March 27, 2018
Volume 12, Issue 11
Foreign Policy and International Relations Club
Dış Politika ve Uluslarası İlişkiler Topluluğu
EU leaders prepare to expel Russian diplomats as fallout from Salisbury poisoning escalates Countries across Europe are preparing The EU said its ambassador had been to expel Russian diplomats as the fal- recalled “for consultations” following the lout over the poisoning of a former incident. double agent in Salisbury reached unprecedented levels. It is understood that at least Ireland, FranAt least six countries are understood to be ce, Estonia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania considering the expulsion of Russian are considering the expulsion of the Russpies after the EU took the lead and anno- sian diplomats, following the UK’s deciunced it would recall its ambassador to Moscow. In an indication of a possible escalation in the EU response, French President Emmanuel Macron said France and Germany would be among the countries taking "co-ordinated measures" against Russia, with an announcement due "very shortly". Leaders from across the bloc backed Theresa May’s claim that the Kremlin was “highly likely” to be responsible for this sion to expel 23 staff, including alleged month’s nerve agent attack in Salisbury. undeclared intelligence officers. Others could follow suit after consultations over In a joint statement in the early hours of the weekend yesterday, EU leaders said there was “no plausible alternative explanation” for the Those countries taking the lead on the use of novichok in Salisbury other than issue are those in the east most wary of its deployment by the Russian govern- Russian interference, and Britain’s closest neighbours and traditional allies. ment.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Friday European Council president Donald Tusk would not be drawn on the exact number of member countries who would expel diplomats, saying he believed the final count would be “more than one, but I don’t think it will be the whole group”. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said: “What we’ll now consider in the coming days is whether we want to take individual action relating to Russian diplomats in Ireland, bearing in mind what the UK did was to expel 23 diplomats, who they did not believe were diplomats, they were agents. “We would have to do a security assessment before we did that. We’re not just going to randomly expel people who are genuine diplomats.” Ms May urged leaders at a dinner of the European Council to go further than their foreign ministers had on Monday, when the bloc said that they took the assessment of Russian responsibility “extremely seriously”. Independent / March 24, 2018
THIS WEEK
EUROPE Page - 2
ASIA & PACIFIC Page - 3
OPINIONS Page 4-5
MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA Page - 6
AMERICAS Page - 7
TURKEY Page - 8
ECONOMY & BUSINESS Page - 9
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK Page - 10-11
EDITORIAL Page - 12
EUROPE Trebes siege: Three people dead in French supermarket 'terror attack', police say One police officer and one woman also confirmed to be injured after gunman claiming allegiance to ISIS took up to eight hostages in supermarket in southern France. Three people have been killed and around a dozen others injured in a suspected terror attack in Trebes in the south of France after a gunman claiming allegiance to Isis took hostages in a supermarket. The attacker, 26-year-old Redouane Lakdim, who was known to authorities for petty crimes, struck at the Super U shop in Trèbes, near Toulouse, on Friday morning, killing one person by shooting them in the head before taking others hostage. Earlier, a policeman was shot and wounded while jogging with colleagues in Carcassonne, a 15-minute drive away, by the same suspect, the secretary-general of the SGP PoliceFO union told the Associated Press. A supermarket customer who was in the shop at the time told France Info: “A man cried and fired a lot of gunshots. I saw a fridge door, I told people to come find shelter. Lakdim, reported to be of Moroccan descent, was known to authorities for petty crimes and drug offences but was not considered an Islamist threat, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said following the attack, adding that he acted alone. Reports suggest he asked for the release of Salah Abdeslam, the man accused of playing a role in the Paris attack who is on trial in Belgium at the moment, during the hostage. The injured police officer, named only as CRS 57, was shot in the lung 3cm from his heart, according to the local police union, who said he was in a “steady state”. The Independent / March 24, 2018
Austria's parliament voted on Thursday to scrap a smoking ban in bars and restaurants set to enter force in May. The FPÖ promised to scrap the ban as part of its electoral campaign in late 2017. Deutsche Welle / March 22, 2018 Fugitive Catalan President Carles Puigdemont faces arrest in Finland after the country’s authorities received an arrest warrant from Spain, constituting the latest legal action against the separatist leader. Euronews / March 24, 2018 German top diplomat Heiko Maas, on a trip to Israel, has called on society to keep fighting against anti-Semitism. Maas' trip will see him meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. DW / March 25, 2018.
