Tesla May Be Driving Itself Out of the Running as EV Leader

Opinion

July 1st, 4:52am

Gary Smith

Gary Smith -

Early bicycles came in a variety of sizes, shapes and styles, and they had colorful nicknames. The “dandy horse” had no pedals and was propelled by the rider’s feet pushing the ground — essentially wheel-assisted walking. The “penny farthing” had pedals, but the rider sat above a huge front wheel that dwarfed the tiny back wheel — similar to the size difference between the British penny and farthing coins. “Boneshaker” bicycles had iron and wood wheels that were ill-suited for rough terrain. What they all had in common was that they were uncomfortable, unsafe and expensive. In the late 1800s, a series of technological innovations led to “safety bicycles” that had two identical wheels, a chain drive, a diamond frame and inflatable tires. The British public embraced the safety, comfort and cost of these improved bicycles. Middle-class Brits who could not afford a horse or horse and carriage were now able to travel conveniently through cities and far into the countryside — even over bad roads. Bicycles were also environmentally friendly, offering an inexpensive solution to what became known as “the great horse manure crisis of 1894,” a reference to the fact that the horses transporting people and goods were overwhelming cities with foul-smelling, disease-spreading droppings. The number of British bicycle makers quintupled, to 833 from around 163. Many were financed by stock sales, with the number of publicly traded British companies producing cycles, tubes or tires increasing from fewer than 10 in 1895 to 127 in 1897. At its peak, in 1896, British companies produced 750,000 bicycles a year, many of which were exported to the US, France and other European countries that were similarly enamored of safety bicycles and clogged with horse manure. As with many speculative stock bubbles, this genuine technological innovation led to a growth in companies profiting from this innovation and rising stock prices that attracted speculators who expected prices to continue rising — a self-fulfilling prophecy, for a while. Bicycle stock prices tripled during two months in 1896 while the overall stock market languished. Emotions trampled reason. During the tulip bulb bubble, the supply of bulbs increased because tulip bulbs multiply naturally. During the bicycle bubble, the sprouting of new companies increased the supply of bicycles, particularly mass-produced American bicycles that cost 50% less than handmade British cycles. Enthusiasts shrugged off supply worries and gushed about a future in which bicycles would be the dominant form of transportation. Bicycles were revolutionary, but bicycle stock prices had become uncoupled from the profits of bicycle makers. Fools pointed to the revolution wrought by bicycles and the superior quality of British bicycles, but the supply of greater fools soon dried up. After peaking in 1897, the stock prices of bicycle makers fell 73 percent over the next few years. The bicycle bubble was different from the tulip bubble and South Sea bubble in that there was not a sudden pop but a gradual deflation, not unlike air slowly leaking out of a bicycle tire. Fast-forward to today’s electric-vehicle revolution and head cheerleader Elon Musk, who boasted in 2016 that “all Tesla vehicles exiting the factory have the hardware necessary for Level 5 autonomy. Every car we make, on the order of 2,000 cars a week, are shipping now with Level 5, meaning hardware capable of full self-driving, or driverless, capability.” Viewers gushed at a promotional video. “What a day to be alive,” one said. Alas, it can be a long road from proof of concept to viable product. On the six-level spectrum of driving automation, Teslas are still stuck at Level 2, with the release notes for its “Full Self-Driving Beta” software warning that it may “do the wrong thing at the worst time, so you must always keep your hands on the wheel and pay extra attention to the road.” Wise words, since several glitches have been reported, including Teslas sometimes ignoring speed bumps and stop signs. Tesla Inc.’s market capitalization topped $1 trillion in October 2021, as much as the 10 next most valuable automakers combined. Tesla’s market cap has slipped to $800 billion in the current stock market slump, yet it is still valued at more than 100 times earnings, and prominent pundits think that its stock is cheap. Investor Gary Black predicted that Tesla’s current $700 stock price will pass $3,000 by 2030; even more audaciously, Ark analyst Tasha Keeney set a 2026 date. The 2030 forecast assumes that 60% of the cars sold worldwide in 2030 will be EVs and that 20% of these cars will be Teslas — giving Tesla 10 million car sales in 2030, compared to slightly less than 1 million in 2021. The 2026 forecast assumes that Tesla will sell between 5 million and 10 million cars that year, but nonetheless gives the same $3,000 price target. Teslas are fine cars (my family owns two), but there is a big difference between a good car and a great stock. These ebullient predictions have uncanny parallels to the unbridled enthusiasm for bicycles 125 years ago. Economically relevant EVs are a terrific technological innovation — as evidenced by the vigorous efforts of new and established automakers to build EVs. Now, as then, enthusiasts don’t seem to have considered the implications of the looming explosion in supply. High-end cars like BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi will compete directly with Tesla, while other companies like BYD Co. Ltd., General Motors Co., Hyundai Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. will offer attractive cars at half the price. Tesla currently has 14% of the worldwide EV market (followed by Volkswagen AG at 12% and SAIC Motor Corp. Ltd. at 11%). The assumption that Tesla’s worldwide market share will increase to 20% over the next 10 years is beyond optimistic, verging on delirious. Tesla got a big head start in battery design and driver-assistance systems, but solid-state EVs are about to shake up the battery competition. Fully self-driving cars are not only still elusive but also deeply distrusted by consumers. Tesla is increasingly just one among many, in the same way that an early bicycle maker soon became just one among many. The British bicycle bubble ended with a whimper. The same is likely to be true of the Tesla bubble. Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3734316/gary-smith/tesla-may-be-driving-itself-out-running-ev-leader

The Ayatollah’s Model for the World

Opinion

July 1st, 4:42am

Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri - Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987

While Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are marketing their authoritarian rules as alternatives to a “moribund” Western democratic system, the Khomeinist mullahs in Tehran are also throwing their hat, sorry turban, into the ring as contenders for leading a new World Order. An early version of the mullahs’ bid came almost 30 years ago when Hojat al-Islam Muhammad Khatami suggested that, by separating religion from politics, the Renaissance and Enlightenment in Europe had created a world order that fomented wars, slavery and colonialism. The way to salvation was to restore religious control on politics by granting theologians a role in the leadership. The new version is offered by Ayatollah Ahmad Alam al-Hoda, a senior cleric in Mash’had and one of the four or five turbaned heads considered as possible successors to the present “Supreme Guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The father-in-law of the current Islamic President Ayatollah Ibrahim Raisi, Alam al-Hoda also has close relations with the military-security apparatus often labelled as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Trying to cast himself as the ideologue of the regime Alam al-Hoda spelled out his world vision in a lengthy sermon in the “holy city”. According to him the era of modernism that began with the Westphalian treaties, the American independence, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution is over as we enter the post-modern world. “The world that was enslaved by modernity is crumbling,” he said. “A post-modern world is on the horizon; one that only Islamic Iran can lead.” Alam al-Hoda claims that the United States is falling apart as some states, notably Texas, seek secession and with Israelis fleeing their “promised land” in ever growing numbers. But why should Iran emerge as the new world leader? Alam al-Hoda’s answer is stark: Today the Islamic Republic in Iran is the only standard-bearer of true Muhammadan Islam. Out of the 57 countries with Muslim majority populations, Iran is “the only country which has an Islamic government in the true meaning of the term”. Other nations need not convert to Islam to benefit from the “Islamic model”. In fact some non- Muslim nations, notably Venezuela, have already done so. Mohsen Shaterzadeh, former ambassador of the Islamic Republic to Venezuela, says that Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution was “inspired by the teachings of Imam Khomeini”. Chavez who made several trips to Iran learned how to rule a nation in a just way. “Chavez finally came to believe in the Hidden Imam and developed a deep devotion to Supreme Guide Imam Khamenei,” Shaterzadeh says. Iran’s “Islamic model “has also won “mass followings” in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen where the movement for establishing a “truly Muhammadan system” continues to grow. This “we’re-the-most-beautiful” illusion of the mullahs may be dismissed as an acute form of limerence. The problem is that it prevents Iran from acquiring a realistic portrayal of itself that is not reflected in the falsifying mirror of fanatical fantasy. A true picture of Iran under the Islamic Republic may attract some sympathy for the sufferings of a nation held hostage in a wayward ship in a stormy sea. If you thought that was an outburst of poetic conceit listen to what another ayatollah, Ahmad Jannati, said only last week. “People say that because of inflation, they cannot afford more than one meal a day,” he said. “What is wrong with that? One meal is a blessing as there are people who cannot have even that. In Islam the rule is to bear all hardship to protect those who protect the faith it from its enemies.” In other words, Alam al-Hoda’s “postmodern Islamic model” is “government by starvation.” Starvation isn’t the only “blessing” that the Islamic Republic offers. The Islamic Republic accounts for 50 percent of all executions in the world although Iran counts for only 1.1 percent of the world population. More than 40 percent of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are in the Islamic Republic. Each year an average of 150,000 highly educated Iranians, among them 3,500 doctors of medicine, leave the country to join the estimated 8 million, almost 10 percent of the population, already in exile. According to Transparency International, the Islamic Republic is also in the world top league for corruption. According to Tehran’s official reports between 2016 and 2020 embezzlement and bribery rose by 300 percent. Only last month, a $400 million embezzlement case was reported among 85 other cases of “big corruption” being investigation. Official reports show that some 80 un-named but presumably powerful figures owe untold sums to state-owned banks on the basis of non-existent collaterals. Flight of capital is estimated to be between $22 and $30 billion a year. With the national currency becoming virtually worthless and the Tehran Stock Exchange regraded as a den of thieves, even small savers try to take whatever money they have out as quickly as possible. Again according to official estimates more than 1.5 million Iranians have purchased property in Turkey while a further 1.2 million have invested in real estate in Georgia, Armenia and Serbia. At the same time, again according to official estimates, a quarter of Iranians live in sub-standard housing, including 13 million trapped in shanty towns. A few weeks ago the collapse of a tall building in southwest Iran claimed at least 80 lives. The authorities admit that the permits needed to build the tower were purchased through bribery. Worse still, the Mayor of Tehran warns that there are almost 500 shabbily built towers in the capital that cannot be razed presumably because they belong to powerful regime figures. Iran’s position on the global life expectancy chart has fallen to 49th place compared to 38th in 1977. Iran is also facing a downward demographic curve with a significant number of young people unable to get married and raise families. In 2021, President Hassan Rouhani’s government estimated that 25 percent of Iranians lived below poverty line while another 30 percent had “a good life.” The remaining people were JAMS or “just-about-managing” on the edge of poverty. Add to all that the challenges that average Iranians face in social, cultural and political domains and Alam al-Hoda’s “Islamic model” is unlikely to find a big market across the globe. Those who supposedly love that model in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen are simply paid to sing its praise. According to former Islamic Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, Tehran spent around $35 billion a year to feed its supporters in Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sanaa, the four Arab capitals that Iran controls according to Ayatollah Ali Yunesi. Alam al-Hoda and his ilk are caught in the Walter Mitty syndrome after a Danny Kaye film in which a poor chum imagines himself in a series of heroic roles.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3734306/amir-taheri/ayatollah%E2%80%99s-model-world

