyahu will most likely not seek to form a minority government as that would look like a defeat for him.

In any case, Netanyahu now has 28 days to form a coalition government and has already started seeking defectors to join his cause. One of the reasons why it is difficult to convince defectors to join your coalition is due to the reduced rights

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parliamentary defectors receive, for instance, defectors are barred from being appointed as ministers or deputy ministers, and they are also not allowed to run in the next election with a party represented in the current Knesset. Nevertheless, a recent article published in the Jerusalem Post indicated that there is a list of potential defectors that Netanyahu can consider recruiting. The article

In theory, if the Joint List did join the Blue and White, then the number of anti-Netanyahu MKs would increase to 61 giving them a blocking majority in the Knesset. However, even if Gantz were to go back on his word, the Joint List is unlikely to join a coalition with him now.

stated that there were two Blue and White MKs that could defect to the coalition, namely Omer Yankelevich and Orly Fruman. According to the article, both MKs have right-leaning views, and Yankelevich, in particular, has been under fire within the Blue and White for allegedly secretly disparaging Benny Gantz. Orly Fruman has previously served in the 2009 Likud government and has recently angered many of her current Blue and White compatriots after suggesting that Gantz go into talks with Netanyahu and perhaps form a government with him. While both won’t be allowed to hold ministries, Netanyahu could reward their defection by giving them chairmanship of government committees. Another potential candidate is the head of the Gesher Party, Orly Levy-Abecassis, and she has an advantage over the other two choices since she’s a member of an independent party and other Israeli law defectors from independent parties don’t face the same sanctions as defectors from establishment parties, meaning she could be rewarded with a ministry for her defection. In the run-up to the elections, Benny Gantz said that he would never join a coalition government headed by Netanyahu,

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Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White (Kahol Lavan) electoral alliance, addresses supporters at their headquarters in the coastal city of Tel Aviv early on March 2020 ,3, after polls officially closed. (Getty)

Leader of the Joint List Ayman Odeh speaks during a program in Israel›s northern city of Shefa-Amr on March 2020 ,2, after polls officially closed in Israeli general elections.

(Getty)

constantly citing the corruption cases put against his opponent. He seemed adamant on that soon after the election as well stating that he would do everything legally possible to replace the current government.

A DIVIDED OPPOSITION If there’s one faction that can be happy with the election results, it is the Joint List, which is a political alliance made up of the Arab-Israeli parties. Arab parties have traditionally performed badly in Israeli elections, but the unusually high voter turnout from the Arab community (the highest since the 1999 elections), gave the Joint List 15 seats in the Knesset. Although that might not seem like much, that is a good result by Joint List standards. Just to put into context in the April 2019 election, the Joint List only managed 11 seats and in the next election it mustered 13 seats, so this gradual increase is a massive victory for the faction. In the run-up to the election, there was talk of Gantz asking the Joint List to join his coalition and oust the Netanyahu government, but he constantly denied any plans of doing so

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In the run-up to the elections, Benny Gantz said that he would never join a coalition government headed by Netanyahu, constantly citing the corruption cases put against his opponent. fearing that it would cost him favourability among right-wing voters. In theory, if the Joint List did join the Blue and White, then the number of antiNetanyahu MKs would increase to 61 giving them a blocking majority in the Knesset. However, even if Gantz were to go back on his word, the Joint List is unlikely to join a coalition with him now.

Another Israeli election has come and gone, yet the political deadlock lingers on. While Netanyahu has an advantage over Gantz he still faces a massive challenge of persuading defectors to join his side. If he cannot accomplish this, then a fourth successive election might be a possibility.

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Controlling Coronavirus Will Mean Keeping People Apart China Has an App for That. The Rest of the World Needs a Plan

by Benjamin Cowling In Hollywood, movie sequels are often weaker than the originals. For viruses, that logic does not always apply.

The virus now named the “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2� by the International Committee

on Taxonomy of Viruses will have an impact that far exceeds the death toll and economic damage caused by the original SARS. In late January and early February 2020, China embarked on the most drastic social-distancing measures ever

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The SARS 2 coronavirus often causes mild symptoms, and infectiousness is highest around the time of the illness’s onset. Experts also think that the infection can be passed on before symptoms appear.

By the next morning, the doctor’s symptoms had worsened.

He was admitted to a hospital and warned the staff there to put him in strict isolation. He had been treating SARS patients back in Guangzhou.

Twenty-three other Metropole guests developed SARS, transporting the infection to Canada, Ireland, Singapore, Taiwan, the United States, and Vietnam. A global outbreak began that would last almost six more months and ultimately infect more than 8,000 people worldwide, killing almost 800.

A clerk wearing a protective mask looks on her phone in a convenience store of Shanghai railway station on February 2020 ,29 in Shanghai, China. (Getty)

seen, confining hundreds of millions of people to their homes. This approach has been successful in reducing the transmission of the “SARS 2” coronavirus to the extent that daily case numbers have declined throughout China in February.

Outside of China, however, such sweeping social controls will not be possible. The virus is spreading. As of this writing, nearly 30 countries worldwide have reported cases, and local transmission has been reported in new areas almost every day. A brief window of time remains for health authorities around the world to consider what measures they can take to reduce the transmission of the virus and slow its spread—once they acknowledge that containment efforts are futile.

SARS, THE SEQUEL On February 2003 ,21, a doctor from Guangzhou, China, traveled to Hong Kong for a family wedding, despite feeling ill. The doctor and his wife checked into room 911 of the Metropole Hotel in the bustling Mong Kok district.

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Some 17 years later, people around the world face the threat of a new coronavirus pandemic, again originating in China. The novel SARS 2 coronavirus was first identified, in December 2019, in a cluster of pneumonia patients in the city of Wuhan in central China. These cases were initially thought to have originated in a market where wild animals were sold for meat. In fact, community transmission had been occurring since early December, if not earlier. By the time Chinese authorities announced, on January 9, that a new virus had been detected, infections had already spread beyond Wuhan. A Chinese tourist who arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, on January 8, tested positive for the virus on January 13.

By the end of January, 106 infections had been reported in 19 countries, and by February 22, the number had increased to more than 1,400 cases in 28 countries outside of China.

Travel reductions have delayed but have not prevented the virus from spreading around the world. Current approaches to containing the infection focus on preventing transmission by identifying and isolating infected people and quarantining their close contacts. But such measures may not be enough.

