Azerbaijan retakes offensive in rhetorical war with Iran

 

Gunfire kills several people near Beirut protest

DEVELOPING STORY AJ News 14 Oct 2021

More than 30 people also wounded after gunfire erupts near a protest rally in the Lebanese capital.

Authorities warned against attempts to drag Lebanon into violence [Anwar Amro/AFP]

Gunfire has killed at least six people and wounded more than 30 others in Beirut, according to the Lebanese Red Cross, as a rally organised by the Hezbollah and Amal movements to demand the dismissal of the lead investigator into last year’s port explosion turned violent.

Hundreds of protesters gathered at the Beirut Palace of Justice on Thursday, calling for the removal of Judge Tarek Bitar, accusing him of political bias. Bursts of gunfire were heard coming from the nearby Tayyoune neighbourhood, scattering the angry protesters. Clashes have continued for hours.

“The army rushed to cordon off the area and deploy in its neighbourhoods and their entrance. Patrols started as did the search for the shooters to detain them,” the armed forces said in a statement.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for the restoration of calm and warned against attempts to drag Lebanon into violence.

Here are the latest updates:

Beirut incident saw ‘shots in the head with live ammunition'

Following a meeting with heads of security agencies, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi has said in a statement: “The security agencies knew about the gatherings that took place, but had no indicators that could develop into shots in the head with live ammunition.”

“Civil peace between the Lebanese is not to be played with.”

Mawlawi said an investigation is ongoing and all security measures will be taken.

Children trapped due to clashes

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut Front Line

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, says children were trapped at their schools by the clashes.

“People are trapped at home, some children are still trapped at school. People are terrified, they don’t know what is happening in their city. About 200 metres (656 feet) from here there is a decades-long dividing line dating back to the days of the civil war (1975-1990).

“It is scenes like this that bring back a lot of memories for many Lebanese who have been traumatised by many bouts of violence but this has been one of the worst bouts of violence.”

Civil Defence seeks to evacuate residents caught in the crossfire

Al Jazeera’s Kareem Chehayeb, reporting from Beirut, says the civil defence forces are trying to help evacuate residents caught in the crossfire.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati is currently meeting with the heads of security agencies as clashes continue, he added.

திரைமறைவு பேச்சுவார்த்தைகளுக்குப் பின்னால் இரு யுத்தப் பிரபு அணிகளுக்கு இடையான நான்கு மணி நேர வெடி முழக்கம் ஓய்ந்தது.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

How This Energy Crisis is Different from All Others

 The Green Agenda or How This Energy Crisis is Different from All Others

The price of energy from all sources conventional is exploding globally. Far from accidental, it is a well-orchestrated plan to collapse the industrial world economy that has already been weakened dramatically by almost two years of ridiculous covid quarantine and related measures. What we are seeing is a price explosion in key oil, coal and now especially, natural gas energy. What makes this different from the energy shocks of the 1970s is that this time, it is developing as the corporate investment world, using the fraudulent ESG green investment model, is dis-investing in future oil, gas and coal while OECD governments embrace horrendously inefficient, unreliable solar and wind that will insure the collapse of industrial society perhaps as early as the next months. Barring a dramatic rethinking, the EU and other industrial economies are willfully committing economic suicide.

What only a few years ago was accepted as obvious was that ensuring an abundant, reliable, efficient and affordable energy defines the economy. Without efficient energy we cannot make steel, concrete, mine raw materials or any of the things that support our modern economies. In the past months the world price of coal for power generation has doubled. The price of natural gas has risen by almost 500%. Oil is headed to $90 a barrel, highest in seven years. This is a planned consequence of what is sometimes called the Davos Great Reset or the Green Agenda zero carbon madness.

Some two decades ago Europe began a major shift to mis-named renewables or Green Energy, mainly solar and wind. Germany, the heart of EU industry, led the transformation with former chancellor Merkel’s ill-conceived Energiewende, where Germany’s last nuclear power plants will close in 2022 and coal plants are rapidly being phased out. This all has now collided with the reality that Green Energy is not at all able to deal with major supply shortages. The crisis was entirely predictable.

Green Chickens Come Home to Roost

With the widespread covid lockdowns of industry and travel in 2020 EU natural gas consumption fell dramatically. The largest EU gas supplier, Gazprom of Russia, in interest of an orderly long-term market, duly reduced its deliveries to the EU market even at a loss. An unusually mild 2019-2020 winter allowed EU gas storage to reach maximum. A long, severe winter all but erased that in 2021.

Contrary to EU politicians’ claims, Gazprom has not played politics with the EU to force approval of its new NordStream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. As EU demand resumed in the first six months of 2021, Gazprom rushed to meet it and even exceed record 2019 levels, and even at the expense of replenishing Russian gas storage for the coming winter.