There Is No ‘Back to Normal’ After Covid

Opinion

July 1st, 4:34am

Gearoid Reidy

Gearoid Reidy -

Japanese virologist Hitoshi Oshitani has an impressive record fighting pandemics. As one of the leading experts advising the government during Covid, he helped formulate a strategy that has kept deaths in the country with the world’s oldest population lower than any other developed nation, without resorting to lockdowns. Now, as the world clamors for Japan to reopen its borders, he’s urging caution. Perhaps it’s time to listen. “I don’t like the notion of ‘back to normal,’” Oshitani, a professor of virology at the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, said in an interview in his Tokyo office. “That means going back to the pre-pandemic society. That pre-pandemic society is very, very fragile — for many risks, not just infectious disease.” As one of the first major countries to try living with the virus, Japan offers lessons not just to Covid-zero China but to the rest of the world, as cases again rise from Singapore to the UK. Oshitani’s approach has helped keep Covid deaths in Japan lower than in Taiwan or New Zealand, where officials tried to eliminate the spread entirely. Oshitani acknowledges tourism needs to resume in some form, but warns that the country isn’t out of the woods. He also cautions that the world will see more pandemics in the coming decades. That means it’s imperative societies rethink not just how tourism might look, but how all aspects of life should change in the future — before it’s too late. The following transcript has been edited for length and clarity. Gearoid Reidy: What is the status of Japan’s battle against the coronavirus? Hitoshi Oshitani: We set our objective for a Covid-19 response on February 24, 2020. Many countries at that time were aiming at containment, but we knew that was extremely difficult. Living with Covid has been the main approach from the beginning. At the same time, we said that we needed to suppress transmission so that deaths or severe cases could be minimized. We also knew that we needed to maintain social and economic activities. Although we did not implement a lockdown, people were very cautious from the beginning — every time we had a surge of cases, they changed their behavior. Most measures are on a voluntary basis. The Three C’s concept helped people understand what they should avoid. Then omicron came, and things got a bit more complicated. Since the denominator became bigger than previous waves, we unfortunately had many deaths, particularly among the elderly. To suppress the transmission, we would need very aggressive measures, like what they are still doing in Shanghai. Except for China, most countries and areas that had very low mortality impact in 2020 and 2021 had a big impact in 2022 — New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, Hong Kong. Taiwan right now is having a significant outbreak. It’s like the game Othello 2 — the countries or areas with a better outcome can easily turn to the worst outcome. So Japanese people are still cautious, and I’m still considering the worst case scenario as a possible option in Japan. The pandemic is not yet over. We should expect some surge of cases in Japan in the coming weeks, and our advantage can be a disadvantage in the next stage. GR: So countries that initially contained the virus are not using the same sort of mitigation strategies? HO: In the past two and a half years, we’ve had many, many problems. It’s not all a success story. Initially, we had many outbreaks in hospitals and nursing homes, and many elderly people died. But in the second wave, hospitals and nursing homes were much better prepared. They learned a lot of lessons and improved their systems. But New Zealand, Taiwan and other places probably didn’t have a chance to build better systems — then suddenly they had a huge number of cases due to omicron. It was the same in South Korea. Our infection rate is still smaller than in the US, or many European countries or even South Korea. Although our vaccination rate is higher than some countries, still there are people who don’t have immunity. Something like South Korea can happen here anytime. We are in a much better position than one or two years ago, because of vaccination, immunity by natural infection, better treatment and better systems in hospitals and nursing homes. But people are still cautious, most are still wearing masks. GR: What would you say to those who want Japan to return fully to normal life and treat Covid like influenza? HO: The situation now is completely different from 2020 and 2021. We are changing — but still there are many uncertainties. Many people compare seasonal influenza and Covid-19, which is kind of nonsense. I’ve also been working on influenza for many years. Seasonal influenza is different; it's predictable. Usually you only have an outbreak in certain times of the year, from autumn to spring. While there is some difference in terms of mortality impact, we always see such impact within [a certain] range. But Covid-19 is different — we cannot predict what is going to happen. We do know that there is the high possibility of a surge of cases [in Japan] in July and August. But that we do not know what mortality impact we are going to have. We still do not know what’s going to happen in winter this year. The virus is still changing. A more problematic variant may emerge. It was a dramatic change from alpha to delta; then delta to omicron is a very significant change. For influenza, such a dramatic change only occurs when pandemic influenza emerges. But for Covid-19, every six months or so pandemic influenza-like incidents are occurring. GR: The business community is calling for Japan to open its borders and go back to normal. What’s your position on tourism and border controls? HO: Since June 1, the number of incoming passengers increased and there is no testing for many countries. New strains or infected people from [countries] with a higher incidence rate can come to Japan. We need to think about this carefully. In 2019, we had 30 million people, mainly foreign tourists, coming to Japan. In 2020, the government was hoping we would have over 40 million foreign tourists because of the Olympics — of course, it turned out to be almost zero. I don’t like the notion of “back to normal.” Back to normal means we are going back to the pre-pandemic society. The pre-pandemic society is very, very, fragile for many risks, not just infectious disease. When they are talking about increasing foreign tourists, I don’t think they consider the risks seriously. GR: Japanese people can also go abroad and get infected. HO: That direction is probably a higher risk. In the early days of the pandemic, we had many [Covid] cases among people who went to Egypt; Japanese tourists, mostly middle-aged. Many were infected and came back to Japan. Even if we open the border — and we have to open the border, I understand that is definitely necessary — at the same time we should have some system to minimize the risk. What is the best way? I don’t think the border control measures of Japan, or many countries, are based on proper risk assessment. I also don’t think this is the last pandemic in the next one or two decades. Pandemics will continue to occur. We were living in a completely different world in 2020 compared to 2003, when the SARS outbreak occurred. SARS spread to many countries just by one infected person, who traveled from Guangdong province to Hong Kong by bus, and stayed in one hotel. In 2003, there was not as much traffic between Hong Kong and Guangdong. There weren’t many international connections. But 2020 was completely different — Wuhan was the industrial hub of China. By the time we realized [what was happening], the virus had already spread to Europe, Middle East, and the US. So the question is whether we should go back to this risky world or not? GR: So you’re saying no one’s thinking about the possibility of the next pandemic — something that could be worse than Covid? HO: That’s possible. Something like Ebola can be an airborne pathogen. Anything can happen. Right now, monkeypox is transmitted among a certain population, but the virus may change. So we have to be prepared and we have to think again what we should do in the next 20, 30 years. Is it a good idea just to go back to normal, to the pre-pandemic society? GR: Is there enough discussion happening about that within the WHO or other international bodies? HO: The problem is they are making the same mistakes again and again. They just try to learn lessons from the immediate past outbreak. In 2003, SARS was successfully contained. The system changed, influenza pandemic preparedness was improved — but then the 2009 [swine flu] pandemic was not that severe, And most people forgot, because they were just looking at the immediate past outbreak. Then in 2014, there was a significant Ebola outbreak in west Africa. But what they did [in response] was just to build the capacity in rural Africa so that the early detection and early response can contain the outbreak — which was completely different for Covid-19. For Covid-19, the initial outbreaks occurred in New York, northern Italy and so on. By the time we realized, it had already spread, mainly in major metropolitan cities. It was the opposite of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. GR: It’s like they say, generals always fight the last war. HO: Exactly. What they are trying to do in the WHO and the international community is just trying to learn the lesson from Covid-19, which may not be applicable for the next pandemic. GR: What should we be doing instead? HO: We have to build more resilient society. Of course, we need to have more tourists, more exchange. Before the pandemic, I often traveled on the Tohoku bullet train, which was packed with people, most of them businessmen. Now there are few — Zoom or other internet meetings can replace this. You don’t have to live in these inhuman cities like Tokyo. People can live in the rural areas; if you have a good internet connection, you can have a much better life with your kids. We have to think, is globalization really the right way to go? Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3734301/gearoid-reidy/there-no-%E2%80%98back-normal%E2%80%99-after-covid

Putin Denies Russian Responsibility for Kremenchuk Strike

World

June 30th, 7:25am

Asharq Al-Awsat

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum "Russia Calling!" via a video conference call in Moscow, Russia November 30, 2021. (Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin denied Moscow's forces were responsible for a strike on a crowded shopping center in the Ukrainian town of Kremenchuk earlier this week, in which 18 people were killed. "Our army does not attack any civilian infrastructure site. We have every capability of knowing what is situated where," Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat, reported AFP. "Nobody among us shoots just like that, randomly. It is normally done based on intelligence data on targets" and with "high-precision weapons". "I am convinced that this time, everything was done in this exact manner," Putin said. Ukraine accuses Russia of hitting the center on Monday in Kremenchuk, 330 kilometers (205 miles) southeast of Kyiv. Russia denies the accusation and previously claimed its missile salvo was aimed at an arms depot and the center was not in operation at the time.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732446/putin-denies-russian-responsibility-kremenchuk-strike

US Disburses $1.3 bn of Promised Aid to Ukraine

World

June 30th, 6:14am

Asharq Al-Awsat

Ukrainian servicemen taking part in the armed conflict with Russia-backed separatists in Donetsk region of the country attend the handover ceremony of military heavy weapons and equipment in Kiev on November 15, 2018. Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images

The US Treasury Department announced Wednesday the transfer of $1.3 billion in economic aid to Ukraine as part of the initial $7.5 billion promised to Kyiv by the Biden administration in May. "With this delivery of economic assistance, we reaffirm our resolute commitment to the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Putin's war of aggression and work to sustain their economy," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement. The payment, part of the $7.5 billion aid package signed by President Joe Biden in May, is set to be made through the World Bank, AFP said. According World Bank estimates, the war, which began with Russia's invasion of its former Soviet neighbor in February, could cause the Ukrainian economy to contract by up to 45 percent in 2022. The country is currently running a budget deficit that is growing by $5 billion every month, exacerbated by its inability to raise funds or to access financing on external markets. Allies have rushed to pump Ukraine with aid, with the G7 and the European Union also announcing commitments of $29.6 billion in further money for Kyiv, with $8.5 billion of that coming from the United States, according to the Treasury Department. Washington already disbursed two payments of $500 million of that through the World Bank in April and May to help cover Ukraine's immediate costs as it dealt with "Russia's unprovoked and unjustified invasion," the Treasury said. Washington has already supplied Kyiv with more than $6 billion in military equipment since Russia's invasion.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732321/us-disburses-13-bn-promised-aid-ukraine

The West Must Move East for NATO to Survive

Opinion

June 30th, 5:04am

Hal Brands

Hal Brands - Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. His latest book is "American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump."

The leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries are in Madrid for the alliance’s most consequential summit in a generation. NATO appears to have overcome Turkish diplomatic blackmail to bring in two new members, Sweden and Finland. It must approve a new concept for transatlantic security amid Russia’s ongoing assault on Ukraine. Not least, the alliance — and the US — will confront an inconvenient reality: Even if the Ukraine war takes a heavy toll on Russia, NATO will need a stronger presence in Eastern Europe than it possessed before the conflict. Since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014, NATO has had a tripwire strategy for defending its easternmost members. The alliance sprinkled a few thousand troops across Poland and the Baltic States. And it chose to rotate those forces in and out rather than stationing them there permanently, in part due to cost and in part out of respect for a 1997 agreement with Russia that Moscow had already egregiously violated. Such a modest force could not withstand a major Russian attack. It could, however, ensure that US and other NATO troops would be killed, thereby setting off a larger, decisive Western response. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, the Pentagon has sent additional forces into Eastern Europe: It now has roughly 10,000 troops in Poland, 2,500 in Romania and 2,000 in the Baltic States. The larger US contingent in Germany has also been reinforced, now at roughly 40,000 personnel. The goal was to ensure that Russia, perhaps emboldened by what many analysts thought would be an easy subjugation of Ukraine, was not tempted to take its aggression into NATO territory. Yet Russia stumbled into a bloody mess, suffering massive losses of infantry, armor, special operations forces and other capabilities. The Kremlin’s bungling of the invasion also raised questions about how highly to rate those troops that remain. Russia’s blunders have led some NATO members, such as France and Italy, to argue that greater forward presence in the east is now unnecessary. And with European countries ramping up defense spending, one also hears arguments that the US should leave any additional security measures in Europe to the Europeans and consummate its perpetually postponed “pivot to Asia” instead. Those are bad ideas. The outcome in Ukraine is still in doubt, thanks to Moscow’s gains in the east and the south and to its severe attrition of Kyiv’s armed forces. Russia may still achieve a pared-down goal of seizing much of the Donbas and a “land bridge” to Crimea; one way or another, President Vladimir Putin has shown he can inflict terrible damage even with a terribly damaged military. Well-informed analysts have also cautioned that Russia might do better in a conflict with NATO — the war it has trained and motived its forces to fight — than it has done in Ukraine. The current conflict has reminded us, moreover, that we still really don’t know Putin’s mind. For years, his risk-taking has caught even the smartest Kremlin-watchers by surprise. Most important, Ukraine has shown why a tripwire defense of Eastern Europe isn’t enough: It requires frontline states to see key portions of their territory conquered and then wait patiently for liberation. That has always been a nasty scenario, because it could allow Russia to grab a chunk of land and then use nuclear threats to deter NATO from fighting back. It looks even uglier now that the world knows exactly what crimes Russian forces perpetrate — rape, murder, torture and other horrific abuses. The problem with a tripwire strategy, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said last week, is that being attacked by Russia means “complete destruction of countries and our culture.” All the talk about enhanced European defense notwithstanding, there’s no good alternative to the US taking the initiative. The Ukraine war has been an object lesson in the value of American leadership: In the months prior to February 24, Washington repeatedly warned, on the basis of its unmatched intelligence capabilities, that Putin was deadly serious about invading — yet many European leaders were skeptical. If the US were to decide that Europe can now look after itself, the result would be a weaker NATO riven by disputes between frontline states that rightly fear Putin and Western European states, such as France, that still hope for some diplomatic accommodation. We’re not talking about Cold War levels of US military commitment. It would involve permanently stationing perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 additional US troops in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, with commensurate additions from other NATO countries. Poland and other frontline states should cover the costs of permanent basing — and indeed, have already agreed to do so. NATO will also need, and has signaled it will develop, enhanced rapid-response capabilities, such as prepositioned equipment larger forces can quickly take up in a crisis. The key is to create a capability that has a serious chance of frustrating an initial Russian assault until the cavalry can arrive and beat the invaders back — the sort of effective defense that bolsters deterrence by making it hard to imagine that aggression can succeed. After 30 years of focusing on “out of area” operations such as Afghanistan and counterpiracy off Africa, NATO is rediscovering its identity as an alliance devoted to collective defense. The leaders meeting in Madrid need to make sure it has the strength deployed in Eastern Europe to get that crucial mission right. Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732236/hal-brands/west-must-move-east-nato-survive

Will China Overtake US on Mars Missions? It’s Up to NASA

Opinion

June 30th, 4:56am

Adam Minter

Adam Minter -

In 2033, a US spacecraft will return to Earth carrying the second cache of rocks ever collected from the surface of Mars. The first cache? It will have been collected by China two years earlier, in 2031, according to plans released last week by one of China's top space scientists. Of course, there's no guarantee that either mission will succeed. But China's impressive recent successes operating on and above the Moon and Mars give the country a better chance at lapping NASA and its partners. The news may cause alarm among Americans accustomed to being first in space for more than a half-century. This is no Sputnik moment, however, and there is no reason to panic. A mission to bring back the samples is an impressive technological achievement. But the future of Mars exploration isn't sample returns; it's discovering past life on Mars. For now, the US is better positioned to accomplish that goal. In 1993, NASA initiated the Mars Exploration Program, or MEP, a long-term initiative to explore Martian geology, climate and the possibility of past life, while laying a foundation for human exploration. Over the next three decades, NASA launched orbiters and rovers revealing ancient river and lake beds, as well as mineral evidence of a wet and warm Martian past. These discoveries heightened interest in seeking out evidence for past Martian life, and launching additional probes to find it. Unfortunately, the scientific instruments necessary to prove that life once existed on Mars are simply too large and complex to transport to the planet’s surface. To make that kind of history-altering discovery, pieces of Mars must be brought back to Earth. That's a complex endeavor. For example, one early NASA concept had two rovers landing on Mars, collecting samples and then launching them into orbit, where a third vehicle would rendezvous with them and dispatch them back to Earth. That mission would've started launching in 2003 and returned samples in 2008. Instead it was canceled over cost and difficulty. Twenty years ago, there was little competition for the US in space. The Russian program was in terminal decline, and China was just starting to launch humans into space. But despite a late start, China's leadership was determined to catch up. It's an ambition inspired by the belief that the country's economic and military future will, in part, be determined by its space capabilities. During the early 2000s, the Chinese announced an ambitious program of lunar exploration, a future space station and, tentatively, a Mars program. In each case, they have followed through and achieved successes, including lunar rovers, a Mars orbiter and rover, and a small but functional space station that could have Earth orbit to itself if the US doesn't replace the aging International Space Station by the end of the decade. That would be a public-relations and technical triumph for the Chinese. But if it doesn't happen, China remains keen to find another high-profile way to surpass the US in space. Until recently, Mars was not an obvious place to do it. In 2012, after a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, NASA began work on new concepts for sample-return missions. Like earlier ones, these required multiple spacecraft, starting with a rover to collect samples from a region of Mars that shows promise as a repository of past life. Rather than wait for the full mission to be designed and built, NASA landed the Mars Perseverance rover near a dried-up Martian river delta in 2021. The rover contains 43 tubes for soil and rock samples that — scientists hope — will eventually be returned to Earth after they're dropped somewhere on the Martian surface, to be picked up later by another rover. This retrieval rover, in turn, will deliver them to a rocket (which also needs to be landed on Mars) that will fly them to a spacecraft that will ferry them to Earth. For now, the only part of this return mission that exists is the Perseverance rover, which is currently seeking promising samples for eventual return to Earth. The other parts of the mission, estimated to cost around $5 billion, have yet to be funded or built. They're also delayed: In March, NASA postponed the return to 2033, from 2031, in part to provide time to simplify the complicated mission. That's China's opening. Its scientists believe they can beat the US back to Earth by leveraging technologies used on China's recent lunar sample return, and Mars rover and orbiter missions. As outlined in a presentation given last week by the chief designer of China's current Mars rover, it's a simpler mission than NASA's. Most notably, it doesn't include rovers that can sample different sites over a large geographic area. Instead, the mission appears to be designed to land, grab samples (potentially using a four-legged robot), and get them back to China. If China can pull it off, it's a tremendous technical accomplishment, and the samples will be of considerable scientific interest. With a little luck, they may even contain the evidence of life that US scientists hope to discover with their own samples. But the US samples, if they're returned, will be of far greater interest, in part because they will have been carefully chosen from a wide geographic area over a period of years. Odds that either country will find evidence of life remains slim, but the US mission is far more likely to achieve it. For competitive-minded Americans, that's not much consolation for finishing second. But in this case, at least, slightly slower may serve US interests. After all, there's little likelihood the US or China will launch many additional, costly sample-return missions after the first two. Obtaining the best and most diverse set of samples with the few opportunities available should be the top priority and a source of national pride. To ensure that happens, Congress should fully fund NASA's request for the infrastructure necessary to accomplish the sample-return mission by 2033. It also needs to pressure NASA and its contractors to improve the management and bureaucratic deficiencies that have slowed down mission development, as outlined in a 2020 independent review of NASA's Mars Sample Return program. For now, the US remains the world's preeminent space power and explorer. Coming in second in the race for Mars rocks won't change that status. But it should serve as a reminder that its great geopolitical rivals are improving in their ability to shoot for the stars. Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732231/adam-minter/will-china-overtake-us-mars-missions-it%E2%80%99s-nasa