Mass protests in Poland against tightening of abortion law Thousands join demonstrations against government’s new effort to restrict Access. Thousands of people have joined protests in Warsaw and other Polish cities against the latest attempt by the conservative government to restrict access to abortion. Poland has one of the strictest abortion laws in Europe. The procedure is allowed only if the life of the foetus is at risk, there is a grave threat to the health of the mother or the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. An attempt to ban all abortions in 2016 sparked mass nationwide protests by women dressed in black, forcing the government to abandon the plan. The latest proposed legislation would allow procedures in cases where the mother’s life was at risk or the pregnancy resulted from a crime, but would ban abortions of foetuses with congenital disorders, including Down’s syndrome. The Guardian / March 23, 2018
Former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont detained in Germany German police have arrested the former Catalan leader based on a European warrant. Crowds have clashed with police in Barcelona, escalating tensions in Spain's Catalonia crisis. The lawyer for former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says that his client is being held by police in northern Germany. Lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas said that highway police had stopped Puigdemont on Sunday after he crossed the border from Denmark to Germany. He also confirmed that Puigdemont had been on his way back to Belgium, where he has lived in exile since fleeing Spain. He made the following statement about his client on Twitter: "1. President Carles Puigdemont was retained in Germany when he was crossing the border from Denmark, on his way to Belgium from Finland. 2. The treatment has been correct in every moment. At the moment he is in a police station and his legal defense is already activated. 3. The president was going to Belgium to put himself, as always, at the disposal of the Belgian justice." A German police spokesperson confirmed the arrest, saying that, based on a European warrant, Puigdemont "was arrested today at 11:19 a.m. by the autobahn police force of Schleswig-Holstein DW / March 25, 2018. 2
ASIA & PACIFIC China vows to respond to US tariffs with 'necessary measures China warned on Thursday (March 22) that it was ready to retaliate as US President Donald Trump prepared to announce sanctions against Beijing for the “theft” of intellectual property. “China will not sit idly by and let its legitimate rights and interests be harmed, and will certainly take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests,” the commerce ministry said in a statement. Mr Trump is expected to announce about US$50 billion (S$66 billion) of tariffs on Chinese imports later on Thursday, following an intellectual property probe launched in August last year. It will be Mr Trump’s first trade action directly aimed at China, which he has blamed for the hollowing out of the American manufacturing sector and the loss of US jobs. The decision comes as policy makers including IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde warn of a global trade conflict that could undermine the broadest world recovery in years. The president is considering targeting more than 100 different types of Chinese goods, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to Bloomberg. The value of the tariffs was based on US estimates of economic damage caused by intellectual-property theft by China, the person said. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said on Tuesday that the nation will further open its economy, including the manufacturing sector, and pledged to lower import tariffs and cut taxes. In opening manufacturing further, China won’t force foreign companies to transfer technology to domestic ones and will protect intellectual property, he said. Straight Times / March 23, 2018
South Korean authorities arrested a former president on Friday on charges of bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion, the country’s second former leader to be imprisoned within the past year. New York Times / March 22, 2018 The UK’s former ambassador to Russia Sir Tony Brenton has predicted the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries within “a few months,” explaining it by the need to maintain high-level contacts, The Independent reported. Sputnik / March 25, 2018 Russia and the Taliban have separately rejected comments made by the head of US forces in Afghanistan that Moscow has been supporting, and even supplying weapons to, the insurgent group. BBC / March 25, 2018
Myanmar President Htin Kyaw resigns Myanmar’s President Htin Kyaw has resigned after less than two years in the office, local media reported Wednesday. The President’s Office said in a notice that the president wanted to “take a rest”, adding that he will be replaced within seven working days, the Frontier Myanmar media outlet reported. Under the country’s legislation, Vice President Myint Swe will serve as acting president until the national parliament elects a new president. The reason for the resignation hasn't been disclosed, however, it comes amid tensions between Myanmar's Buddhist majority and its Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine province that had intensified in August 2017. Government forces began a sweeping crackdown against the minority group following a Rohingya militant attack on August 25. More than 650,000 Rohingya fleed from Myanmar to Bangladesh to escape government repression. Those who have remained in Myanmar have been stripped of their land and labeled stateless. Sputnik/ March 21, 2018
North and South Korea schedule talks at Panmunjom within days Senior officials will meet on 29 March to plan April summit between Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in, while Trump-Kim meeting remains on agenda. South Korea has announced that its unification minister Cho Myoung-gyon will lead a delegation to the border village of Panmunjom, where they will meet Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the North’s agency for inter-Korean affairs. Officials will discuss the date and specific agendas of the April summit. President Moon’s envoys visited Kim in Pyongyang earlier this month, and South Korean officials have also brokered a potential meeting between Kim and President Donald Trump by the end of May. The heads of the two Koreas have held talks only twice since the 1950-53 Korean War.It is unclear whether the leaders’ meetings between Seoul, Pyongyang and Washington, if they take place, could lead to any meaningful breakthrough after an unusually provocative year. North Korea in 2017 tested its most powerful nuclear weapon to date and test-launched three intercontinental ballistic missiles theoretically capable of striking the US mainland. But since then the North has sent delegates and athletes to the Winter Games in the South. The Guardian March 24, 2018 3
OPINIONS
The Eastern Mediterranean Energy Problem and Turkey Recently, last events reminded us of the energy problem in the Eastern Mediterranean. This problem has been going on since the discovery of energy reserves at the beginning of the 2000's. After these discoveries, all countries that have coast to Eastern Mediterranean Sea started to fight for these energy reserves. Because there was a problem sharing parcels, the extraction of these energy resources and the research process are delaying and sources cannot be used. In order to understand this problem more, we should learn the amount of sources in here, the strategic value of Eastern Mediterranean and the practices of the countries.