With the EU now firmly committed to a Green Energy agenda, Fit for 55, and explicitly rejecting natural gas as a long-term option, while at the same time killing coal and nuclear, the incompetence of the think-tank climate models that justified a 100% CO2-free, electric society by 2050 has come home to roost.

Because financial investors on Wall Street and London saw the benefit of huge profits from the Green energy agenda, working with the Davos World Economic Forum to promote the laughable ESG investing model, conventional oil, gas and coal companies are not investing profits in expanded production. In 2020 worldwide spending on oil, gas, coal dropped by an estimated $1 trillion. That is not coming back.

With BlackRock and other investors all but boycotting ExxonMobil and other energy companies in favor of “sustainable” energy, one exceptionally cold and long winter in Europe and a record lack of wind in northern Germany, triggered a panic buying of gas on world LNG Markets in early September.

The problem was the restocking was too late, as most available LNG from the USA, Qatar and other sources that normally would be available had already been sold to China where an equally confused energy policy, including a political ban on Australian coal, has led to plant closings and a recent government order to secure gas and coal “at any cost.” Qatar, US LNG exporters and others have flocked to Asia leaving the EU in the cold, literally.

Deregulation of Energy

What few understand is how today’s Green energy markets are rigged to benefit speculators like hedge funds or investors like BlackRock or Deutsche Bank and penalize energy consumers. The headline prices for natural gas traded in Europe, the Dutch TTF futures contract, is sold by the London-based ICE Exchange. It speculates on what future wholesale natural gas prices in the EU will be in one, two or three months hence. The ICE is backed by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Société Générale among others. The market is in what are called gas futures contracts or derivatives.

Banks or others can speculate for pennies on the dollar, and when news broke on how low EU gas storage for the coming winter were, financial sharks went on a feeding frenzy. By early October futures prices for Dutch TTF gas had exploded by an unprecedented 300% in only days. Since February it is far worse, as a standard LNG cargo of 3.4 trillion BTU (British Thermal Units) now costs $100-120 million, while at the end of February its cost was less than $20 million. That’s a 500-600% rise in seven months.

The underlying problem is that, unlike the case for most of the postwar period, since the political promotion of unreliable and high-cost solar and wind “renewables” in the EU and elsewhere (e.g. Texas, February 2021) electric utility markets and their prices have been deliberately deregulated to promote Green alternatives and force out gas and coal on the dubious argument that their CO2 emissions endanger the future of humankind if not reduced to zero by 2050.

The prices borne by the end consumer are set by the energy suppliers who integrate the different costs under competitive conditions. The diabolical way EU electricity costs are computed, allegedly to encourage inefficient solar and wind and discourage conventional sources, is that, as French energy analyst Antonio Haya put it, “the most expensive plant of those needed to cover demand (marginal plant) sets the price for each hour of production for all the production matched in the auction.” So today’s natural gas price sets the price for essentially zero cost hydro-electric electricity. Given the soaring price for natural gas, that is defining EU electricity costs. It’s a diabolical pricing architecture that benefits speculators and destroys consumers, including households and industry.

A fundamental aggravating cause for the recent shortages of abundant coal, gas and oil is the decision by BlackRock and other global money trusts to force investment away from oil, gas or coal—all perfectly safe and necessary energy sources—to buildup of grossly inefficient and unreliable solar or wind. They call it ESG investing. It is the latest rage on Wall Street and other world financial markets ever since BlackRock CEO Larry Fink joined the Board of the Klaus Schwab World Economic Forum in 2019. They set up front ESG certifying companies that award ESG “politically correct” ratings on stock companies, and punishing those who do not comply. The rush into ESG investing has made billions for Wall Street and friends. It has also put the brakes on future development of oil, coal or natural gas for most of the world.

The ‘German Disease’

Now after 20 years of foolish investment into solar and wind, Germany, the once-flagship of EU industry, is a victim of what we can call the German Disease. Like the economic Dutch Disease, the forced investment into Green Energy has resulted in the lack of reliable affordable energy. All for an unproven 1.5C claim of IPCC that is supposed to end our civilization by 2050 if we fail to reach Zero Carbon.

To advance that EU Green Energy agenda, country after country with a few exceptions have begun dismantling oil, gas and coal and even nuclear. Germany’s last remaining nuclear plants will permanently close next year. New coal plants, with latest state-of-art scrubbers, are being scrapped even before being started.

The German case gets even more absurd.

In 2011 the Merkel government took an energy model developed by Martin Faulstich and the state Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU) which claimed that Germany could attain 100% renewable electricity generation by 2050. They argued that using nuclear longer would not be necessary, nor the construction of coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS). With that, Merkel’s catastrophic Energiewende was born. The study argued, it would work because Germany could contract to buy surplus, CO2-free, hydro-electric power from Norway and Sweden.