Fuzzy Language Is Setting Back the Fight Against Covid

Opinion

June 30th, 4:46am

Faye Flam

Faye Flam -

People no longer know what to do about the Covid pandemic. Part of the problem is the very language we use to talk about it. Words such as “breakthrough,” “booster” and even “sick” mean different things to different people — and to experts and the general public. The solution is for experts to be mindful of words that have various popular meanings, and to avoid others altogether. Public health officials who wonder why the public is ignoring them — or who blame scientific illiteracy for their own muddy communication — should consider adopting a new glossary for the pandemic’s third year. The language problem really hit me when Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in a video talk that he wished experts had never used the term “breakthrough infection.” This descriptor makes it sound as if the Covid vaccines failed. But in other diseases, asymptomatic or mild infections often coexist with vaccination. Offit also suggested jettisoning the term “booster” and redefining fully vaccinated simply as two, three or four shots, depending on various risk factors and age. That might encourage people to get the additional shots they need. Last winter, the critical care physician Roger Seheult told me that most patients he was seeing in the intensive-care unit during the omicron surge had serious health conditions (one was a kidney transplant recipient) but had not gotten that third dose of vaccine. Thirty percent of Americans over 65 never got a booster, though they are vastly more likely to be hospitalized or die from Covid than younger people. Even very basic terms can highlight a disconnect between the public and public health. Take the word “sick.” “A recent CDC announcement regarding international travel advised travelers to ‘get tested for current infection … and not travel if they are sick,’” notes risk communication consultant Peter Sandman. But does “sick” mean having symptoms or just testing positive? When scientists estimate that a quarter or even half of Americans have been infected with omicron, do they mean tested positive or got symptoms? Does this include people who didn’t test but would have been positive if they had? “Airborne” is another term Sandman considers confusing. Most people think of airborne as any transmission via air, in contrast with transmission via infected surfaces. But the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention differentiate between airborne and droplets, which also travel through the air but are larger and less likely to travel more than six feet. The distinction is critical. With a droplet-borne disease, even cloth masks are likely to help, and staying six feet apart keeps people safer. If a virus is technically airborne, then being outside, having good ventilation and wearing respirator masks make more sense. Even the term “mask” has lost some meaning. Masks encompass everything from a bandana tied bank robber-style around the face to an N-95. The former hasn’t been shown to protect the wearer or others, while the latter does both. So when we talk about “wearing masks” or say “masking works,” people have wildly varying interpretations. “Long Covid” also encompasses too much, lumping together any lingering symptoms with a disabling neurological syndrome. This makes it hard to judge the risk of severe long Covid. To understand the difference, think about skin cancer. There are many kinds of skin cancer, and the common ones are the least deadly. There’s a good reason that most of us who’ve had something zapped off our skin don’t consider ourselves cancer survivors. The word “emergency” also highlights the growing gulf between the public and public health, since most people no longer see the pandemic as an emergency and haven’t for some time. “To qualify as an emergency, an event normally should be important, bad, sudden and short-term,” Sandman wrote to me. The pandemic is still an official public health emergency, which gives drug companies the ability to fast-track drugs and vaccines through emergency use authorizations. But the situation is no longer sudden or short-term. “It’s not surprising that much of the public is highly motivated to “get over” COVID and return to normal life, while many public health professionals are inclined to stay focused (and want the public to stay focused) on the biggest public health emergency of their careers,” Sandman wrote. Finally, the word “pandemic,” when contrasted with “endemic,” has unleashed a new wave of confusion. People think of a pandemic as something very serious and scary, and endemic as a problem that fades into the background. Oxford University biologist Aris Katzourakis has called “endemic” one of the most misused terms of the pandemic because many endemic diseases, such as malaria, can be extremely deadly and debilitating. To most of us, however, the idea of a permanent pandemic or a permanent emergency feel oxymoronic. When people say they think the pandemic is over, they’re describing the way things feel now. That might be subjective, but it’s no less real — and public health professionals would be wise to pay attention. Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732226/faye-flam/fuzzy-language-setting-back-fight-against-covid

Iran-US Nuclear Talks in Qatar End without Making Progress

Iran

June 30th, 4:38am

Asharq Al-Awsat

This handout photo provided by the Iranian news agency IRNA on June 28, 2022 shows (R to L) Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani meeting with the European Union's nuclear talks coordinator Enrique Mora in Qatar's capital Doha. (AFP/IRNA/Akbar Tavakoli)

Indirect negotiations between Iran and the US over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers ended Wednesday in Qatar after failing to make significant progress amid a growing crisis over Tehran’s atomic program, diplomats said. The Doha talks broke up after two days without any sign of a breakthrough, months after talks in Vienna among all of the deal's parties went on "pause." In the time since, Iran shut off surveillance cameras of international inspectors and now has enough high-enriched uranium to potentially fashion into at least one nuclear bomb if it chose. And with Iran and the US blaming each other for the talks’ failure, it remains unclear when - or if - there will be another round of negotiations. European Union mediator Enrique Mora on Twitter described as "intense" the two days of talks in Doha. "Unfortunately, not yet the progress the EU team as coordinator had hoped-for," Mora wrote. "We will keep working with even greater urgency to bring back on track a key deal for non-proliferation and regional stability." Mora's comments came hours after the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s hardline Revolutionary Guard, described the negotiations as finished hours before they ended and having "no effect on breaking the deadlock in the talks." Tasnim claimed that the American position did not include "a guarantee for Iran benefiting economically from the deal," quoting what it described as unnamed "informed sources." "Washington is seeking to revive the (deal) in order to limit Iran without economic achievement for our country," the Tasnim report claimed. A key sticking point has been American sanctions targeting the Guard. US Special Representative Rob Malley spoke to the Iranians through Mora during the talks. Mora then took messages to Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. After the Tasnim report, Foreign Minister spokesman Nasser Kanaani issued a statement describing the talks as "being held in a professional and serious atmosphere." He later said that Iran and Mora "will be in touch regarding the continuation of the route and the next stage of the talks." However, it remains unclear if there will be another round of talks on the deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The State Department said that Iran "raised issues wholly unrelated to the JCPOA and apparently is not ready to make a fundamental decision on whether it wants to revive the deal or bury it." "Indirect discussions in Doha have concluded, and while we are very grateful to the EU for its efforts, we are disappointed that Iran has, yet again, failed to respond positively to the EU’s initiative and therefore that no progress was made," the State Department said. Iran and world powers agreed in 2015 to the nuclear deal, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord, raising tensions across the wider Middle East and sparking a series of attacks and incidents. Talks in Vienna about reviving the deal have been on a "pause" since March. Since the deal’s collapse, Iran has been running advanced centrifuges and rapidly growing stockpiles of enriched uranium. However, Tehran continues to suffer under intense economic sanctions while the West hopes to again curtail Iran's nuclear program. "The incentive for Washington and Tehran to keep the prospect of a deal alive is strong, even as the actual likelihood of achieving a compromise diminishes," said Henry Rome, an analyst with the Eurasia Group tracking the negotiations. "For that reason, we would expect the sides to resume talks in Doha in the near future, although we are not optimistic about a breakthrough."