KaÄ&#x;an DaÄ&#x;deviren Political Science and Public Administration kagandagdeviren1998@gmail.com
Eastern Mediterranean has a connection to Asia, Africa and Europe. Also, thanks to Suez canal there is a connection between Indian ocean. It is strategically and economically critical because it is adjacent to the Middle East, which has half of the world's oil reserves. Annually ,220,000 ships pass the Mediterranean sea, improving the value of Eastern Mediterranean. According to the American Geological Research Center, the value of the reserve of oil, natural gas and liquid natural gas is 1.5 trillion dollar, and the value of hydrocarbon reserve is 3 trillion $,but these reserves have not been discovered yet. Also, there is a problem to operate of these reserves which have been discovered. The main reason of this problem is the sharing of the marine area of the countries. These countries cannot find a solution for this problem.
Political balances are playing important role for the sharing of these sources. For example, due to problems in Turkey's foreign policy, Turkey's relationship between Greece, South Cyprus, Syria, Israel and Egypt is troubled. These troubles are reducing Turkey's influence in Eastern Mediterranean and it causes the alliances against toTurkey. For example, after the coup of Sisi, the relationship between Egypt and Turkey broke. It is the most harmful situation for Turkey in Eastern Mediterranean because Turkey and Egypt have the hugest coast in here and it helps to improve their influence in researching and sharing to these reserves. Since Turkey did not repair the relationship with Egypt, Egypt established an alliance with South Cyprus and Greece, with the help of this alliance, Egypt provided advantages itself, and is reducing the influence of Turkey in Eastern Mediterranean. Also, the Turkey's problems with Israel is harmful for Turkey. For instance, because Turkey's steadfast attitude in Palestine issue, and other actual problems in the Middle East with Israel damage seriously to relationships. In my opinion, Turkey should not respond heavily to Palestine issue because the reserves in Eastern Mediterranean is more important than Palestine. Israel wants to sell its reserves, so this may help to improve the relationship between Turkey and Israel. The profit of reserves may be motivation to improve relationship. Also, if Turkey support Israel in the problem of sharing marine area between Lebanon and Israel which Israel has a big advantage because od Lebanon's political problems. Israel may support Turkey in the problem of sharing the marine area with Cyprus. Thanks to this support, Turkey can improve its influence in this problem. However, the relationship between Turkey , South Cyprus and Greece is not only about reserves in Eastern Mediterranean. There are some important problems, such as the problem of Aegean Islands and the conflict of Cyprus. Because of these problems, these countries cannot reach an agreement on their relationship. Also, these countries were the pioneers in alliances which were established to prevent Turkey interests in Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey should provide Israel and Egypt's support .These are important regional partners to prevent South Cyprus and Greece's interests. Turkey is more powerful and influential than Cyprus and Greece, thanks to these features , Turkey is more available partner for Israel and Egypt to reach a solution to the conflict of Eastern Mediterranean. Also if Turkey support Egypt and Israel to the rights of some of the parcels that claimed by South Cyprus, to gain these countries' support may more easier. In addition, the problem of Eastern Mediterranean is not only regional problem. Because of this, there are some countries which have an interests in this problem ,such as US, Russia and European countries. For example, Russia wants to dominate these sources or no solution which as now because these sources will reduce the Europe's dependence of Russia's sources and damage seriously the economy of Russia. Russia is trying to cooperate with Greece and South Cyprus in order to provide its goals in Eastern Mediterranean. This situation is threating Turkey's interests. Also, American and European companies are interested in these sources. These countries want to reduce the influence of Russia and the European's dependence of Russia's sources. For instance, in the last days, Italian drill ship came to the parcel which is claimed by South Cyprus in order to research, but Turkey military ship did not allow this ship, and it had to return. Unfortunately, these are temporary solution and these may increase the conflict in Eastern Mediterranean. After this situation, the arrival of American ships in here is proved my words. If Turkey maintain military tension, Its influence may reduce because it is not possible that Turkey army fight against to US, Russia and regional countries navy's. In overall, it can be seen that Turkey should repair its relationship between Egypt and Israel which are coastal countries in order to protect its interest in Eastern Mediterranean and it should convince these countries to take opposite position to Greece and South Cyprus. In addition, in order to reach powerful countries' support, It should be proved by Turkey that Turkey is a decisive country in the region. Turkey can do it by showing the power of its navy and agreeing with coastal countries in order to find a solution to this problem. Turkey must solve this problem in a short time because its dependence of Russia and Iran's source is restricting its influence in the problems of region. and these resources will useful for Turkish economic situation. The profits from these sources will help Turkey's economical improve. 4
OPINIONS
The Process of Bill in the U.S. Donald Trump, as the President of the United States, has signed $1.3tn (£921bn) package to fund the government for the upcoming six months, then he vowed never to approve such а bill ever again by stating that ex-president Barrack Obama had signed а $1.6tn bill before. However, Mr. Trump was complaining about the sweeping the spending bill that he threatened to vote it earlier but then he said “As a matter of national security, I’ve signed this omnibus budget bill,” then he added “We’re very disappointed that in order to fund the military, we had to give up things where we consider, in many cases, them to be bad or them to be a waste of money,” Mr. Trump said Friday. “But that’s the way, unfortunately, right now the system works.” It was “obvious” that he was sorry about signing the spending bill in huge amounts. Demir Demirgil Let’s have a look at the approval process of a bill in the U.S. To begin with, I can say that anyone may prepare a bill (almost everybody; journalists, academicians, ordinary citizens or the President himself). However, only а member of the Congress can officially introduce а bill which can be interpreted as the lobby structure in the US. As the US Congress consists of two chambers, which are the House of Representatives (Lower House, HR) and the Senate (Upper House), can also be said that it’s bicameral is one of the strongest institution. Moreover, the US Congress is symmetrical so that both chambers must approve а bill to be а law.