Effective isolation and quarantine did succeed in containing SARS in 2003 in all the countries it affected. But two key features of the infection made that possible. First, SARS almost always caused serious respiratory symptoms that required hospitalization. Second, SARS patients were not

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particularly infectious when their symptoms first appeared, but they became more infectious as their illness progressed.

In contrast, the SARS 2 coronavirus often causes mild symptoms, and infectiousness is highest around the time of the illness’s onset. Experts also think that the infection can be passed on before symptoms appear. For these reasons, many infected people will not be identified before they have spread the infection onward, and many will never receive the laboratory test that could confirm they have been infected.

A LESSON FROM 1918 China has limited the transmission of SARS 2 by enforcing extreme social-distancing measures that are probably not possible anywhere else in the world. Major cities in China were ghost towns in early February, with residents required to stay inside as much as possible. In some cities, residents were allowed out of their homes only twice per week to buy groceries. Some municipalities required residents to wear facemasks when they went outside. Schools and workplaces remained closed long after the usual weeklong Lunar New Year holiday.

The Chinese government loosened restrictions on movement in mid-February when it introduced a smartphone app to indicate each person’s status: green for people who can leave their homes, yellow for people who

The Chinese government loosened restrictions on movement in mid-February when it introduced a smartphone app to indicate each person’s status: green for people who can leave their homes, yellow for people who need to quarantine themselves at home for seven days, and red for those who need to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days

need to quarantine themselves at home for seven days, and red for those who need to quarantine themselves at home for 14 days. The app tracks people’s movements and feeds information back into a database of known risk factors.

Having contact with people known to be infected or traveling to affected areas changes a person’s status from green to yellow or red. Only those with a status of green are allowed to enter businesses or to use public transportation or public facilities. The restrictions are strictly enforced by local officials and neighborhood committees.

Similar constraints on people’s movements are unlikely to be considered in most other countries, where citizens may be unwilling to accept government monitoring and control over their movements and behavior. Even if people outside of China reduced their social contacts out of fear of infection, such voluntary efforts might not be enough to prevent large outbreaks. Short of cutting off entire populations from the outside world, as some Pacific islands did during the 19–1918 influenza pandemic, preventing an outbreak is almost impossible. So what can be done?

Many countries have already taken measures to delay the importation of infections by reducing the number of travelers arriving from China and other affected countries.

Scientists have estimated that screening inbound travelers will identify around one-third of those infected but will miss the other two-thirds. As a consequence, silent transmission has likely already begun in many countries,

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A driver scans a QR code of a local app to track personal data for the COVID19containment in Zouping in east China›s Shandong province Tuesday, Feb. 2020 ,18. (Getty)

nearly everyone used cloth masks or other face coverings.

Governments may adopt many of these measures again in 2020 but with potentially serious social and economic consequences. Nonetheless, the interventions may be essential to save lives, particularly if a surge in infections threatens to overwhelm health-care services.

PLAN NOW, PLAN FAST A brief window still remains within which to prepare for what will shortly be recognized as a global pandemic. In the United States, silent transmission is likely happening already, with slow but steady increases in infections supplemented now by infected travelers from affected parts of the world other than China. Once testing begins in earnest in hospitals across the United States, SARS 2 infections will likely be identified in patients having no link to China or other affected areas and no known source of infection.

including the United States.

The priority, then, must be reducing community transmission. There are two ways to do this. The first involves isolating those with laboratory-confirmed cases in special hospital rooms with careful infection control and then identifying their recent close contacts and placing those people under quarantine. If those contacts subsequently show symptoms of infection, quarantine should prevent them from transmitting the virus onward.

Such an approach was effective for SARS in 2003 and can be effective for other infections in which the disease is almost always severe (think of the Ebola virus).

Containment has largely been the protocol for SARS 2.

But isolation, contact tracing, and quarantine will quickly become infeasible in this case, because most SARS 2 infections are mild, and hospitals will run out of space to isolate these mild cases. Contact tracing is labor-intensive.

Moreover, the quarantine period has been set at 14 days, which is a long time to hold people who are well, and requires considerable resources. Home quarantine is an option, but it can be difficult to enforce.

The alternative—social distancing—is to reduce contact among people across the community as a whole. During the 19–1918 influenza pandemic, some U.S. cities canceled mass gatherings, closed schools, and prohibited gatherings in confined spaces such as sports stadiums, houses of worship, concert halls, and the like. Businesses found ways to operate with reduced workforces, and

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Italian health authorities have just become aware that infections have likely been propagating in the north of their country for weeks, and other countries may soon find themselves in the same position. Health-care providers and health departments should anticipate and plan for surges in the demand for hospital services, particularly for intensive care. But state and municipal authorities must also be prepared to undertake social-distancing measures where outbreaks occur.

Now is the time to plan for this eventuality and to consider which measures would be most feasible and effective in reducing transmission. Public health agencies should take advantage of the brief, remaining window to determine exactly what should prompt the most drastic measures (for example, school and workplace closures); how to know when the time is right to implement them; and how long they might need to be kept in place. The key to maintaining public compliance and support for social distancing will be to effectively communicate what the plan is and why it is necessary.

Right now, most countries are responding to SARS 2 with containment, which includes travel restrictions or bans and case-based isolation and quarantine. Such measures will not prevent the virus’s spread, but they do buy time, at considerable economic cost. Countries that have not yet been affected, but which will not ultimately be able to prevent local epidemics, must use this time wisely to plan and prepare their communities for the social-distancing measures required to mitigate the impact of SARS 2.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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The Price of Peace in the Donbas Ukraine Can’t Keep Both Territory and Sovereignty

by Thomas Graham and Joseph Haberman Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has staked his presidency on ending the war against Moscow-backed insurgents in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in a manner that will not break his country apart or invite further Russian interference. This will be a tall order. Under the terms of the Minsk agreement, the internationally

accepted framework for resolving the conflict, a settlement that both preserves Ukraine’s sovereignty and restores its territorial integrity is near impossible.

In the last six years, the conflict in the Donbas has taken more than 13,000 lives and displaced some 1.5 million people. The Ukrainian government agreed to the Minsk framework during the peak of hostilities in late 2014 and

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early 2015, while under tremendous pressure to stem the fighting. The agreement grants the two self-declared separatist republics in the Donbas a constitutionally guaranteed “special status”— one that entails local autonomy inside Ukraine— cementing these areas’ position as separate from the rest of the country. What’s more, the agreement stipulates that the breakaway regions will hold local elections before the central government regains control of Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia.