Now with extreme drought and a hot summer, the hydropower reserves of Sweden and Norway are dangerously low coming into winter, only 52% of capacity. That means the electric power cables to Denmark, Germany and now UK are in danger. And to make it worse, Sweden is split on shutting its own nuclear plants which give it 40% of electricity. And France is debating cutting as much as one-third of its clear nuclear plants meaning that source for Germany will also not be sure.

Already on January 1, 2021 because of a German government mandated coal phase-out, 11 coal-fired power plants with a total capacity of 4.7 GW were shut down. It lasted only 8 days when several of the coal plants had to be reconnected to the grid due to a prolonged low-wind period. In 2022 the last German nuclear plant will shut and more coal plants will permanently close, all for the green nirvana. In 2002 German nuclear power was source for 31% of power, carbon-free electric power.

As for wind power making up the deficit in Germany, in 2022 some 6000 wind turbines with an installed capacity of 16 GW will be dismantled due to the expiration of feed-in subsidies for older turbines. The rate of new wind farm approvals is being blocked by growing citizen rebellion and legal challenges to the noise pollution and other factors. An avoidable catastrophe is in the making.

The response from the EU Commission in Brussels, rather than admit the glaring flaws in their Green Energy agenda, has been to double down on it as if the problem were natural gas and coal. EU Climate Czar Frans Timmermans absurdly declared, “Had we had the green deal five years earlier, we would not be in this position because then we would have less dependency on fossil fuels and natural gas.”

If the EU continues with that suicidal agenda, it will find itself in a deindustrialized wasteland in a few short years. The problem is not gas, coal or nuclear. It is the inefficient Green Energy from solar and wind that will never be able to offer stable, reliable power.

The Green Energy Agenda of the EU, US and other governments along with the Davos-promoted ESG investing will only guarantee that as we go forward there will be even less gas or coal or nuclear to fall back on when the wind stops, there is a drought in hydroelectric dams or lack of sunshine. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize this is a road to economic destruction. But that’s in fact the goal of the UN 2030 “sustainable” energy or the Davos Great Reset: population reduction on a massive scale. We humans are the frogs being slowly boiled. And now the Powers That Be are really turning the heat up.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

இந்திய புதிய வேளாண் சட்டங்கள்-ஒரு ஆவணத்தொகுப்பு

 புதிய வேளாண் சட்டங்கள் குறித்து ஒரு பன்முகப் பார்வை

மோடிஜீப் படுகொலைக்கு ஆளான விவசாயப் போராளிக்கு 

இப்பதிவு காணிக்கை

மலையக மார்க்சிய ஆர்வலர் சாந்தி குமாருக்கு முதலாம் ஆண்டு நினைவாஞ்சலி

 1960-70 பத்தாண்டு காலம் உலகவரலாற்றில் முக்கியமான தசாப்தமாகும்.உலகமுதலாளித்துவம் பெரும் நெருக்கடியைச் சந்தித்துக்கொண்டிருந்தது.

1949 இல் வெற்றி வாகை சூடிய மக்கள் சீனம் கலாச்சாரப்புரட்சி நடத்திக்கொண்டிருந்தது. 

வியட்நாம் அமெரிக்க எதிர்ப்பு தேசபக்த யுத்தத்தில் குதித்திருந்தது.

இந்தியாவில் வசந்தத்தின் இடிமுழக்கம் நக்சல்பாரி-உழுபனுக்கு நிலம்-ஆயுதம் ஏந்திய விவசாய கிளர்ச்சி வெடித்திருந்தது.

உலக முதலாளித்துவ நெருக்கடியை எதிர்த்த போராட்டங்கள் மேலை நாடுகளில் பரந்துவிரிந்தன. 

பிரித்தானியாவை உலுக்கிய 10 ஆண்டுகளாக வரலாற்றில் இத் தசாப்தம் பதியப்பட்டுள்ளது. 

வியட்நாம் போர் எதிர்ப்பு முழக்கங்கள் விண்ணதிர ஒலித்துக் கொண்டிருந்தன.

1953இல் ஸ்ராலின் இறந்தார்.அதுவரை ஏகாதிபத்திய உலகத்துக்கு சிம்ம சொர்ப்பனமாய் இருந்தார்.

மொஸ்கோ அயல் மொழிப் பதிப்பகம், சீன மக்கள் குடியரசு மார்க்சிய லெனினிய நூல்களை எண்ணற்ற தாய்மொழிகளில் அச்சிட்டு `உலகமெல்லாம் பரவ வகை` செய்தது.

சுருங்கச் சொன்னால் மேலைக் காற்றும், கீழைக்காற்றும் ஒரு சேர வீசியது.

ஒருபுறம் ஏகாதிபத்திய எதிர்ப்பு-தேசிய-இயக்கங்கள் எழுந்தது, மறு புறம் மார்க்சியம் பரவியது.பஞ்சும் நெருப்பும் அக்கம் பக்கமாக இருந்தன.எப்பேற்பட்ட பயங்கரம்!