Political Science and Public Administration sefademiiir@gmail.com
First, the bill is introduced to the House of Representatives and the Speaker (member of HR) refers it to the relevant committee and the chair of the committee refers it to the sub-committee. To give а clue here, in the US Congress, committees are so powerful that they are called “little legislators”. The sub-committee considers the bill, if it’s rejected, it dies. If it’s accepted, it goes back to the full committee which is called House Rules Committee that regulates the agenda of House. The committee both schedules and decides if the bill is whether open, closed or restrictive to the amendments. Although it’s rare but House Rules Committee have right to bury а bill itself. If bill is approved by committee, it comes to the HR floor for debate and simple majority (218 in 435 member) is enough to pass the bill from the House. Second, the bill is introduced in Senate. Furthermore, President Pro Tempore (the eldest member of Senate, an honorary title) refers it to the relevant senate committee then chair of the committee refers it to the sub-committee. If sub-committee accepts the bill it goes to the Senate Committee, but if it rejects the bill it dies even if it’s accepted in the House floor, Senate subcommittee can bury it. Moreover, if Senate Committee accepts the bill, it directly goes to the Senate Floor, however, the Senate Committee has right to reject the bill. In addition, for the Senate Floor discussions, there is а method which is called а filibustering used by minority senators as а last resort so as to keep the Senate busy to prevent the passage of а bill, let say to delay it as long as possible, however, they know that the bill will eventually pass because they’re minority in terms of voting. If а bill does pass from both House of Representatives and Senate, it doesn’t mean that it becomes а law because two versions that comes to the chambers are not identical, Therefore, both chambers come together to discuss the versions in Conference Committee. However, even this stage, а bill can die if it’s rejected. There is also а possibility of presidential veto because the bill must be signed by the president to be а law. To conclude, to propose а bill is really critical process that is checked and analysed -some amendments are possible- by two main chambers in the Congress of the U.S. However, as Donald Trump said he was considering to veto the bill for which comes from the mechanism of strong and visible separation of powers, check and balance system between three specific institution which are legislature, executive and judiciary.
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MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA Unicef asks for $350m for starving Yemeni children UN official, in apparent reference to Donald Trump, says $350m is 'peanuts' in aid for suffering Yemeni children. The UN urgently needs $350m for hungry children in war-torn Yemen - a figure that is "peanuts" compared with what is being spent on deadly weapons in the conflict. The comments by Geert Cappelaere, Middle East and North Africa director at the UN children's fund UNICEF, on Sunday, appeared to mock US President Donald Trump, who last week described billions of dollars in Saudi arms purchases as "peanuts". "UNICEF is asking for 2018 alone for its humanitarian programme close to $350m. That is peanuts compared to the billions of dollars that are currently invested in fighting war. We are asking for peanuts," Cappelaere told reporters in Amman, Jordan. Trump hosted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the White House last Tuesday and said Saudi Arabia would be spending "peanuts" by purchasing $12.5bn worth of military hardware from the United States. Saudi Arabia leads a military coalition in Yemen fighting Houthi rebels. According to the United Nations, the ongoing war has killed more than 10,000 people and wounded more than 40,000. The UN describes Yemen as the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world".About 8.4 million Yemenis face imminent famine as the country also battles cholera and diphtheria outbreaks. Al Jazeera / March 25, 2018
A rebel group in Eastern Ghouta says it has reached a deal with the Syrian government to evacuate fighters and civilians to the oppositioncontrolled northwest province of Idlib. Al Jazeera / March 23, 2018 Iran has railed against US sanctions imposed on 10 citizens and a tech firm accused of cyber attacks on at least 320 universities worldwide, along with US firms and government agencies. BBC / March 24, 2018 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he hopes to slash flight times between Tel Aviv and India's financial capital Mumbai, days after Air India ran the first scheduled Israel-bound service to cross Saudi airspace. Middle East Online / March 25, 2018
US won’t withdraw from Manbij: Washington The United States “has no intention to leave Manbij,” said the U.S. Department of State spokesperson on March 22, despite Turkey’s pledge to clear the People’s Protection Units (YPG) from Manbij, in northern Syria. “U.S. forces are located in Manbij. We have made it very clear with the Turkish government that we will continue to operate there,” said Heather Nauert at a press conference in response to a question about the U.S.’ stance on Manbij. Nauert also said talks with Ankara have not been concluded and Washington is willing to continue the conversations, referring to the three technical committees of Turkey and the U.S., formed to solve issues between the two countries. Turkey launched “Operation Olive Branch” on Jan. 20 to clear YPG militants from Afrin. The Free Syrian Army took full control of the city on March 18. Hurriyet Daily News / March 23, 2018
Car-bomb explodes near Somalia's parliament Two soldiers reportedly killed after explosion at a security checkpoint outside parliament in Mogadishu. A car bomb detonated near Somalia's parliament in the capital Mogadishu, killing at least two people and wounding several others, a senior police officer said. The bomb exploded on Sunday at a security checkpoint after soldiers intercepted and stopped a suspicious vehicle, Captain Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press. Those dead included two soldiers as well as the suicide bomber, he said, while many of the 10 wounded were rickshaw drivers. A huge cloud of smoke was seen billowing over the area dotted with security checkpoints along a road leading to the presidential palace. Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Amin ambulances, the city's sole rescue service, said three people had been killed and another wounded. A Reuters news agency photographer at the scene saw ruined cars and three-wheeled scooters overturned by the force of the blast. The attack happened near Somalia's presidential palace, whose main gate is just 200 metres away, and a similar distance from the interior ministry. Al Jazeera / March 25, 2018