To hold elections without first securing the border and removing Russian forces would allow the militants in power to intimidate voters or tamper with the results. What’s more, it would entail a continued Russian military presence in the region, overseeing elections in which Russia has a clear stake. And devolving unique powers to the separatist regions would exacerbate divisions within the country and risk fracturing further its already fragile political cohesion. Malign forces within Ukraine, beholden to a belligerent neighbor, would remain capable of exploiting its divisions to undermine the country’s sovereignty and subvert its efforts to build a modern liberal state.

Visitors on Defender of the Fatherland Day near a T72- battle tank on display at the Patriot Military Park founded on the airstrip of Lugansk International Airport destroyed by the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the War in Donbass. (Getty)

Zelensky has tried to head off this eventuality by introducing legislation of his own on decentralization. His plan could eventually grant the Donbas greater control over local affairs—such as language policy, education, and policing—but only as part of a broader devolution of authority throughout the country. The region would thus receive certain rights to local autonomy, but no more than any other province.

And to ensure the integrity of local elections in the Donbas, Zelensky has demanded that they be conducted only after Kyiv regains control of its border and Russian forces have withdrawn.

Unfortunately, Zelensky’s effort to change the existing terms of the Minsk framework to reflect those positions has been thwarted by Russian intransigence and Western fecklessness.

THE NEWS FROM NORMANDY In December 2019, Zelensky joined Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President

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In the last six years, the conflict in the Donbas has taken more than 13,000 lives and displaced some 1.5 million people.

Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Paris for a meeting of the so-called Normandy Format—a structure created in 2014 to negotiate an end to the Donbas conflict. Zelensky left the meeting with a joint declaration outlining steps to de-escalate hostilities, including the disengagement of forces at the line of contact and a comprehensive prisoner exchange. But he made no progress on the postconflict political settlement. Putin still clung to the terms of the Minsk agreement, while Macron and Merkel offered Zelensky no support in his effort to amend the deal. Indeed, the joint declaration reaffirmed Russia’s position that the Minsk agreement, as currently written, remains “the basis of the work of the Normandy format [sic], whose member states are committed to its full implementation.”

Kyiv cannot count on help from western European mediators, who would prefer a quick resolution and are frustrated by the slow pace of progress. What’s more, some Western leaders— notably Macron—are eager to repair relations with Russia. They are not going to step up pressure on Moscow to compromise; rather, they are more likely to see Ukrainian intransigence as the greatest obstacle to peace and put pressure on Kyiv to yield.

Without an improbable and dramatic shift in global politics that changes either Putin’s posture or the West’s reluctance to increase pressure on Moscow, Zelensky can hope to achieve little more at the next meeting of the Normandy Format, tentatively scheduled for April. Kyiv simply lacks the leverage and the external support to extract concessions from Moscow.

Under these circumstances, Zelensky will have to consider alternatives.

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SOVEREIGN IS HE WHO DECIDES Ukraine’s president has two broad options.

The first is a grand bargain: a comprehensive settlement with Russia that extends beyond the Donbas to include other elements of the larger Ukraine crisis, such as Crimea. Another approach would be to disengage altogether from efforts to reestablish sovereignty over the Donbas. Each of these strategies has its own advantages and drawbacks.

A grand bargain would look beyond the immediate conflict in the Donbas. The larger Ukraine crisis touches on a wide range of interrelated issues— the status of Crimea, NATO’s future role in eastern Europe, and Russia’s broader relationship with the West—that could be included in a deal.

If Zelensky chose this approach, he could propose an agreement in which Kyiv abandoned its pursuit of NATO membership, perhaps in exchange for closer security ties with the United States. Such a step would help ease Moscow’s concerns about Ukraine’s geopolitical orientation. In this case, Kyiv would also offer to formally recognize Russia’s incorporation of Crimea in exchange for Moscow’s full withdrawal from the Donbas, the reinstatement of Ukraine’s control over its eastern border, and the reincorporation of the Donbas without a special status. The West would incrementally lift sanctions imposed on Russia, and it would offer Ukraine greater assistance in domestic reconstruction, including critical political and economic reform. Such a grand bargain would supersede the Minsk agreement.

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Alternatively, Kyiv could acknowledge that— for the foreseeable future—efforts to end the war on favorable terms are futile. By fortifying the line of contact that divides government- and separatist-controlled territories and taking steps to reduce the intensity of the fighting, Kyiv would in essence unilaterally freeze the conflict.

The government could then redirect its resources

Both of these options have drawbacks. A grand bargain would require Moscow’s assent, which is not assured. Kyiv would also need the support of its European partners and the United States.

The Europeans are likely to agree to most, if not all, elements of such a deal, but powerful anti-Russian forces in the United States would likely warn Kyiv against cutting a deal with

toward the areas it actually controls, where it could focus on growing Ukraine’s economy, strengthening institutions, and building a robust liberal state. Such an approach would avoid or postpone the difficulty of reincorporating a region that has been estranged and radicalized under six years of pro-Russian rule. And the arrangement would not necessarily be permanent: Kyiv could reevaluate its options down the line as conditions evolve both in the separatist territories and across Ukraine.

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President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the press during a briefing held after a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) at the Office of the President, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine.

(Getty)

Given Russia’s inflexibility and the West’s unwillingness to intervene, Ukraine will likely remain unable to forge acceptable peace terms that fully preserve both its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.

Zelensky cannot ignore the prospect that his choices in the Donbas could stir popular outrage.

By engaging the country’s civil society—both to persuade it and to seek its input—he can build popular legitimacy for whatever approach he ultimately chooses, thus mitigating the inevitable nationalist backlash.

THE BEST REVENGE

Moscow that abandoned its claim to Crimea or swore off NATO membership.

For the second option—disengaging from the Donbas—Moscow’s position is not as important.

Theoretically, Kyiv could abandon the Donbas without Russia’s consent. Moscow might still press Kyiv to bear the responsibility for the population in the separatist region—by paying pensions, for example—and it would likely castigate Kyiv for deserting its citizens, but that is little different from Moscow’s current stance.