இந்தப் புறச்சூழலில் தான்  ( இத் தசாப்தத்தில் )- தொடர்காலனிய நாடான இலங்கையில் தேசிய இனப்பிரச்சினை கூர்மையடைந்தது. புகழ் போர்த்த `சத்தியாக்கிரகம்` 1961 இல் தான் நடந்தது. .குடியுரிமை பறிக்கப்பட்டதன் பின்னால் முதல் தடவையாக 05-08-1960 இல் தொண்டமான் சட்டமன்ற உறுப்பினராக தெரிவு செய்யப்பட்டார். Dr Badi-ud-din Mahmud , He was a Sri Lankan politician. He served 10 years [(23 July 1960 – 28 May 1963) and (31 May 1970 – 23 July 1977)] as Minister of Education and also held the office of Minister of Health and Housing.இவருடைய பதவிக்காலம் இலங்கைச் சோனகரின் பொற்காலமாகும்.

இவ்வாறு சட்டமன்றத்தை மையப்படுத்திய அரசதிகார போட்டியில் ஆளும் வர்க்கப் பிரிவுகள் ஈடுபட்டுக்கொண்டிருந்த கொந்தழிப்பான அரசியல் சூழலில் சண்முகதாசன் சாதிப் போராட்டம் நடத்திக் கொண்டிருந்தார்.

இலங்கையில் ஏகாதிபத்திய எதிர்ப்பு தேசிய ஜனநாயக விடுதலைப் புரட்சி மூன்று திட்டமிட்ட சதிகளால் முறியடிக்கப்பட்டது.

1) ரொட்ஸ்கியவாதம்.

2) தமிழ்த் தரகு பிரபுத்துவ வர்க்கத்தின் `குறுமினவாதம்`

3) சண்முகதாசனின் சாதியவாதம். 

இக்கையறு நிலையில் தத்துவார்த்த அரசியல் தலைமை வெறுமை,வறுமை நிலவிய காலம் அது.

இந்த இடைவெளியில் தான் 1976 இல் பிரகடனப்படுத்தப்பட்ட தமிழீழ விடுதலைப்புலிகள் அமைப்பு கருத்தரித்தது.

ஆனால் அன்றைய சமுதாய தேவைக்கு இது போதுமானதாக இருக்கவில்லை.

ஏனெனில் ஏகாதிபத்திய எதிர்ப்பு தேசிய ஜனநாயக விடுதலைப் புரட்சி கண்ணோட்டம் ஏற்கெனவே கரு நிலையில் உருவாகி இருந்தது.

இது மிகவும் அலங்கோலமாகவும், சில வேளைகளில் மிக மிக அசிங்கமாகவும்,சிதிலமாகவும், சின்னா பின்னப்பட்டும் தன்னை வெளிப்படுத்திக் கொண்டது.

இதைச் செப்பனிட முயன்ற ஒரு சிற்பி சாந்திகுமார்.

1) தேசிய இனப்பிரச்சனை குறித்த மார்க்சிய போதனைகளை அவர் கற்றறிந்திருந்தார்.

2) இது ஏகாதிபத்திய காலகட்டம் என்பதை புரிந்திருந்தார்.

3)ஈழம் என்கிற தேசத்தை- தமிழர் சோனகர் மலையகத்தவர்-அடங்கிய சமூகத் திரளின் ஆள்புலம் என வரையறை செய்தவர் அவர்.

இவரின் தத்துவ வாதம் இயல்பாகவே அதிக தூரம் செல்லவில்லை.

ஈழதேசத்தின் சமூக வர்க்க கட்டமைப்பில் மலையகம் தாழ்த்தப்பட்டுக்கிடக்கின்றது.

இதன் விளைவாக அச்சமூக  சிந்தனையாளர்களும் ஈழ அரங்கில் இல்லாது அழித்தொழிக்கப்பட்டு விட்டார்கள்.

இந்த இழி நிலைக்கு முடிவுகட்டுவோம்.

ஈழ தேசிய ஒற்றுமையை இறுகப்பற்றுவோம்.

சாந்தி குமார் கருத்தாக்கத்தை வளர்த்தெடுப்போம்!

‘Gaza Mon Amour’: Film Review | Venice 2020

BY JORDAN MINTZE SEPTEMBER 4, 2020 

Gaza Mon Amour’: Film Review | Venice 2020

Hiam Abbas of 'Succession' and 'Ramy' co-stars in Palestinian directors Tarzan and Arab Nasser's second feature, 'Gaza Mon Amour,' which premiered in Venice's Horizons sidebar.

A minimalist deadpan dramedy with serious political undertones, Gaza Mon Amour offers up a vision of the Palestinian situation at once realistic and absurdist, revealing how even the simplest of love stories can be thwarted by a repressive government, collective human foibles and an ancient Greek statue with a major erection.