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AMERICAS Did Donald Trump really just launch a trade war with China? US experts agree that by signing hefty tariffs to punish what he views as Beijing's unfair practices, President Donald Trump just fired the first salvo in a trade conflict with China. Is there a strategy behind the move? In early March, President Donald Trump declared in one of his regular early morning tweets that trade wars "are good, and easy to win" for a country like the US that, as he described it, loses billions of dollars on the practice with most other countries. Three weeks later, Trump followed up on his musings by announcing massive tariffs against China, a move that scholars say will indeed trigger a trade conflict between the two largest global economic powers. "It will spark a trade war," said James Andrew Lewis, a senior vice president at CSIS, who previously worked for the US Commerce Department, where he led the organization's work on national security and espionage concerns related to high-technology trade with China. Andrew Wedeman, a China scholar at Georgia State University, agreed that Trump's tariffs versus Beijing, estimated to be as a high as $60 billion (â‚Ź49 billion), will ignite a trade war because China will retaliate. "The Chinese are likely to strike back at things like agricultural products," he said. "They are not stupid." While both scholars are on the same page that the US president just launched a trade war, they disagree over whether such a move is necessary and useful to counter what are widely seen as unfair trade practices in areas such as intellectual property rights and market access. Deutsche Welle / March 22, 2018
Venezuela plans to remove three zeros off its battered currency. Nicolas Maduro on Thursday announced he would knock three zeros off the bolivar currency amid a crippling economic crisis and hyperinflation. DW / March 23, 2018 The US government announced charges and sanctions against a group of Iranians for a massive hacking operation. Nine Iranians were charged to hack into about 320 universities worldwide to steal 31 terabytes of academic data and intellectual property in a series of attacks beginning in 2013. Deutsche Welle / March 23, 2018 Elon Musk joined the #DeleteFacebook movement on Friday, taking down official pages for two of his companies, Tesla and SpaceX. The Guardian / March 23, 2018
Peruvian President Kuczynski resigns amid corruption scandal Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski leaves the Palace of Government in Lima after recording a televised message announcing his resignation. Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, ensnared in a corruption scandal involving Latin America's largest construction firm, announced his resignation on Wednesday. The resignation came one day shy of a congressional impeachment vote against Kuczynski, who made the announcement on national television but continued to deny any wrongdoing in a scandal involving nearly $800 million in alleged bribes paid by Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht. Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, ensnared in a corruption scandal involving Latin America's largest construction firm, announced his resignation on Wednesday. CNN / March 21, 2018
John Bolton to replace H.R. McMaster as Donald Trump's national security adviser US President Donald Trump has announced that neo-conservative John Bolton will replace H.R. McMaster as national security adviser. The respected general is replaced by a hawk who advocated for war with Iraq in 2003. In a country fixated on which senior Trump adviser will be the next to get the boot, Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster's departure does not come as a major surprise. The United States' top advisor on national security had been on thin ice for an eternity in the Trump era of news cycles. Thanking the president for his friendship, McMaster said he has filed a retirement request. McMaster and Trump were always an unlikely team in terms of style. Many critics of Trump's efforts at engagement believe it would be unwise to meet the North Koreans without setting clear terms for any negotiations. McMaster favored a particularly hardline approach. McMaster's retirement comes amid a string of high-profile departures and rumors of a further shakeup among top US officials. Several of those on their way out the door had tried to rein in Trump on certain issues. Trump's top economic adviser Gary Cohn announced his resignation in early March. A week later Secretary of State Rex Tillerson returned home early from an official visit to Africa after being unceremoniously sacked. Deutsche Welle / March 22, 2018 7
TURKEY Turkey will not stop in Syria, Manbij and Idlib are next: Erdoğan President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he told both U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that “Turkey will not step back in Syria,” vowing that the ongoing campaign in Afrin will be expanded to other parts of the war-torn country, including Manbij. “Last night I spoke with U.S. President Trump on these issues. I discussed the same things with Putin two days ago I told them: ‘We won’t take steps backward from here. We are on the side of the suffering and the oppressed,’” Erdoğan said in an address at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Istanbul on March 23. Erdoğan and Trump spoke on the phone late on March 22 about strained ties between Ankara and Washington, particularly troubled due to the U.S.’s ongoing partnership with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Syria. Turkey considers the YPG to be the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and therefore as a terrorist organization. The Turkish military, along with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), launched “Operation Olive Branch” against the YPG in Afrin on Jan. 20, and Erdoğan vowed that operations “will not end in Afrin. Next are Idlib and Manbij.” However, a senior U.S. official said the U.S. “has no intention to leave Manbij,” despite Turkey’s words. Hurriyet Daily News / March 23, 2018
Turkey and the United States are in talks over the procurement of the Patriot missile system, a Turkish official said. A senior U.S. official is expected to pay a visit to Ankara on March 31 to discuss the issue.Hurriyet Daily News / March 23, 2018 The yen hit a 16-month high against the United States dollar on March 23, while the Turkish Lira skidded to a record low as rising global trade tensions triggered a bout of investor jitters. Hurriyet Daily News / March 23, 2018 Turkey has opened its air space for flights to Arbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said.Hurriyet Daily News / March 23, 2018
Turkish Media Group Bought by ProGovernment Conglomerate One of Turkey’s leading media groups, Dogan Media Company, was sold to a progovernment Turkish conglomerate on Wednesday, a move widely seen as likely to further limit the independence of the Turkish news media. Dogan Media Company, owned by Aydin Dogan, sold its media assets to Demiroren Holding, a conglomerate with interests primarily in energy, construction, tourism and media . A progovernment Turkish newspaper, The Daily Sabah, put the value of the transaction at about $1.2 billion The Dogan Media group owned the newspapers Hurriyet and Posta, and two of Turkey’s main entertainment and news channels, Kanal D and CNN Turk. The government had accused the company of being biased against it and the governing party. The New York Times / March 21, 2018