Both strategies would face stiff opposition, however, from the nationalist wing of Ukrainian civil society. This small but vocal minority refuses to sacrifice any degree of control over Ukraine’s territory or sovereignty, and it has a proven ability to mobilize against parties or policies that cross its redlines. As president of a country whose disaffected civil society has instigated two revolutions in the past fifteen years,

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Given Russia’s inflexibility and the West’s unwillingness to intervene, Ukraine will likely remain unable to forge acceptable peace terms that fully preserve both its sovereignty and its territorial integrity. Indeed, the pursuit of both is likely to erode the prospects for each, leaving Kyiv ever more beholden to Moscow and less in control of its eastern provinces, not to mention Crimea.

This state of affairs might not be just, but it is the reality. Zelensky must make a choice; given the range of forces arrayed against him and the lack of support from abroad, he should pursue whichever strategy he believes can best secure sovereignty, even at the expense of territorial integrity. While both of the options described above sacrifice some degree of Ukrainian control over the country’s internationally recognized territory, they would also leave Kyiv with greater sovereignty over the territory it does control.

Ensuring and strengthening that sovereignty will allow the Ukrainian government to continue building a modern, prosperous, and liberal state.

As for individuals, so for nations: living well is the best revenge.

This article was originally published on

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Only Migration Can Save the Welfare State Rich Countries Need 380 Million More Workers By 2050

by Lant Pritchett

are running out of young people.

In the coming decades, the developed world will face a daunting demographic challenge. As life expectancy goes up and fertility rates go down in North America, Europe, and the Pacific nations of Australia, Japan, and New Zealand, older, retirement-age populations will grow while labor forces shrink. Rich countries, in other words,

My son is 30 years old. By the time he reaches the age of 60 in 2050, his entire generation will have to cope with the consequences of the coming demographic deficit. Programs such as Social Security and Medicare that support the elderly in the United States may prove impossible to fund. At the same time, a shortage of young

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workers will leave crucial gaps in the labor market, especially when it comes to caring for the elderly.

The solution is at once simple and politically challenging: in the coming decades, rich countries should open their borders to more workers from poorer countries. At a time of rising nativism and xenophobia, calling for increased immigration may be unpopular. To allay legitimate concerns about rapid cultural change, developed nations can borrow from existing models of migration—in particular, those of Canada, Singapore, and Persian Gulf countries—that meet the demands of labor markets without upsetting social cohesion. It will be difficult to convince publics to accept more migrants, but wealthy countries don’t have much of a choice. If they can’t attract more workers from elsewhere, they will face demographic disaster.

THE GRAYING OF THE WEST One way to understand the immense need for migrants in wealthy countries is to calculate the result of their absence. What would happen if the developed world shut its borders and didn’t take in more migrants? UN population projections paint a stark picture of current demographic trends in the developed world. Thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing longevity rates, wealthy countries will cumulatively have 120 million fewer people between the ages of 25 and 64 in 2050 than they had in 2020, an 18 percent decrease.

Nav, an -18year-old unemployed domestic worker (L) poses for a picture in the Lebanese capital Beirut on February 2020 ,23.

(Getty)

As working-age populations slump across the developed world, longer lifespans will boost the population of people over the age of 65 by a total of 95 million by 2050, a 38 percent increase. The ranks of those over 80 will swell by 61 million, a 91 percent increase. All told, the population above age 65 in rich countries will go up by around 95 million, while in the absence of migration, these economies will lose 120 million working-age people.

These radical demographic changes raise several major concerns. Every developed country has a social security scheme that seeks to guarantee income for people in old age. Such schemes, whether public or private, almost always depend on collecting contributions from the young to support the old. Similarly, health-care costs are much higher for the old than they are for the young, so nearly every wealthy country relies on contributions from the young to cover the health-care costs of the old.

And as people get very old, they require more laborintensive support—from personal care to household help to health care. A modern economy has to be able to supply the labor to meet the growing demands of an aging populace.

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Rich countries, in other words, are running out of young people.

With declining working-age populations and growing elderly populations, these traditional arrangements in wealthy countries face the possibility of collapse. Back when the demographic pyramid had a broad base—many more young people than old people—these systems of social protection for the elderly were able to function at relatively low cost. In the developed world, the ratio of people between the ages of 25 and 64 to those 65 and up was 5.7 to 1 in 1960 and 4.16 to 1 in 1990. But in the last 30 years, that ratio has fallen to 2.76 to 1. If wealthy countries don’t bring in additional migrants, that ratio will drop to only 1.65 to 1 by 2050—making it impossible to sustain social protections at current contribution levels.

How rich countries cope with this demographic transformation should be a matter of pressing policy concern. And yet politicians rarely tackle the subject head-on because the potential solutions are difficult, if not altogether impossible, to sell to their domestic constituents.

It is unlikely, for instance, that leaders could convince their populations to offset a shrinking labor force with higher taxes. In many European countries, the ratios of tax revenue to GDP are already near, or above, 40 percent.

The average tax-to-GDP ratio across the wealthy member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is around 34 percent, a figure that has barely changed since the late 1980s despite the fiscal squeezes that aging populations are already enforcing around the world. That inflexibility suggests that it will be hard to convince publics to raise taxes much higher than they already are in any OECD country.

Another way to brace for the deficit of working people is to cut benefits for the elderly—but that is easier said than done. French President Emmanuel Macron recently joined the ranks of the many politicians chastened in their attempts to trim pension benefits; he ultimately capitulated to massive strikes protesting a proposed increase in the retirement age. As populations grow older, it will become even harder for leaders to cut pension, social security, and health benefits for the elderly.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD, MIGRATE! But what if migrants filled the gap in the labor force? To maintain the current ratio of working-age people to people

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65 and up—2.76 to 1—the labor force in the developed world would need to grow by roughly 260 million workers by 2050. But rich countries are currently on track to have 120 million fewer workers. In other words, by 380 ,2050 million foreign workers would need to move to rich countries in order to make up for the labor shortfall.

Would it be possible to attract this huge number of workers? That number of required workers—380 million—may seem daunting; it is about triple the total number of people born in poor countries who are currently living and working in rich countries. But there is a coming boom in potential workers. Outside of the developed world (and with the exception of China, whose demographics reflect the impact of decades of the “onechild policy”), the rest of the world is not aging nearly as quickly as are wealthy countries; indeed, many countries are experiencing a “youth bulge,” with disproportionately high numbers of young people. In the developing world, the number of working-age people will grow by 1.75 billion between now and 2050. Policymakers worry about creating enough jobs for all of them.