This second feature from the directing duo of Tarzan and Arab Nasser (Dégradé) has hints of Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismäki, although it feels closest to the witty, surreal works of fellow Palestinian Elie Suleiman (It Must Be Heaven). It’s a rather ludicrous tale set in an even more ludicrous world, but a world that in many ways exists — at least for those who currently reside in the Hamas-governed territory of the Gaza Strip.

THE BOTTOM LINE

A touching comedy set in a dark place.

A tad slow at times, Gaza Mon Amour nonetheless has its heart in the right place, with stars Salim Daw (Tel Aviv on Fire) and Hiam Abbas (Succession, Ramy) providing moving turns as a would-be couple in a land that leaves them little room for love. After premiering in Venice’s Horizons sidebar, the film could see more festival play and pickups abroad, including in its various co-producing countries.

Daw plays Issa, a 60-year-old fisherman who lives alone and barely gets by selling his wares on the street. His monotonous and solitary routine is only broken up by glimpses of Siham (Abbas), a woman his age who runs a dress shop at the marketplace, and whom Issa clearly has the hots for but cannot quite muster up the courage to ask out.

It all seems fairly cute and harmless until Issa nets an unusual catch while out fishing one night: an original bronze sculpture of the Greek god Apollo replete with a prominent, and fully erect, penis. This throws a sizable monkey wrench (or is that a Hellenistic schlong?) into Issa’s life, especially when the police get wind of his treasure and subject him to a slew of searches, seizures and jail sentences, claiming that the statue ultimately belongs to the Palestinian authorities.

The Nasser Brothers, as they are called in the credits, set their story against a backdrop of despair and lethargy in present-day Gaza. There are constant blackouts, occasional bombs lobbed by the Israeli Defense Forces, and anyone who’s young enough seems to want to get out — especially Siham’s daughter, Leila (Maisa Abd Elhadi), who works in her mother’s shop but is on the verge of expatriating abroad.

Yet the film’s tone is never altogether dark, with the Nassers making light of the situation through offbeat comedy, including a few jokes surrounding the Apollonian penis (which, at one point, gets separated from the rest of the statue) and one sequence where a display of Hamas’ military might turns into a Chaplin-esque farce.

At just under 90 minutes, the narrative can creep along in too-leisurely fashion in spots, with moments of dead air and a few scenes that run on for too long. But the film works its way toward a touching conclusion — and one that doesn’t shy away from the harsh reality Issa and Siham will always have to face as residents of a territory ruled internally by an Islamic fundamentalist organization while externally still controlled by Israel.

Daw provides a forlorn yet droll presence as a man constantly subjected to Hamas’ bullying, as well as to a nagging sister (Manal Awad) still trying to marry him off. Abbas, who’s been a star in the Middle East and Europe for years and is now known in the U.S. for portraying Logan Roy’s wife on HBO’s Succession and Ramy Youssef’s mother onHulu’s Ramy, skillfully underplays Siham as a woman who says much more with her eyes than through the few words she pronounces.

Production companies: Les Films du Tambour, Riva Filmproduktion, Ukbar Filmes, Made in Palestine Project, Jordan Pioneers 

Cast: Salim Daw, Hiam Abbas, Maisa Abd Elhadi, George Iskandar, Hitham Al Omai, Manal Awad 

Directors: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser

Screenwriters: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser, in collaboration with Fadette Drouard

Producers: Rani Massalha, Marie Legarnd, Michael Eckelt, Pandora da Cunha Telles, Pablo Iraola, Rashid Abdelhamid, Khaled Haddad

Director of photography: Christophe Graillot

Production designers: Tarzan Nasser, Arab Nasser

Costume designer: Hamada AtallahEditor: Véronique Lange

Composer: Andre Matthias

Venue: Venice Film Festival (Horizons)

Sales: Versatile 

In Arabic

87 minutes

Indo-Lanka talks: Trinco issue, foreign reserve crisis on agenda

ஈழத் திருமலைத் துறைமுகப் பறிமுதலே சந்திப்பின் மையப் பொருள்

Will Trump run again … and win?

 All bets are off in the United States of Fear, Rage, and Peril.

Marwan Bishara Senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.4 Oct 2021

The fear and rage that gripped the US capital under the presidency of Donald Trump have left the country in peril, its democracy ill, and its immunity weak.

Trump may have been excised from office in November but Trumpism has not been eradicated. After months of post-elections recovery, it is back with a vengeance, slowly metastasising throughout the country’s body and soul.

Less than a year after winning “the battle for the soul of America”, President Joe Biden is slipping in the polls while his predecessor’s numbers are, well, rising. In fact, according to a recent poll, Trump is already ahead of Biden, albeit by a small margin of 48 to 46 points.