EU leaders blast Turkey’s actions in Mediterranean European leaders on March 22 strongly condemned Turkey’s “illegal actions” toward Greece and Cyprus in a blistering denunciation that could upend an EU-Turkish summit in Bulgaria on March 26. The statement by the 28 European Union member states meeting in Brussels comes after Turkey’s arrest of two Greek soldiers, and its promise to prevent the internationally-recognized Greek Cypriot government from exploring for oil and gas.“The European Council strongly condemns Turkey’s continued illegal actions in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea and underlines its full solidarity with Cyprus and Greece,” the statement said.The bloc “calls on Turkey to cease these actions and respect the sovereign rights of Cyprus to explore and exploit its natural resources in accordance with EU and international law.A standoff over exploiting energy resources in the region risks further complicating stalled efforts to reunify Cyprus after U.N.backed talks collapsed last year.In recent weeks Turkish warships blocked an Italian drillship from exploring for gas in the east Mediterranean island’s waters.The leaders also expressed “grave concern over the continued detention of EU citizens in Turkey, including two Greek soldiers” and called for these issues to be resolved through dialogue with the EU member states. Hurriyet Daily News / March 23, 2018 8
ECONOMY & BUSINESS The week Facebook's value plunged $58bn Facebook ended the week $58bn lower in value after its handling of a historic data breach. Its founder Mark Zuckerberg apologised for data breaches that affected 50 million users. The apology did not stop investors from selling shares in Facebook, with many wondering just how bad the damage would be for the social network. The breach was called a "light bulb" moment for users, spawning the social media trend #deletefacebook. All the negative headlines led to some advertisers saying "enough is enough". Shares in the social media company fell from $176.80 on Monday to around $159.30 by Friday night. Facebook's initial public offering in 2012 priced shares at $38 each, giving the company a market valuation of close to $104bn. Following steady user growth and a dominant space in the digital advertising market ensuring revenues, Facebook's share price climbed to $190 by February this year. Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research, said he had one of the most negative outlooks for Facebook's share price on Wall Street. "I had a $152 price target on Facebook for 2018 - and that was before the events of this week". Mr Wieser said the share price slump showed investors were wary of increased regulation and users leaving the platform "but there's little risk of advertisers leaving Facebook. Where else would they go?" Hargreaves Lansdown senior analyst Laith Khalaf said the week had been a "damaging episode" in Facebook's history. "One of the secrets of Facebook's success has been that the more people who use Facebook, the more integral it becomes to its customers. Unfortunately for Facebook, the same dynamic cuts in the opposite direction if it loses a meaningful number of users as a result of this scandal. " BBC / March 23, 2018
Job numbers, benefit claims rise for migrants to Germany
China to defend trade interests in tariff row with US
A surprising number of migrants have found work as the Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, an economic adviser to the German economy prospers, new statistics show. But studies president, told his US counterpart in a phone call on Saturhave also found that non-EU migrants continue to make up day that Beijing was ready to protect its trade interests. a disproportionate number of welfare recipients. The news out of Germany's Federal Employment Agency is good. The agency's Institute for Employment Research (IAB) reports that the economy is on course to create 650,000 new jobs this year, 100,000 of which will be taken up by people who came to the country as refugees. Overall, just under 46 million people are expected to be employed in 2018 — a record number for postwar Germany. Long-term unemployed people are also increasingly finding their way back into the workforce, and the number of job vacancies is reaching a record high. The number of unemployed people is projected to sink to 2.3 million — the lowest it has been since German reunification in 1990. "It will take time to convert the additional potential of refugees into significant actual employment," the authors of the IAB report wrote. "But investments in education and language abilities promise major fiscal and macroeconomic advantages in the long term." Far from being a drag on the German economy, the IAB contends, refugees who fled conflict in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan have been a positive force. The IAB also reports that more migrants could receive jobs if procedures for acknowledging the diplomas and other qualifications they achieved in their home countries are streamlined. DW / March 25, 2018
"China is fully ready and has the strength to defend its national interests," he told Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as quoted by the CCTV broadcaster. Liu He added Beijing hoped that the world's two largest economies would work together to iron out differences. The call was initiated by the United States after Beijing said it was not afraid of a trade war following a series of US tariffs on Chinese imports. A US memo signed Thursday imposed multibillion duties on China. US President Donald Trump also imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium. In return, Beijing drew up a list of 128 US goods, such as pork and wine, it considered for import taxes. China’s Commerce Ministry said it would study public feedback and accept suggestions from businesses and experts until the end of March, before making a decision the tariffs against the United States. Sputnik / March 24, 2018
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ARTICLE OF THE WEEK Politics in the digital age: Cambridge Analytica in Kenya For CA, the Kenyan election was a revenue stream. For Kenyans, it was life or death. Shouldn't some things be sacred? Last week, social media giant Facebook announced that it was suspending data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica (CA) from its platform. According to Facebook, CA had violated its policies on user data when a researcher accessed millions of user's data from the site and transferred it to CA. CA has so far denied any accusations of wrongdoing and has since issued a statement asserting that the middleman, Global Science Research, was entirely to blame for any violations of Facebook's policies, doubling down on denials it has had to issue repeatedly since the 2016 US general election.