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3732221/iran-us-nuclear-talks-qatar-end-without-making-progress

Saudi Arabia's Mashaer Train to Operate Again

Gulf

June 29th, 6:26am

Jeddah - Asma al-Ghabri

Mashaer Train (Asharq AL-Awsat)

Saudi Railway Company (SAR) wants to localize expertise in operating the al-Mashaer Train, aiming to run it entirely with trained national units by 2026. The Mashaer Train is one of the most important transportation pillars in the Holy Sites, which is being developed continuously to promote the service provided to the pilgrims. The project seeks to achieve the goal of Vision 2030 by increasing its capacity to five million pilgrims. The Train was on hiatus for two years due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. SAR disclosed that the Mashaer train project provided over 7,500 seasonal jobs in crowd control at the train stations. Saudi Railways began its first operation of the Mashaer Rail after signing an agreement with the Royal Commission for the Holy City of Makkah and the Holy Sites in March 2021. Under the agreement, SAR is required to operate and maintain the Mashaer Rail for five years. It must also manage and control the crowds and security guards and handle the assets, including stations, facilities, equipment, operating systems, and other related equipment. SAR identified the necessary needs for the project, prioritizing projects in preparation for the operation of the Hajj season. It implemented several projects to renew many systems, including signaling systems, wireless communication systems, visual communications, sidewalk doors, the waterproofing system for roofs, and the renewal of elevators and escalators. SAR indicated that it began preparing for this year’s Hajj season and completed all routine and maintenance work in addition to several improvement projects necessary before the start of operations. It explained that operations are divided into three primary stages: the pre-operational stage, the experimental operation stage, which includes four simulations of the Hajj, and the actual Hajj season. The Train has nine stations, including Arafat, Muzdalifa, and Mina. It connects the southeast of Arafat and the southwest of Mina via the Muzdalifah with a track of 20 km in high structures on poles in the middle islands of the roads. The Chinese Railway Construction Corporation implemented the project at a total cost of SR6.650 billion. It was launched in November 2010. The project consists of 17 trains, including 204 cars, each accommodating 300 passengers, and two vehicles, front and rear. The length of the track is about 18.1 km, with a capacity of 72,000 pilgrims per hour. The project includes nine stations elevated from the ground with a length of 300 meters for each station, and the train platforms are accessed by ramps, elevators, regular and electrical stairs, and automatic gates separating the Train from loading areas and waiting areas.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730311/saudi-arabias-mashaer-train-operate-again

A World of Diplomacy and Multi-dimensional Moves to Counter Challenges

Opinion

June 29th, 6:17am

Omer Onhon

Omer Onhon -

Important back to back international summit meetings have been taking place; in Asia (the BRICS Summit) and in Europe (EU Council and the Group of Seven Summit). The last of the series, 2022 NATO Summit, will begin Wednesday. All these meetings are held in the midst of what almost everyone refers to as the re-shaping of a new world order and against the backdrop of Russian invasion and the ensuing war in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine (and its supporters) are engaged in a war of attrition. Both sides have weaponized all means possible, including, energy, tourism, food and trade. This war is creating new problems and additional, worsening crisis at a global level almost every day. The supporters of Ukraine led by the US are aiming to reduce to the extent possible the revenues (from gas, oil and other sources) of the Russian state, squeeze it’s so called oligarchs so as to create pressure on Putin and awaken the Russian population at large about the damage that the policies of their president has caused for Russia. Russia has been negatively affected by sanctions but is not backing down, as it has the means and political will to fight back. When recently Lithuania stopped railway transportation of sanctioned items to Kaliningrad (Russian enclave with a population of 480,000 located between Poland and Lithuania, home to Baltic Fleet), Russia threatened unspecified appropriate measures at a time of its choosing. Whatever that means, Lithuania, unlike Ukraine or Georgia or Moldova, is an EU and NATO member and is covered by Article 5. On June 22, Russia cut the flow of gas to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 40% of capacity. European countries are actively engaged for seeking alternative sources to fill their storages and to ensure a winter without shortages. Some deals have been reached such as between Germany and Qatar, between the EU, Israel and Egypt. But time is needed to feel on safe ground. Global food security, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East is a serious concern. Food shortages, high prices and social unrest are nightmare for countries which have certain weaknesses and have limits to their ability to sustain government subsidies. Efforts to move grain unhindered from Ukraine and through the Black Sea have not yet yielded results. Despite all setbacks, delays and losses, Russia is making progress on the ground. Donbas is almost entirely under Russian control. Russia is also getting more reckless with more actions amounting to more war crimes. Last couple of days Russia struck civilian targets in different Ukrainian cities, an apartment block and a shopping mall and killed civilians. In a just world, these war crimes should not go unpunished. Even though the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought a sense of unity in NATO and the EU and a seemingly better communication in transatlantic relations, there are still serious challenges. The longer the war in Ukraine, the more frictions within the Western camp. Just recently, the Foreign Minister of Italy resigned because of a disagreement over providing arms to Ukraine. There is also a concern that the US may once again make one of its sharp U-turns as in Syria and later in Afghanistan. Russia is banking on such developments which may also lead to the collapse of governments and to political crisis in the West. The other favorite issue; China. China is more assertive under President Xi Jinping but its fighting tools are different than Russia. China prefers to use its soft power and almost endless economic capabilities. What brings out the military in China is Taiwan and this is when the Chinese dragon shows its face. The BRICS group (China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa) held its Summit a week ago. Presidents Xi and Putin demonstrated defiance against the US and its allies. Russia has found new trade partners in China and India which are buying huge quantities of Russian oil at very competitive prices. Official figures show that, compared to last year, China is buying around 55% more oil from Russia. G7 came up with the “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Development Initiative” where the aim is to come up with 600 million dollars over the next five years for infrastructure projects in various countries. This initiative is a counter measure to China’s Belt and Road Initiative which was launched in 2013. At the documents which will be adopted by the NATO leaders at the Summit, most probably, China will once again be referred to as a challenge and at the same time, as an opportunity. A firm stance but at the same time extending a hand. Membership problems and peculiarities; At its Council meeting, the EU granted the status of candidate to Ukraine and Moldova. But membership issues in the EU are complicated and peculiar. Anyone who thinks that once candidate status is approved membership is imminent is wrong. As President Emmanuel Macron clearly stated back in May on the occasion of the Europe Day, even if candidate status is given (to Ukraine and others) the process would take several years and even decades. Turkey has been kept in the waiting room since 2005.The six Western Balkan countries (Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Kosovo) which are all at different stages of the process for becoming a member are also in waiting. Bulgaria (a NATO member) has been blocking accession negotiations of North Macedonia (another NATO member), demanding North Macedonia to recognize that certain national characters of the country including language and the name of the nation are not of its but of Bulgaria’s. Macedonia has to satisfy Bulgaria to begin accession negotiations to join the EU. (A day after the EU Council meeting Bulgaria's parliament voted in favor of a proposal that could lead to the lifting of its veto). In NATO, Turkey conditioned its acceptance of membership of Sweden and Finland to being strict on combatting terrorism. A way forward is likely to emerge which will pave the way for membership. On the other hand, one should not overlook the fact that becoming NATO member is a process and the final phase of this process is the ratification of accession protocols by all 30 member countries. In conclusion; Conflicts and challenges are costly and damaging but they also bring about new opportunities, friendships, alliances and business partnerships. With that, (hopefully and ideally) without neglecting principles, international politics and diplomacy have a lot to do with changing circumstances and ability to adopt. We will see whether all these important meetings one after the other will lead to developments in this direction.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730296/omer-onhon/world-diplomacy-and-multi-dimensional-moves-counter-challenges