These numbers may flip again in favour of the Democrats if they are able to pass the New Deal-like infrastructure and reconciliation bills in Congress before the end of the year, which will inject trillions of dollars into the US economy.

But even the effect of such legislation may prove transitory, depending on a number of economic and political factors, and on the Republican opposition to the socialist “nanny-state” policies on the federal and state level.

Meanwhile, 14 Republican-controlled states under Trumpian influence passed 24 new laws that assert their control over the running of elections and make it easier to overturn elections results.

Trump continues to reject the last election results and is yet to officially declare his candidacy, but everything he says or does is campaigning. He is holding rallies across the country and on October 9, he will hold one in the state of Iowa, where all presidential bids start.

Back in July, journalist Michael Wolff, who wrote three damning books about Trump, concluded after a bizarre and unexpected dinner invitation by the former president, that his run in 2024 is a certainty.

But for now, the brand mogul cherishes stoking the media speculations and public anticipation, which helps heal his bruised ego and keeps the donation money flowing. His Political Action Committees, PACs, have raked in more than $82m during the first half of this year.

But what will he run on? What will be his message, his mantra?

My guess is that he will start by doubling down on his “rigged election” false claim, and will ask his followers to “Reverse the Steal” in order to “Make American Honest Again”.

He has got to go with the big lie all the way to the polls – or not go at all. Anything less outrageous, less audacious, less offensive will not work. Besides, he clearly cannot help it, anyway.

The man, whom US media has called the “liar in chief” who “steals credit […] invents history and spins conspiracy theories”, will do what it takes to win. So smug, he will portend to teach America a lesson in honesty and truth – his alternative truth.

Trump’s penchant for deception is well illustrated in author Bob Woodward’s trilogy, Fear, Rage, and Peril, the last co-written with fellow journalist Robert Costa. In the three books published over the past three years, the Washington Post newspaper veteran journalist goes to a great length to show how even Trump’s closest advisors and allies think he is “a (expletive) liar”.

Trump’s own personal lawyer, John Dowd thought he is such a pathological liar that he cannot even be trusted to testify to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into Russian meddling in the US elections without perjuring himself.

But it is not only lying; politicians are known to lie. The man portrayed rather convincingly in the trilogy, is incredibly devious, utterly incompetent, and terribly dangerous.

Woodward interviewed hundreds of people associated with the Trump administration, leading members of his cabinet and his party, as well as leaders of Congress and the military. According to him, many of them thought Trump is, simply put, unfit to be president of the United States.

They called him crazy, paranoid, suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder. His close ally and Attorney General, William Barr rebuked him, saying suburban voters “think you are a f***ing a**hole”.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the military, General Mark Milley, thought Trump was so erratic and dangerous during his last months in office, that he may take decisions that could lead, albeit unintentionally, to confrontations with the likes of China or Iran with the potential use of nuclear weapons.

Trump directs his venom against friends and foes alike. Over the past few years, he has never hesitated to humiliate Republican leaders, even war heroes, regardless of political repercussions. Even today, as he plans a rerun for the White House, Trump continues to degrade influential party leaders including his own former Vice President Mike Pence, and the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

All of this begs the question: if Trump is so offensive, so incompetent and so dangerous to the country, why does he continue to maintain such a strong grip over the Republican party even after leaving office? And, why are Republicans running for Congress in 2022 either seeking his endorsement or trying to escape his wrath? Why is he likely to be the party’s official candidate in 2024?

To be sure, a lot depends on next year’s midterm elections.

A victory on November 8, 2022, that allows for a Republican majority in either or both Houses of Congress, will render Biden a sitting duck president and boost Trump’s chances come November 5, 2024.

Come to think of it, a Republican defeat could also propel Trump to the top of the 2024 list as the most likely saviour of the party’s influence against visibly ageing Biden or against his vice president,  the lightweight Kamala Harris.

Trump may have been a terrible president but he has proven himself a talented populist. His uncanny fearmongering is the main source of his influence and the driver behind his popularity, especially among the Republican base. Funnily enough, Trump allegedly did not even know what “populist” meant when he first began to think about running for office, as one hilarious anecdote at the beginning of Woodward’s first book illustrates.

The fact that Trump received 75 million votes after four disastrous years that included mismanaging the pandemic and leading to an economic crash, and social unrest, and that he continues to be so popular with the party base, despite damning media reports, is a testimony to his ability to rally support, albeit by dubious means.

Paradoxical as it may be, this ostentatious bling-bling billionaire has convinced the majority of his party base and much of the country’s white working class that he is their best if not their only ally against the snobbish, selfish elites who manage America’s decline.

In fact, he has garnered the support of the majority of white Americans, against the federal bureaucracy or as he has called it, “the Deep State”, which stands accused of assaulting their rights, freedoms, culture and, well, privileges.