Nanjala Nyabola Nanjala Nyabola is a writer and political analyst based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is the author of "Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics", a forthcoming book on the impact of the internet on Kenyan politics (Zed Books, 2018)
CEO Alexander Nix told a UK parliamentary select committee two weeks ago that data analytics is embedded in modern political practice and the only reason why people are upset with CA's work is "they don't like the candidate who won". Thousands of miles away in Nairobi, those of us who watched the 2017 Kenyan election closely received the news with a mix of vindication and alarm. Vindication, because we had already seen the footprints of various data analytics firms like CA all over our contentious, yet-unresolved 2017 election; alarm because we still don't know what exactly CA did in Kenya beyond its PR operations.
We know that since 2013, digital tools have been extensively used in our politics as our major political parties spent millions on foreign PR and IT consultants. We know that in 2012, a young consultant working for the firm in Kenya was found dead in his hotel room. In 2017, Privacy International claimed that the ruling Jubilee Party spent $6m to contract Cambridge Analytica, while the opposition retained Aristotle, Inc for its own analytics operation. In fact, in the secret video shot by Channel 4, Mark Turnbull, managing director of Cambridge Analytica, says of the Jubilee party, "we have rebranded the entire party twice, written their manifesto, done two rounds of 50,000 surveys‌ We'd write all the speeches and stage the whole thing, so just about every element of his campaign." Responding to the reports, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that the site "had made mistakes" and that there had been a "breach of trust". But this legalese doesn't get to the heart of what Cambridge Analytica has done, or what Facebook has made possible: the core issues that come up when technology collides so crudely with politics. Beyond a mere "breach of trust" this scandal raises important legal, moral and philosophical questions about the nature of politics in the digital age, in which Kenya is instructive. Privacy and data The best way to think about this scandal is as three concentric rings of increasing historical impact. The smallest ring - or the immediate issue - concerns privacy and data, and especially the legal space in which social media sites operate. When individuals hand over their private data to social media sites, they believe that what they are doing is similar to having a one on one conversation with family, friends or colleagues but on a specific platform. But a social media site is not a telephone company or a public space. It is a private corporation that needs to make money for its shareholders. The easiest way for them to do that is to turn all the information that you hand over to them into a product for other people to sell you things - which is what Facebook routinely does. In this case, an innocuous quiz administered to about a quarter of a million people allowed a firm to collect private data on over 50 million users because it also surreptitiously collected information on friends and "friends of friends" - people who had not consented to allow their data to be mined. And that, in part, is why this issue has caused problems for Facebook and Cambridge Analytica in the UK and not in North America or Africa: UK privacy law prohibits such indirect data collection and has systems in place to punish it. In the US, there isn't a unified law prohibiting this third party data mining so journalists have scrambled to find a connection between CA and Russian collusion in the general election as a smoking gun for culpability. In Kenya, which to date still doesn't have a broad data protection law, users are essentially at the mercy of their own discernment. Of course, illegality and immorality are two separate things. Much of the problem here is that information was being taken from people who did not expressly consent to having it taken. As researcher Zeynep Tufecki has demonstrated, until 2014 this was not a bug in Facebook's systems - it was a feature that made it so attractive to app developers because of the ability to easily amass large amounts of user data. Data collection in this way is a violation of users' privacy rights and is certainly immoral, even if legislators around the world have been loath to follow Europe's lead and develop strong regulations that rein in such predatory behaviour.