UN: Over 100 Murders in Syria’s al-Hol Camp Since Jan 2021

Arab World

June 29th, 5:53am

Asharq Al-Awsat

A general view of al-Hol camp in Syria. Reuters file photo

More than 100 people, including many women, have been murdered in a Syrian camp in just 18 months, the UN said Tuesday, demanding countries repatriate their citizens. The Al-Hol camp is increasingly unsafe and the child detainees are being condemned to a life with no future, said Imran Riza, the UN resident coordinator in Syria. Al-Hol, in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, was meant as a temporary detention facility. However, it still holds about 56,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis, some of whom maintain links with ISIS, which seized swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The rest are citizens of other countries, including children and other relatives of ISIS fighters. Some 94 percent of the detainees are women and children, Riza, who has visited Al-Hol a handful of times, told reporters in Geneva. "It's a very harsh place and it's become an increasingly unsafe place," AFP quoted Riza as saying. There have been "around 106 murders since January last year in the camp" and "many" of the victims were women, he added. "There's a great deal of gender-based violence... There's a lot of no-go areas." The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said violence was spiking in the camp, with another murder Tuesday -- the seventh since June 11. Out of 24 people murdered inside the camp this year, 16 were women, the Observatory added. Riza said there were around 27,000 Iraqi detainees, 18-19,000 Syrians and around 12,000 third-country citizens. While there have been some repatriations to Iraq, many other countries which "need to be accepting their people back" were refusing to do so. "The majority of the population there are children. They are innocent. If you leave them in a place like Al-Hol, you're essentially condemning them to not having a future." Riza said that when boys get to 12, 13 and 14, they are taken away from their families and put into a different center, where their future is one of radicalization and joining a militia. "The only solution is emptying the camp," he said.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730261/un-over-100-murders-syria%E2%80%99s-al-hol-camp-jan-2021

Human Rights on Mars Won’t Be the Same as Those on Earth

Opinion

June 29th, 4:27am

Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen -

Kim Stanley Robinson writes bestselling novels about a colony on Mars. Elon Musk talks of actually colonizing Mars. There is even a 30-page constitution, courtesy of a Yale political science class, for a Mars settlement. The actual prospects for a settlement remain uncertain, but the question of how it should be organized could stand some further scrutiny. The Yale proposal is about how to make a Mars settlement democratic, as is an earlier proposal published in Space Legal Issues. But I fear a harsher question needs to be addressed first: Should a Mars settlement allow for contractual servitude? When the New World was settled, it was common practice for workers to sign multiyear contracts, receiving passage across the ocean but giving up a share of their earnings and some of their freedom. Contractual servitude is distinct from slavery in the sense that it is chosen voluntarily. But once the contract is signed, the worker is in an uncomfortable position, in both an economic and democratic sense. And once these individuals land in the New World — or, as the case may be, on Mars — their protection by mainstream legal institutions cannot be assumed. It is easy to inveigh against contractual servitude, but it has one valuable function: It creates incentives for someone to finance the voyage in the first place. If I had to finance my own passage to Mars, and then sustain myself when I got there, and pay off the travel costs, I would never go. But if a company can send a few thousand people, keep half the profits, and remain in charge, the voyage might stand a chance, at least decades from now when the technology is further along. That said, I am fine with banning contractual servitude on Mars, if that is what a democratic society decides. My point is that this is a more pressing question than what kind of new participatory rights the new Martians will have. Keep in mind the economic point about trade-offs: If poorer people are not allowed to sign up for these funded voyages, then maybe only billionaires will visit Mars. The tension is that most people have well-developed moralities for wealthy, democratic societies in which most citizens can earn their keep or be provided for by a well-funded social welfare state. Neither of those assumptions holds for Mars, which at least at the beginning will be a kind of pre-subsistence economy. The upshot is that feasible Mars constitutions will probably offend the educated classes dearly. Another option for a Mars constitution is to have the U.S. government fund the voyage and apply some version of military law to the venture, as one might find on an aircraft carrier. Earlier NASA voyages were based on military command and involved no democracy. I support such a plan, but also note that governmental space exploration has slowed dramatically since its peak in the 1960s and 1970s. It is the private sector that has revived interest in a Mars settlement. Ideally I might like Mars to be settled by a religious group rather than by a government or a corporation. After all, various Puritan groups helped to settle North America, and they had the unity and sense of mission to pull off a very difficult and dangerous endeavor. Similarly, Mormons helped settle the American West. Not surprisingly, many of these early governments had strong theocratic elements. While I don’t view theocracy as either efficient or just, if the key question is motivating the settlers, then the religion option ought to be taken seriously. Like contractual servitude, it could serve a practical purpose. Yet religious settlements willing to go to Mars may be hard to come by. Relative religious freedom is available in many places on Earth. A victim of persecution in, say, North Korea, will find it far easier — now and maybe forever — to seek asylum in South Korea instead of Mars. I suspect that no feasible constitution for a Mars settlement would be very popular in the broad sense. Ages of exploration tend to encourage strong non-democratic or anti-democratic elements. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is a very democratic philosophy for life on Earth, with the understanding that Mars will be very different. Can we accept and indeed embrace such a dialectical and contradictory set of perspectives? Can the proper answer to such a fundamental question as how society should be organized so firmly depend on which planet we are talking about? Might some skeptics suggest that, with illiberal values ascendant on Earth, it would be better for Mars to offer an alternative? These are all valid questions. The debate over a Martian constitution is interesting, but it may also be premature. Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730191/tyler-cowen/human-rights-mars-won%E2%80%99t-be-same-those-earth