Trump has mastered the politics of fear and fury as Woodward’s books show. In the epilogue to Peril, the third book in the trilogy which was published in September, the author recounts an earlier conversation with Trump, the bombastic and confident outsider as well as the petty and cruel insider, who is tantalised by the prospect of power and is eager to use fear to get his way.

“Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word ‘fear’,” Trump says, and he adds, “I bring rage out, I do bring rage out, I always have.”

But Woodward is so focused on demonising Trump that he fails to see or highlight the cynicism of his influential detractors. He goes to a great length exposing the former president but says little about Washington’s elites that enabled him.

But Trump’s populism would not have been as effective if it were not for the cynicism of his detractors. The ruling elites who pretend to be “holier than thou”, while robbing the country blind; who preach political correctness but lack political decency; who hold onto power even if it means presiding over the US’s decline.

In that vein, Woodward’s trilogy constitutes selectively edited accounts of those complicit with Trump, who talked only after they were fired by Trump, or after Trump was fired by the American people. They are taken at their word and excused about the rest.

When Woodward recounts Trump’s various exchanges with Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs executive-turned-White House-economic adviser, the former president is portrayed as an idiotic protectionist who roots for US manufacturing, while the laissez-faire, free-trade investment banker is seen as a brilliant man.

But is it really OK, for example, that the US imports such a shocking amount of the antibiotics and other basic medicines it needs from China? No less during pandemic times?

Woodward seems to have never met a Wall Street executive or an Ivy League school graduate he did not like. Same for the generals, the congressional leaders, and the establishment figures: they are either right or excused for their wrongness. Bottom line, Trump is evil but the establishment is good, even if run by a corrupt self-serving elite, be it, Democrat or Republican.

When Trump demands justification for any of the hundreds of military bases around the globe or demands immediate troops withdrawal from any part of the world, he is portrayed as a fool, ignorant of national security interests and processes.

Any shrinking of US overseas military commitments is so preposterous in the eyes of Woodward and his beloved generals that it does not even merit comment.

And that is why as long as it is business as usual in Washington, as long as the ruling elites continue to be satisfied with managing US decline, Trumpism will persist and metastasise and there is no stopping Trump and co laughing their way to Washington, again.

In sum, Trump will certainly run. And if he wins, as he may well do – my fingers trembling as I type – his victory will spell the death of American democracy with grave consequences the world over.

Why is Joe Biden Resetting his China Policy?

Why is Joe Biden Resetting his China Policy?

Joe Biden’s most recent 90 minutes call with China’s Xi has created the impression of a US attempt to reset its ties with China. The White House readout says that a “broad, strategic discussion” has taken place resulting in a mutual agreement to engage 

“openly and straightforwardly” on areas where their interests converge as well as where “our interests, values and perspectives diverge.” The tone adopted by Joe Biden is completely different from the previous call between the two leaders in which Joe 

Biden vowed to protect “the American people’s security, prosperity, health, and way of life, and preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific”, underscoring America’s “fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, the crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan.” Fast forward to September 2021: Biden’s focus has dramatically shifted from opposing China to “responsibly” managing bi-lateral ties to preserve “peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and the world”, ensuring that their “competition does not veer into conflict.”

Why has Joe Biden changed his China narrative? For one thing, America’s debacle in Afghanistan has seriously damaged its credibility as the sole super-power of the world. The loss of this credibility means that the US, its military might notwithstanding, 

lacks the necessary support from its allies to pursue yet another global adventure. As it stands, it is specifically the US withdrawal from Afghanistan that has put its ties with Europe/NATO on the line. There is an increasing desire in Europe to assert its strategic autonomy, a line of action that extends to the continent’s ties with China and Russia managed independently of the US influence. Similarly, the US push to revive its damaged ties with Southeast Asia, too, has failed to elicit the level of support it thought it will be able to get. For the Southeast Asian nations, it remains that the US has little more than conflict with China to offer, a lacuna that the Joe Biden administration has so far failed to address. On the other hand, Southeast Asia has been very consistent in showing an extreme lack of appetite for pursuing an aggressive policy vis-à-vis China. In short, it does not share the US's desperation to contain China.

The US failure in securing the desired, cold war level of support from the allies in Europe and Southeast Asia has left the US with no option but to redefine its overall foreign policy approach. Media reports in the US have called this foreign policy shift a “pragmatic realism” or the so-called “Biden doctrine.” The most recent readout shows that the “Biden doctrine” is looking to recast its ties with China in less ideological terms. While the Joe Biden administration still wants to “compete” with China, the fact that Biden, who actually made the recent call and initiated the contact after seven months of disconnection, emphasized “responsible” competition shows how Biden is consciously dialing down the US reliance – and insistence – on the military-backed hard competition. In other words, while Biden remains the realist that prizes hard power, he is growing conscious of the need to pursue US interests in ways that are less costly. In the absence of willing allies in Europe and Southeast Asia, the Biden administration cannot singlehandedly confront and contain China from the Oval Office in the White House.