A large number of these workers will want to move to wealthy countries, a fact that is well documented in public opinion polls. Studies suggest that the typical low- to medium-skilled worker would earn between 15,000$ and 30,000$ more (even adjusted to purchasing power differences) doing the same work in a rich country than in a poor country. Economists call that figure the “place premium,” representing how the arbitrary facts of nationality and the geography of birth shape the economic prospects of workers.

Japan has already reached a point where it has fewer than two working-age people for every person over 65; that ratio represents a crisis. Every developed country is headed in Japan’s direction and will have to consider loosening restrictions on immigration.

MAKING MIGRATION PALATABLE Wealthy countries need more immigrants. People in poorer countries want to go to wealthy ones. But the politics of labor mobility lags behind the economic realities. If anything, the populations of wealthy countries are growing more hostile to the idea of welcoming greater numbers of foreigners. Part of that resistance to migration is rooted in closely held notions of national identity. Many Germans, Scots, Japanese, Swiss, and others believe that their identities underpin “ways of life” in need of preservation. In their view, uncontrolled or very high levels of migration would undermine a sense of shared belonging and tradition. There are certainly racists and xenophobes in wealthy countries, but it is both unfair and counterproductive to dismiss these cultural concerns as illegitimate. The need for migrants in wealthy countries seems at loggerheads with the political imperative to maintain social cohesion.

But necessity is the mother of invention. Thirty years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine that Japan, famous for its restrictive immigration policies and commitment to protect a distinctive culture, would look to bilateral agreements with developing countries such as Nepal to draw temporary migrants. But Japan has already

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A Pakistani worker poses in his room which houses 5 or 6 persons in the Al Quoz area in Dubai where many migrants reside.

January, 2016 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

(Getty)

An alternative model is visible in countries such as Singapore and the Gulf states that have low barriers to entry for foreign-born workers but allow them only a temporary status and little prospect of permanent residence, never mind citizenship. residence, never mind citizenship. This model has been successful in maintaining social cohesion in these countries as well as very high levels of social welfare protection for citizens (in the United Arab Emirates, only 11.5 percent of the population has citizenship). But the system can also be exploitative; regarding the treatment of migrants in the Gulf, for instance, critics point to meager rights protections and a long track record of abuse of laborers.

reached a point where it has fewer than two working-age people for every person over 65; that ratio represents a crisis. Every developed country is headed in Japan’s direction and will have to consider loosening restrictions on immigration.

One solution, which Australia and Canada have used for decades, is a “points based” immigration system to determine which prospective migrants are most likely to contribute economically and to integrate socially and politically. This system has allowed Canada to welcome a fairly high proportion of foreign-born workers without inflaming domestic political tensions. But the Canadian model has several downsides. It doesn’t meet the real demand for low- and medium-skilled workers. It also results in brain drain in the developing world, taking those who would contribute the most in their home countries.

And it’s unlikely that this model, which is intended to pave the path for citizenship for migrants, can accommodate the enormous numbers of workers that demographic realities will eventually demand.

An alternative model is visible in countries such as Singapore and the Gulf states that have low barriers to entry for foreign-born workers but allow them only a temporary status and little prospect of permanent

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In the coming years, wealthy countries should adopt elements of both models of labor mobility, using a points-based system to steer those migrants on a path to citizenship and more temporary and rotational schemes of labor mobility to attract medium- and low-skilled labor. To succeed, these programs will need to ensure compliance to maintain a “safe, orderly, and regular flow as envisaged in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. They will also need strong regulation by both government and industry groups to avoid a “race to the bottom,” driving down the wages and conditions of native workers. And they will need to be closely monitored so that migrants aren’t exploited or abused as they can be in the Gulf.

It is not impossible to juggle these imperatives. Many countries, such as Australia with its Pacific Labour Scheme, are now proving that it is feasible to set up temporary programs that create opportunities for the world’s poor and respect their rights, while addressing the needs of the labor market in aging countries. Right-wing populists may inveigh against immigrants and warn of immense cultural change, but they cannot ignore the numbers. The arrival of millions more migrants to the wealthy economies of the world will make some uncomfortable and fearful, but the alternative—the disintegration of the social contract that safeguards the elderly—is far more dangerous.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1790- March - 06/03/2020

Majalla Celebrates 40 Years Since Its First Issue www.majalla.com

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From movies to Concerts: Five Ways the Coronavirus is Affecting Hollywood and Entertainment Not Even Leisure Life is Safe from Coronavirus

by Ryan Faughnder Fears about a coronavirus pandemic have prompted comparisons to the 2011 Steven Soderbergh thriller “Contagion.” Even Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow, who

starred in the movie, noted the parallel on social media this week, posting an Instagram photo of herself wearing a face mask, writing, “I’ve already been in this movie.”

In real life, the situation has caused serious problems for

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Cinemas in China, the world’s second largest box office market behind the U.S. and Canada, have almost entirely shut down. So have theme parks and film shoots.

BOX OFFICE

Yifei Liu Scene from the Disney movie «Mulan.»

(Film Frame/Disney)

the global entertainment industry, especially in China, which is a critical place of business for Hollywood studios.

Cinemas in China, the world’s second largest box office market behind the U.S. and Canada, have almost entirely shut down. So have theme parks and film shoots. Travel bans meant to curb the global spread of the virus have affected business conferences and live events, such as concerts.

More broadly, concerns about the potential effect of coronavirus on business drove stocks down this week.

Declines for the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq continued Thursday after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first case of coronavirus in the U.S. involving a patient who neither recently traveled out of the country nor was in contact with someone who did.

Measuring the long-term impact on the entertainment industry is impossible because it’s not clear when the spread of the disease will be contained, said Stanley Rosen, a USC political science professor and China film expert. “It’s an incredibly big deal, and we’ll have to see long long it takes to get back to what the Chinese call the new normal,” he said.

Here’s where the entertainment business is feeling the effects.

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The closure of almost all movies theaters in mainland China — accounting for 70,000 screens — is a huge deal for the movie business.

Last year, China’s box office hit a record 9.2$ billion, more than %20 of worldwide revenues. During the 2019 Spring Festival holiday alone, box-office sales totaled about 1.5$ billion. This year, the key holiday period (which ran Jan. 24 through Feb. 12), generated just 3.94$ million in sales, according to Artisan Gateway, a consultancy that follows the Chinese film industry.