How Hong Kong’s 1997 Dreams Sank Without Trace

Opinion

June 29th, 4:18am

Matthew Brooker

Matthew Brooker -

The Jumbo Floating Restaurant, a landmark attraction built in the style of an imperial palace that adorned the south side of Hong Kong island for more than four decades, capsized this month in the South China Sea, having been towed away after its business was rendered unprofitable by the pandemic. Social media users were quick to see a metaphor. As Hong Kong prepares to celebrate the 25th anniversary of its return to China, the city’s dreams of autonomy and democracy are as stricken as this jaded colonial-era icon. That isn’t the official narrative, needless to say. The Hong Kong government has set up a celebratory website for the anniversary, under the heading: “A New Era: Stability, Prosperity, Opportunity.” A theme song titled “Heading Forward” features numerous Cantopop stars intercut with scenes of the city’s landscape and activities – including kindergarten children goosestepping with the Chinese flag. The song doesn’t appear to have captured the popular imagination yet: Three weeks after being released, a YouTube version had 4,200 views and 50 “likes.” By contrast, “Glory to Hong Kong,” an unofficial anthem of Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests, has 3.5 million views and 117,000 likes. Anniversaries are often arbitrary milestones. They nevertheless offer an opportunity to stop and take stock, to assess where we have come from and where we are heading. And Hong Kong’s silver jubilee as a special administrative region of China has a particular significance, being the halfway point of the 50 years during which Beijing promised the free-spirited capitalist city a high degree of autonomy and an unchanged way of life. When looking for clues on the future direction of this global financial center that grew out of a colonial trading post, it makes sense to scrutinize the past. History may not repeat, but it certainly rhymes. Handover day wasn’t particularly memorable, for me. It was a historic occasion, everyone knew: the end of more than 150 years of British rule, a closing curtain on the UK’s empire and a symbol of the rise of China. Thousands of journalists had flown in from around the world to cover the event. But the big questions had been settled long in advance. Those who intended to get out before Beijing resumed control had already mostly done so. Those who remained were content, or at least resigned, to watch what happened; pride, hope and excitement mingled with varying degrees of apprehension. I spent the early part of the evening at a party of German expatriates in the Mid-Levels district of Hong Kong Island that promised a good view of the fireworks in the harbor below. With the hoi polloi kept well away from the invite-only official festivities, we watched on television. There was one moment that seared me with emotion, I’ll admit: when the orchestra at Britain’s harbor-front farewell played Elgar’s Nimrod (I am British, after all). The staid and choreographed handover ceremony itself left me cold. Military pomp, whether colonial or communist, has never held much appeal. Amid much shouting, marching and horn-blowing, some flags were lowered and others raised, and it was over. We went to bed, woke up the next morning and life carried on as normal. The parachute correspondents flew on to their next global assignment. Looking back, it is striking how we have come full circle; how the sense of foreboding and anxiety that pervaded much of the media coverage of the handover (which arrived just eight years after Tiananmen) has come to be vindicated, so completely and yet so belatedly. A central question, then, is: Why did it take so long? If the Communist Party intended to renege on its promises, then why did it not act sooner? Tibet offers one possible answer. Scholars have drawn parallels between the “One Country, Two Systems” formula that governed Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty and the Seventeen Point Agreement that incorporated Tibet into the People’s Republic in 1951. The agreement pledged the region autonomy and to preserve its way of life, but tensions with Beijing led to an uprising in 1959 that was suppressed by the People’s Liberation Army, after which the central government set about assimilating Tibet into the nation’s socialist system. (China blames a reactionary clique set on preserving feudal practices for inciting the rebellion and calls its takeover a “democratic reform” and “emancipation.”) It’s a strategy that borrows from the approach of China’s imperial dynasties to its periphery. “The Qing emperor allowed local elites in newly incorporated regions with distinct customs and leadership to exercise local autonomy. But not indefinitely,” as Ho-fung Hung, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, has written. “Over time, they would be integrated into the core territory of the empire, being culturally assimilated and having their local autonomy abolished.” The head of the Communist Party’s Southwestern Bureau in 1949-52, and in charge of negotiations with the Dalai Lama government, was Deng Xiaoping. Three decades later, as China’s paramount leader, Deng oversaw the negotiations with Britain on Hong Kong’s future and is credited with proposing the One Country, Two Systems arrangement. (Deng frequently spoke of his desire to set foot in the territory after its return to China. He missed the handover by four months, dying at 92 in February 1997. Memories of that day are as vivid as July 1. Although the city was still at that point under British rule, Hong Kong’s subway operator spent the day piping funeral music through its loudspeaker system. The eeriness of hearing that lugubrious sound echoing through station tunnels has stayed with me since.) Seen through this lens, then, Hong Kong’s autonomy was always a strictly transitional affair, with absorption into the national system the ultimate destination, whether voluntary or otherwise. Indeed, 50 years put a finite time frame on the city’s separate status from the start. In the event, it lasted 23 years, until Beijing imposed a national security law that radically reshaped Hong Kong society. Perhaps, for a country famous for taking the long view, the missing 27 years is a mere rounding error. The Hong Kong government’s version of events presents a far sunnier picture. In the telling of the anniversary web site and the statements of officials, the national security law restored order after a violent insurrection fomented by anti-China external forces. Normal service has been resumed, and the city is as free as ever. Outgoing leader Carrie Lam says Hong Kong is “back on the right track.” Apparently, all those years when there was a diverse and thriving free media, competitive elections, opposition lawmakers, independent trade unions, orderly and peaceful protests, and a wide variety of civil society groups, Hong Kong was doing it wrong. Now, with political opposition eradicated, activists in prison or exile, democratic participation vastly scaled back, news organizations closed down, trade unions disbanded and demonstrations all but unheard of, the city has finally got it right — even though this “way of life” is like nothing in living memory pre- or post-handover. Others would argue that the 2019 protests were entirely homegrown, the result of Beijing’s steady erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and refusal to honor meaningfully its promise of expanded democracy for the city. As in Tibet, resistance offered the occasion for forcible assimilation. My observation is that China’s popularity tended to rise and fall with the degree to which Beijing left the city alone, with the 2008 Olympics a high point of patriotic feeling. A turning point came with Xi Jinping and, in particular, the publication of a white paper in 2014 that sought to redefine the terms of One Country, Two Systems, arguing that the central government had “comprehensive jurisdiction” over the city. The paper is widely thought to be the work of Communist Party intellectual Jiang Shigong, whose influences include the Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt. Some analysts once contended that Hong Kong’s international connectivity and visibility, along with its economic importance to China, would protect it from the fate of other peripheral regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang. Such beliefs proved misplaced. What, though, of Hong Kong’s financial role? The city’s relative heft has shrunk drastically since 1997 (when its gross domestic product was equal to about a fifth of China’s) as the mainland expanded to become the world’s second-largest economy. But it retains a crucial financial role, as China’s window into the dollar world and a safe testbed for reforms such as the creation of an offshore renminbi market. There is room here for some qualified optimism. Hong Kong’s own Covid policies have done more damage to the city’s hub status than US-led sanctions. These have been targeted at officials blamed for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy such as Lam and her replacement John Lee, and are largely symbolic. Western countries can’t expand such measures without hurting the Hong Kong people they are trying to support, while also damaging their own interests. In the financial arena, One Country, Two Systems remains a reality. Hong Kong has a freely convertible currency, a low-tax regime and is its own customs territory — all attributes that set the city apart from the mainland’s economy. “Compared to Tibet, one difference of Hong Kong is that Beijing has not decided how far and fast to dismantle One Country, Two Systems yet,” Johns Hopkins’ Hung said by email. He points out that Beijing suspended plans to extend its anti-foreign sanctions law to Hong Kong (after it provoked disquiet in the business community), and also backpedaled on plans earlier this year for a mainland-style lockdown. “The financial centrality of Hong Kong still served as a check (though limited) on the crackdown.” Socially, culturally and politically, though, the outlook is bleak. The direction has been set, and it is hard to envisage any return to a more liberal model. At the time of the handover, the Communist Party advanced an expansive definition of patriotism, based on Deng’s formulation, as anyone who welcomed Hong Kong’s return to China and didn’t wish to impair the city’s prosperity and stability. “Those who meet these requirements are patriots, whether they believe in capitalism or feudalism or even slavery,” Deng said. “We don’t demand that they be in favor of China’s socialist system; we only ask them to love the motherland and Hong Kong.” Watching handover-era interviews with the patriotic young Hong Kongers who flocked with pride to embrace that invitation, in the belief that their country was moving in a more open, liberal and inclusive direction, I cannot help wondering what they think now. Only 2% of Hong Kong’s youth now identify as Chinese, down from 5.4% six months ago, a poll showed last week. Record numbers are leaving the city. How might things have been different, if Beijing had trusted the Hong Kong people and kept its promises? We’ll never know. That ship has sailed. Bloomberg

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3730186/matthew-brooker/how-hong-kong%E2%80%99s-1997-dreams-sank-without-trace