What has also added to the necessity of reframing the US policy is the hard-line and stubborn stance taken by Beijing towards US unilateralism. China has been confronting the US through all possible means. Despite sanctions, China has made investments in Iran and continues to buy its oil. Two weeks ago, when John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy talked to China’s foreign minister, he was clearly warned that deteriorating US-China relations could seriously undermine cooperation on climate change. Wang Yi was blunt and frank when he told Kerry that US-China cooperation on climate China cannot be separated from the broader trajectory of their overall ties.

China’s refusal to compartmentalise its ties with the US to deal with areas of cooperation and conflict separately has left the Biden administration in a quandary. In July, the US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was handed over a long list of complaints from China which showed how the US was trying to contain, undermine and suppress China’s development and interests around the world.

China’s stark refusal to bow down to the pressure the US has been exerting ever since 2016 means that the US has not enough diplomatic or economic options to achieve success. The fact that its allies in Europe and Southeast Asia, too, have refused to offer unconditional support means that the US is unable to pursue a hard policy vis-à-vis China that relies on creating a strong ring of military alliances around China. Given the failure to win over allies, the Biden administration’s much anticipated ‘Asia Pivot 2.0’ seems to have hit a roadblock; hence, the emphasis on a new policy.

While the US could ideally compete with China on the economic front, there is no denying that a shift from military competition to the economic competition itself requires a major policy shift. Biden’s attempt to dial down the rhetoric indicates this very shift, although it is yet to develop and announce a programme to boost US economic ties with its allies in Southeast Asia. Unless the Biden administration can actually develop such a programme, the actual prospects of its success against China will remain grim. Failure to do so could actually push the US once again towards hard competition.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

French Church abuse: 216,000 children were victims of clergy - inquiry

 

Some 216,000 children - mostly boys - have been sexually abused by clergy in the French Catholic Church since 1950, a damning new inquiry has found.

The head of the inquiry said there were at least 2,900-3,200 abusers, and accused the Church of showing a "cruel indifference towards the victims".

Pope Francis "felt pain" on hearing about the inquiry's finding, a Vatican statement said.

One of those abused said it was time the Church reassessed its actions.

François Devaux, who is also the founder of the victims' association La Parole Libérée (Freed speech), said there had been a "betrayal of trust, betrayal of morale, betrayal of children".

The inquiry found the number of children abused in France could rise to 330,000, when taking into account abuses committed by lay members of the Church, such as teachers at Catholic schools.

For Mr Devaux it marked a turning point in France's history: "You have finally given institutional recognition to victims of all the Church's responsibility - something that bishops and the Pope have not yet been prepared to do."

According to the Vatican statement, the Pope learnt about the report after he met visiting French bishops in the last few days.

"His first thoughts are for the victims, with a deep sadness for their wounds and gratitude for their courage in coming forward," it read.

"His thoughts also turn to the Church in France, and that, in recognising these terrible events and united by the suffering of the Lord for his most vulnerable children, it can take the path of redemption."

The report's release follows a number of abuse claims and prosecutions against Catholic Church officials worldwide.

The independent inquiry was commissioned by the French Catholic Church in 2018. It spent more than two-and-a-half years combing through court, police and Church records and speaking to victims and witnesses.

Most cases assessed by the inquiry are thought to be too old to prosecute under French law.

'Victims were not believed'

The report, which is nearly 2,500 pages long, said the "vast majority" of victims were boys, many of them aged between 10 and 13.

It said the Church had not only failed to prevent abuse but had also failed to report it, at times knowingly putting children in contact with predators.

"There was a whole bunch of negligence, of deficiency, of silence, an institutional cover-up," the head of the inquiry, Jean-Marc Sauvé, told reporters on Tuesday.

He said that until the early 2000s, the Church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference" towards victims.

"The victims are not believed, are not listened to. When they are listened to, they are considered to have perhaps contributed to what they had happen to them," he explained.

He added that sexual abuse within the Catholic Church continued to be a problem.

While the commission found evidence of as many as 3,200 abusers - out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics - it said this was probably an underestimation.

"The Catholic Church is, after the circle of family and friends, the environment that has the highest prevalence of sexual violence," the report said.

Olivier Savignac, head of victims association Parler et Revivre (Speak out and Live again), was abused at the age of 13 by the director of a Catholic holiday camp in the south of France.

He told the Associated Press news agency that before the abuse, he had thought of the priest as "someone who was good, a caring person who would not harm me".

"We keep this, it's like a growing cyst, it's like gangrene inside the victim's body and the victim's psyche," he said.

The inquiry found that about 60% of the men and women who were abused had gone on to "encounter major problems in their emotional or sexual lives".