Several release dates for studio films, including Universal Pictures’ “Dolittle” and “1917,” Searchlight Pictures’ “Jojo Rabbit” and Paramount Pictures’ “Sonic the Hedgehog,” have been postponed indefinitely. Depending on the length of the closures, movies including Pixar’s “Onward” and Sony Pictures’ “Bloodshot” could also be vulnerable.

For Walt Disney Studios, it remains to be seen when the company will be able to release its high-stakes remake of “Mulan” in China. The big-budget film, featuring Wuhan-born star Liu Yifei in the title role, is set to open in the U.S. on March 27, but had not confirmed a Chinese release date. The movie filmed in New Zealand and China.

The major studios, which have offices and employees in the affected areas, are in a holding pattern as they wait to see how the virus alters release schedules. China’s government strictly controls the timing of releases there.

Some delayed movies could struggle if they’re released in bulk after the epidemic subsides, creating additional uncertainty. “There’s no playbook for this,” one studio insider said.

What’s more, once theaters reopen in China, there’s no guarantee that patrons will flock back to the multiplex.

Lingering fears of infection could keep people home, Rosen said. Beyond China, there are signs that the box office is taking a hit in other countries with coronavirus outbreaks, due to people wanting to stay out of shared public spaces to avoid infections, according to studio

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executives who were not authorized to speak publicly.

PRODUCTIONS China’s government put an indefinite halt on all film production in the country as the death toll escalated.

The pause in filmmaking is expected to have an significant effect on the movie business because the bulk of China’s box office is now generated by films produced there. In 2019, eight of the top 10 movies in Chinese were local productions, including animated feature “Ne Zha” and sci-fi adventure “The Wandering Earth.”

The government order, reported by local media, came after some major studios shut down operations. Those included Quingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis, a massive complex developed by Dalian Wanda Group, as well as Hengdian World Studios, based in the province of Zhejiang. Local production has been a priority for the government, especially patriotic films and co-productions that can stoke national pride and extend China’s cultural influence abroad.

“It seems to be to me that China’s going to prioritize its own films when things come back online,” Rosen said.

At least one Hollywood production has suffered.

Paramount Pictures this week delayed its plans to film the seventh “Mission: Impossible” film in Italy, the location of one of the biggest outbreaks outside Asia. The Tom Cruise action film is expected to be released in July 2021.

THEME PARKS Walt Disney Co. closed its themed resorts in Shanghai and Hong Kong while China deals with the epidemic, a move that is likely to hurt the company’s bottom line.

In a recent earnings call, the Burbank entertainment giant said the closures would result in a roughly 175$ million hit to operating income in its second fiscal quarter, assuming they shut down for two months.

The crisis represents an immediate challenge for new Disney CEO Bob Chapek, who was promoted Tuesday in a surprise announcement. He replaced Bob Iger, who is now executive chairman guiding creative endeavors after 15 years in the top job. Chapek was most recently head of Disney’s parks, experiences and products segment, overseeing expansions such the 2016 launch of Shanghai Disney Resort.

In response to a question from CNBC’s Julia Boorstin about the expected long-term challenges, Chapek said the company’s brands will “outlast” the virus.

“While this is certainly a bump in the road in terms of the coronavirus, we’ll come through this like we’ve come

through every other challenge that we’ve had, and that affinity for the brand and our storytelling will way outlast any short-term blip that we have from Corona,” Chapek said.

CINEMA’S VEGAS CONFAB It seems a given that events that rely significantly on overseas travel will feel the pain from the coronavirus’ spread.

CinemaCon, the annual Las Vegas gathering of studios and theater owners, said Wednesday that a number of Chinese companies had pulled out of the confab due to travel restrictions. Eight Chinese companies, all vendors that would’ve participated in the event’s trade floor, have said they will not attend, amounting to about 24 participants dropping out.

Nonetheless, CinemaCon’s organizers said the show will continue as planned at Caesars Palace, March 30 through April 2. CinemaCon director Mitch Neuhauser and National Assn. of Theatre Owners head John Fithian addressed the situation in a memo to attendees, saying they were in close contact with the CDC and Las Vegas health and safety officials.

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A sign announcing the park›s closure is pictured at the entrance to Hong Kong Disneyland in Hong Kong on January 2020 ,26, after it announced it was shutting its doors until further notice over a deadly virus outbreak in central China. (Getty)

Even before San Francisco declared a preventive local emergency amid coronavirus fears, the annual Game Developer’s Conference lost a number of major players.

Sony Interactive Entertainment, Facebook Gaming and Facebook’s virtual reality arm Oculus were among those who initially balked at attending GDC.

“NATO and CinemaCon believe that our plans going forward should be based on logical risk assessments and advice from health officials, and not from fear,” the organizers said. “At the same time, we want to be sensitive to the legitimate concerns of those people and companies that have been affected by the virus, most notably in Asia and a few other affected territories.”

CinemaCon begins with an “international day,” reflecting the importance of foreign exhibition for the film industry.

GAMING AND LIVE MUSIC While CinemaCon appears to be forging ahead, major companies in the gaming industry — an increasingly important part of the entertainment landscape — have canceled conference plans.

Even before San Francisco declared a preventive local emergency amid coronavirus fears, the annual Game Developer’s Conference lost a number of major players.

Sony Interactive Entertainment, Facebook Gaming and Facebook’s virtual reality arm Oculus were among those who initially balked at attending GDC, an annual event that’s one of the world’s largest professional gatherings of interactive industry talent. Those were swiftly followed

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by Microsoft, Electronic Arts and others.

Microsoft in a blog post stated that “after a close review of guidance by global health authorities and out of an abundance of caution, we’ve made the difficult decision to withdraw from participating at Game Developers Conference 2020 in San Francisco. The health and safety of players, developers, employees, and our partners around the world is our top priority.”

Software development firm Unity made a similar statement and also pledged to share a number of its intended GDC sessions online.

GDC is an especially noteworthy conference as it melds new tech with experimental games in addition numerous talks and roundtables on important cultural issues affecting the industry. March’s event was hotly anticipated as the game industry is in a major transitional year, with new consoles from Sony and Microsoft in development and emerging technologies such as virtual and augmented reality continuing to gain traction.

The increasingly global live music industry has also been affected, with multiple concerts canceled in Asia and other places, including Los Angeles. Organizers of the 18th Korea Times Music Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday said the event was postponed, citing travel restrictions in Asia.