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ARTICLE OF THE WEEK Foreign interference in domestic politics The next circle out is the conversation on foreign interference in domestic politics, and this has more to do with CA's political consulting and what it does with your data once it has it. Based on the secretly recorded conversations shared by Channel 4 and the Guardian, Cambridge Analytica routinely violated EU and UK laws on bribery and working with foreign governments. CEO Alexander Nix admits in the video that the firm would gladly bribe, entrap and even procure prostitutes for clients. The ongoing investigation also revealed that Israeli operatives procured private emails of now Nigerian President Buhari and attempted to sell them to CA in order to influence the 2015 Nigerian election. All of this is illegal in the UK, where the corporation is domiciled. Is it illegal in the country for which the activities were undertaken? Bribery and prostitution are, perhaps, but in the absence of a strong data protection laws in Kenya, strictly speaking, data mining is not illegal. In fact, private electronic communications are constantly interfered with - phones are bugged, emails monitored - often by the government itself and with no consequences for perpetrators. LGBT rights organisations have cases where clients are being blackmailed with being outed based on their private communications. Nor is there a culture of responsible data management. Companies using social media for customer service routinely reveal private customer information online without consent. Late last year it emerged that the treasury could not identify the private company that had been collecting revenue for the eCitizen platform, which collects millions of terabytes of personal identity information on anyone who needs to get a new driver's license, buy a car, register to vote, or register a business. No one has been charged with any offence in this regard. Coincidentally, the Kenyan parliament is debating the Cyber Crimes bill this week, but typical of the National Assembly in Kenya, even in the shadow of these devastating revelations, the focus of the debates has been only on how data insecurity affects members of parliament and how MPs can be protected from citizens. Kenyan politicians still don't get it. Or maybe they do, and this is wilful ignorance on their part to create a legal framework that allows them to punish their opponents but still facilitate the kind of manipulation that CA is accused of perpetrating over the last six years. After all, the Channel 4's undercover investigation affirms that Kenya is CA's biggest success story - the one they use to lure in politicians who want a shortcut to power. CA twice built Kenya's ruling party in a London boardroom on the back of a legal and moral vacuum and they are proud of it.
The ethical and moral dimension Which leads to the third and largest ring, that is, the ethical and moral dimension of the ongoing scandal. Should a British company be able to fly into an already heated political context halfway around the world and heavily influence political discourse for profit? Nix himself acknowledged in an interview with Tech Crunch last year that CA was well aware of the potential consequences of interfering in the Kenyan election. Shouldn't there be consequences for a corporation that riles up dangerous ethnonationalist rhetoric purely for profit and then gets to leave without having to deal with the fallout? For CA, the Kenyan election was a revenue stream. For Kenyans, it was life or death. Shouldn't some things be sacred? Recall that at the time of the 2013 election, the two protagonists of the Jubilee party were facing indictments at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity committed during the 2008 post-election violence. The 2013 Kenyan election campaign didn't just bring the Jubilee administration into power. It has had serious social and political consequences for the country and the region. The PR spin around their candidacy portrayed them as victims of an elaborate Western plot to persecute African politicians. The view was unquestioningly adopted and propagated by academics and local media, many who owe their financial survival to their relationship with power. It erased the plight victims of election violence in Kenya and gave quarter to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is accused of overseeing genocide in Darfur and the Blue Nile state. This narrative became so big that at one point African nations, which make up the largest single regional block in the membership of the ICC, threatened to withdraw from the court en masse, only for the current Kenyan attorney general to quietly state earlier this year that Kenya has no intention of leaving the ICC. Simply calling this irony doesn't do the situation justice: a political party went on a crusade against neo-colonial interference while paying a British company to package and propagate that message. And the damage is much deeper than that. In the colonial era, we talked about divide and rule: about the British East Africa Company pitting African tribes against each other in order to make it easier for them to control and subjugate. How, after almost 60 years of independence, is Kenya still here? Ultimately, precision will be key to responding to the current scandal. Cambridge Analytica was both a data analytics corporation and a political consultancy, and it is important not to conflate the responses to both. The solution to the data analytics problem does not lie in increasing oversight of what end users do on social media as a Kenyan MP suggested yesterday. People have the right to offer up whatever information they want to offer up to the public provided they fully understand the consequences and consent. The solution here is in restricting what companies like Facebook are able to do with that data once users provide it. It's one thing for to use analytics to try and sell things - your financial position should ideally act as a natural check against spending money you don't have. It's another thing altogether for the same technology to be used to mobilise political viewpoints that will take years to undo. The political consulting problem is more complex because the solution lies in changing the political culture around the world. It's about destroying the idea that it's okay to leave moral values behind when flying into developing countries to tilt the balance of political power towards tyranny. It lies in part in enforcing laws that restrict the way political parties in the developing world spend money. It lies in creating a culture that sees African people as more than an inconvenience on the way to power. The rhetoric around the 2017 election in Kenya has damaged lives and livelihoods. Fear of ethnic violence was so high that certain neighbourhoods were emptied out. Personal relationships have been irreparably damaged. None of this is illegal per se, but it is deeply immoral, and this needs to count for something. 11
EDITOR Ege Seçgin REDACTOR Ekin Su Yılmaz COORDINATORS Şevval Uslu, Işılay Merve Güzbey, Fırat Arslan, Kağan Dağdeviren, Demir Demirgil EUROPE Mert Malkoç, Oğuzhan Sabuncu, Şevval Uslu AMERICAS Kadir Köylü, Demir Demirgil, Ege Seçgin ASIA Işılay Merve Güzbey, Murat Kuran M. EAST & AFRICAS Nazım Çınar Duvaryapar, Fırat Arslan TURKEY Kağan Dağdeviren, Emir Teker, Cemal Balaban ECONOMY & BUSINESS Şevval Uslu
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