The festival, sponsored by the Korea Times news organization, promised the best in contemporary Korean music, with artists including Momoland, No Brain, Jo Jung-min, Ha Sung-woon and Kim Yeong-chul already announced. A rescheduled concert date was not given, but tickets will remain valid, the organizers said.

Originally published in the LA Times

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Common Physical Problems that Threaten Your Driving Skills Addressing Arthritis, Hearing Loss, and Cataracts will Help Preserve your Independence 46

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Just because a condition can potentially affect driving ability, that doesn›t mean it›s already impairing your skills. But it›s tricky to detect whether you›ve crossed the threshold. your driving skills. The following are among the most common.

Arthritis. The wearing away of cushioning (cartilage) around the bones in your neck, shoulders, hands, hips, and knees can lead to pain, stiffness, and driving challenges. «Hand pain may make it hard to grip a steering wheel. Hip and knee pain can make it tough to get in and out of a car, especially if the car sits low or high. Knee pain may make it painful to push a gas pedal.

And neck pain may reduce your ability to turn your head when you›re backing up or changing lanes,» says Dr. Robert Shmerling, clinical chief of rheumatology at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Hearing loss. Losing your ability to hear can make it harder to detect hazards, such as an ambulance approaching an intersection.

«Even though most people think of hearing loss as involving both ears, hearing loss of one ear is also a problem. It makes it difficult to Older age brings lots of physical changes, like understand where sounds are coming from in stiffer joints and difficulty seeing or hearing. space. So although one might hear an ambulance Those developments may not cause disability, approaching, it might take more time to look but they may have an effect -- even a subtle one around and figure out where it›s coming from, -- on your driving. That›s why it›s smart to be which could be dangerous,» says Dr. David proactive once you notice physical changes, to Jung, an ear specialist with Harvard-affiliated find out how each condition can jeopardize your Massachusetts Eye and Ear. driving skills, your safety, and the safety of others on the road.

Cataracts. A cataract is a clouding of the normally clear lens of the eye. The condition COMMON AILMENTS strikes half of all Americans ages 75 or older. «A cataract impairs your ability to identify targets There are many physical changes that can affect and distances, and determine braking times.

by Harvard Health Letter

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Cataracts also affect how much contrast you can see, especially at night, which could mean that you won›t notice a dark object on the road,» says Dr. Roberto Pineda, a cataract surgeon at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Neuropathy. Neuropathy is a numbness, tingling, or burning that commonly occurs in the extremities, especially the feet and calves.

«Neuropathy in the feet can make driving hazardous if you can›t feel the pedals,» says Ann Hollis, an occupational therapist who conducts

The ultimate goal (depending on your health) is to keep you in the driver›s seat, so that you can stay safe, mobile, and independent for as long as possible.

clinical driving evaluations at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

IS YOUR DRIVING IMPAIRED? Just because a condition can potentially affect driving ability, that doesn›t mean it›s already impairing your skills. But it›s tricky to detect whether you›ve crossed the threshold.

For example: «In most cases, hearing loss occurs slowly over time. So it›s difficult to identify a point at which the hearing loss makes it unsafe to drive,» Dr. Jung says. The big tip-off: «If you notice increasing difficulty hearing in everyday situations. At that point, it makes sense to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist and an audiologist to have your hearing assessed,» Dr. Jung advises.

Indeed, if any physical changes interfere with your day, they could be driving hazards. Some red flags: «You may notice that you have a harder time holding objects, walking well, getting up from chair, or reaching above your shoulders,»

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Dr. Shmerling says.

DRIVING AND COGNITION The mental sharpness of our younger days tends to soften as we get older. That can translate into a slowed reaction time when we›re driving, and may require that we maintain more distance than usual from the cars ahead of us, avoid driving during the busiest times of day, and use other routes to avoid high-traffic intersections.

Drivers with more serious cognition changes, such as mild cognitive impairment, are at risk of becoming confused and getting lost. A mental health screening and driving assessment will help determine if it›s still safe to get behind the wheel or if it›s time to use an alternative means of transportation.

MAKING ADJUSTMENTS Driving assessment experts don›t aim to take away your keys; they offer advice and support

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to help you improve your driving skills. In some cases, that may be a matter of addressing an underlying condition, such as getting hearing aids if you have hearing loss, starting a strength training regimen to improve muscle strength and reduce arthritis pain, or getting surgery to remove cataracts that are clouding your vision.

Improving your skills may also require modifications to your car to make up for physical deficiencies. An example would be hand controls on the steering wheel if neuropathy is interfering with your ability to push the pedals.

In other cases, you may just need to brush up on the driving skills that seem a little rusty. A refresher course can be especially useful if your car has hightech new gadgets you›re not entirely sure how to use, or if you›re not up-to-date on the latest driving laws.

The ultimate goal (depending on your health) is to keep you in the driver›s seat, so that you can stay safe, mobile, and independent for as long as possible.

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Majalla Celebrates 40 Years Since Its First Issue

by Moncef Al-Mazghany What’s in a Name?

The name “Majalla” literally means “magazine” in Arabic. Some might wonder why our publication has such a simplistic name. When plans for the magazine were being laid out in the late 1970s, it was originally going to be named “Majallet Asharq Al-Awsat” (Middle East Magazine), but then the founders opted for a shorter name “Asharq”.

However, that would have led to other problems as another Saudi magazine already had that name, as such founders Hisham and Ali Hafez decided to simply use the first part of its original name and thus the moniker “Al-Majalla” was born. The first issue of Majalla was published in February 1980 and since then it has become one of the most influential publications in the region and beyond. Majalla was founded as the sister publication of the Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, both of which are subsidiaries of the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, a media company founded by Prince Ahmad Bin Salman Bin Abdel Aziz in the year 1978.

Beyond a Cover The first issue of Majalla had an eye catching cover which featured an American soldier, and the caption “What is America Planning?” Right off the bat, this showed that Majalla is a political affairs publication. Nevertheless, its founders wanted Majalla to be unique and were adamant that articles featuring other topics are included. Unlike other Middle Eastern political affairs magazines, Majalla became known for having articles on art, literature, technology, cinema, fashion, health and a menagerie of different topics.

A Variety of Topics and a Balance in Opinions

Prince Ahmad Bin Salman had a philosophy when it came to news publications: always strive for a variety of topics and a balance of opinions. Asharq Al-Awsat followed this philosophy and Majalla is no different. As a result, Majalla always avoids zealous political views, and always aims to have writers who present varied opinions. This way, Majalla reflects our diverse world teeming with different point of views.

section. If any of our readers likes the fact that a large section of the magazine is dedicated to art, literature and film then you have Haydari to thank for that.

To this day, esteemed individuals still write for Majalla, for instance there is American diplomat Dennis Ross, political analyst Joseph Braude, Hanin Ghaddar of the Washington Institute and a number of other talented journalists from around the world.

Influential Writers Who Have Written for Majalla Many of the most influential writers in the Arab world wrote for Majalla. Late Sudanese writer and author of “Season of Migration to the North”, Tayeb Salih used to write a weekly column for Majalla where he would explore various literary themes.

Readers enjoyed his simple writing style that was easy to digest.

Egyptian writer Ahsan Abd El Qadoos also had a weekly column entitled “Debates at the Political Café”. Although this was a political column, Abd El Qadoos presented in the themes in a creative way through a dialogue between an elderly man and young man who met at a local café to debate political events that happened between 1976 and 1978. In doing so, Abd El Qadoos eloquently presented the generational divide when it comes to political views.

Other writers who graced this publication include Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, satirical writer Mahmoud El Sadany, as well as Fahmy Huwaidy, Ahlam Mostaghanamy, Latifa El Sholan, Jafar Abas, Ali El Amem, and British diplomat Patrick Seal.

During a certain time, Kurdish poet Buland Haydari was in charge of the publication’s cultural section, and his major contributions greatly expanded the

Editors-in-Chief from Across the Region All great news publications need great Editorsin-Chief. Despite the fact that Majalla is a Saudi publication, not all of its heads were from Saudi Arabia. For instance, Majalla has had some Egyptian chiefs such as Emad El Din Adeeb, and Lebanese chiefs such as Abd El Karim Abo El Nasr.

Naturally, Majalla also had many Saudi editors-inchief such as Uthman El Ameer, Abd El Rahman El Rashid and his vice chief Matar El Ahmadi, Abd El Aziz El Khamis, and Hani Nakashbondi. This tradition of cross regional editors-in-chief continues to this day as the acclaimed Lebanese writer and journalist Ghassan Charbel is our current editor-inchief.

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Expanding the Publication’s Horizons Majalla started out as an Arabic language magazine, however since its founders wanted the publication to have a wide outreach, they soon expanded the publication’s lingual range. Soon enough, there was an English version of the publication began circulating, then a French version and finally a Farsi version. This range of languages increased our global readership, and more importantly presented a variety of topics and news pieces. Even when two of our publications have stories on the same topic,

it is often the case that English language writers present a different take subject than Arabic language writers, and the same can be said for Persian and French language writers. As such, Majalla has a unique distinction of presenting issues through different lenses, thereby giving readers a complete picture of the current affairs concerning the world today.

More than Words Like many other Arabic publications, Majalla prides itself for housing some of the most talented caricature artists from the region. One of the most famous caricature artists who drew for Majalla was Lebanese artist Mahmoud Kahil, who was known for signing his artwork with the penname “El Ghorab” (which literally means The Crow in Arabic). Today, Ali El Mandalawy provides us with the caricatures that accompany our Profile section, which gives a brief biography of prominent

individuals of the present and past. Majalla has always had an eye for the unappreciated art of caricatures, for instance the publication interviewed many important caricature artists from the region such as Mohamed El Zawawy, late Palestinian artist Nagy El Ola and Sudanese artist Elshab Elmaqdad.

Furthermore, in 1989, Majalla hosted the first “Arab Caricature Festival” in London, which invited Arab caricature artists who worked in Arab publications.

Overcoming Adversity The Middle East is never an easy place to for press publication. Throughout the last 40 years many news outlets have been shut down either through poor sales, or forced closings. However, Majalla has been able to overcome these challenges, and remain one of the mainstays of Arab weekly news.

Being based in London gave Majalla an advantage of learning the British way of press, in which publications attract readers through diverse opinions

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rather than enforced views.

40 Years Strong French writer Albert Camus famously said that journalists are the “historians of the moment”.

For the past 40 years, Majalla has been recording the most important news stories that have been rocking the region as well as the globe. The last 40 years of Majalla issues can now be seen as a historical archive of what went on for the past 4 decades. We here at Majalla would like to thank our readers who have stuck with us since 1980, and would like to welcome all new readers for whom this might be their first time reading our magazine. We hope to see you all again in 10 years time when we start celebrating 50 years of publication. So from the writers, editors, artists, page designers and every member of our staff, thank you for all your support, a magazine is nothing without its readers.

My Tenure as Editor: From the Battle for Change to Majalla’s Red Border In the evolving world of journalism, newly appointed editors-in-chief like to take on the role of a revolutionary leader. After filtering the comrades one by one, they eliminate secret agents, fearing any spies that might affect the national security of his wisely led office.

Why not? After all, planting spies and enlisting secretaries are tools that have been used in espionage throughout history.

The new leader then uproots their predecessor’s legacy to begin their enlightenment program. Without getting into too much detail, you only need to look at the troubled state of the world to see that this is an accurate illustration of the state of the press.

In August 1985, I became editor-in-chief of Majalla, replacing my colleague Imad Al-Din Adib, who was preceded by Abed Al Karim Abu Al Nasr. It is important to note no one ever willingly resigns from this post, whether in this publication or any other in the world. This applies to every editorin-chief, including myself, but the circumstances of each departure differs.

I took on this position in my 30s against two backdrops: as a Saudi Arabian and a journalist on Fleet street, which was the most important location for journalism in the world.

Indeed, I had inherited a system of working that I was pitted against. Friends and new acquaintances raised the banner of revolution and demanded changes, giving their input on how to transform the magazine. As a result, I made a considerable amount of changes which I admit I truly regret.

When the dust had settled, I looked at what else I could change. After pondering for a while, the victim became the magazine’s cover. The first few issues of Majalla had a striking red border on the cover, so I decided to remove it.

The founders of Majalla, brothers Hisham and Mohammad Hafez, then called me and said, “Othman, you removed Majalla’s red border. We stand by your decision, but we have a surprise for you; this border only frames two magazines Time and Majalla, and Time magazine has made a trademark registration error and therefore we have the right to use the red border, so why did you remove it?”

Thus, the red frame was reintroduced. It was later removed again, but eventually the iconic red border design made a bold return.

52

03/06/٢٠

by Othman Al-Omair