Kurds Thrown to Wolves by the US

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

As the Kurds always tell the world, they have no friends but the mountains.

This was demonstrated yet again earlier this month, as the Kurds in war-torn Syria were deserted by U.S. President Donald Trump and left to the tender mercies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is determined to wipe out any vestige of Kurdish self-rule in Syria.

The Turkish military incursion into northern Syria came after the Trump administration decided to withdraw American troops, which had offered a measure of protection to the Kurds.

Trump declared that, with the Islamic State largely defeated, the United States has no business in Syria any longer.

So the Kurds were reduced, as a fallback, to a quick alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – also no democrat, nor exactly a friend, either.

“If we have to choose between compromise and genocide, we will choose our people,” declared Mazloum Abdi, the commander-in-chief of the Kurdish forces.

This has left open the possibility of an armed confrontation between the Turkish and Syrian armies in the buffer zone that Turkey seeks to create along its long border with Syria.

The Kurds, at least 30 million people, are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own, but most live in Turkey and Iraq, and so the world’s attention has mainly been paid to the Kurdish minorities in those countries until now. 

In northern Iraq, the Kurdish Regional Government has been governing a virtually sovereign de facto state for decades.

In Turkey, on the other hand, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is an organization Ankara defines as a terrorist organization. Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is currently serving a life sentence in Turkey. Before he was arrested, Ocalan based his operations out of Syria.

In Syria, Kurds make up between seven and 10 per cent of the population -- some two million people. For decades, they were suppressed and denied basic rights. They were largely overlooked until the country descended into civil war.

The Syrian Kurdish militias, known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), are the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Fighting under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the areas they control in Syria are now known as Rojava, or Western Kurdistan.

The SDF has 70,000 soldiers and has borne the brunt of the fighting against the Islamic State, losing 11,000 fighters. But, by trying to cave out an autonomous region along the Syrian border with Turkey, they have drawn the ire of Erdogan. 

He considers them allies, if not indeed an arm, of the PKK, which has waged an armed campaign in Turkey that has killed more than 40,000 people since 1984. The YPG, after all, was spun out of the PKK in 2003. 

The only ones that have come out relatively well in this whole chaotic mess are the Russians, who are trying to act as a buffer and political go-between. A temporary ceasefire is currently in place to allow Kurdish forces to move away from Turkey’s border.

Perhaps Americans can’t afford to police the world’s tribal conflicts anymore, but Moscow has definitely increased its clout in Syria.

Trouble in a South American Country

By Henry Srebrnik. [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

A Pacific coast country in South America which has seen its share of troubles over the decades continues to do so.

Ecuador, which has a population of 17 million, has a long history of political and economic instability.

There have been periods of democratic rule, but they did not last all that long. Its economy, also, is nothing to brag about.

President Lenin Moreno, elected in February 2017, recently announced a two-billion-dollar fiscal reform package that led to street protests and transport strikes. The reform measures are aimed at improving the country’s economic revenue.

On Oct. 3 he declared a 60-day state of emergency in response to the nationwide protests that followed in the streets of the capital, Quito, and Guayaquil, the country's largest city. After thousands of protesters stormed the parliament building in the capital a few days later, he moved government operations to Guayaquil.

The measure suspended some civil rights, allowed authorities to commandeer public or private property and empowered the military to keep order.

Moreno also announced that Ecuador would be leaving the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which it is the smallest member, on Jan. 1, 2020 in order to increase its oil exports beyond the restrictions imposed by the group.

Prior to Moreno taking office, the country had been governed by President Rafael Correa for a decade.  

He won the presidency in 2006 on a platform criticizing the established political elites.

But Correa’s left-wing economic policies left Ecuador with high levels of public debt.

By the end of his tenure, reliance on oil, public expenditures, and international pressure caused a recession, resulting in government spending being slashed.

His governing leftist Alianza PAIS (Country Alliance) party threw its support behind Moreno after Correa left office. But the current president has been forced to clean up the mess left behind by his predecessor.

Among other measures, Moreno was forced to negotiate a $4.2 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund in February by instituting the current austerity policies.

Corruption has been an endemic problem in the country. When he was elected, Correa announced a “revolution against corruption.”

But this revolution never materialized. Instead, Correa eliminated the feeble anti-corruption mechanisms already in place and reduced the anti-corruption budget.

Last year Correa himself was charged with corruption as well as for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of a rival lawmaker in 2012. He faces up to 12 years in prison if found guilty.

The most serious charges against Correa involve allegations that he took millions of dollars in cash from the Colombian FARC guerrilla group to finance his campaigns, and in exchange gave them free rein along the Colombian-Ecuadorian border.

As well, Correa’s repressive policies toward the media were described by Human Rights Watch as “Orwellian.”  He also allowed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to take refuge in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.

Some of his former aides are already in prison, while Correa himself now lives in exile in Belgium.

A referendum designed to frustrate any attempt by Correa to return to power, which was approved by 64 per cent of the voters in February 2018, limits presidents to two terms, blocking him from running in the 2021 presidential election.

Even if he never comes to trial, the Correa era is over in Ecuador.

Can U.S. Heal its Political Divisions?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Deep divisions and intense passions have seized American public discourse since 2016, alarming many academics. With the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump, these will widen further.

“We have these two sides aligned against each other,” Patrick Deneen, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, argues. 

“One is represented by liberal elites in major institutions who spend all their time denouncing the populists and the people, while claiming the mantle of being democrats. 

“And we have populists represented by their own elites who spend all their time denouncing elites but aren’t themselves especially savory characters.” 

They occupy different societies with different values, and the two major political parties are emissaries of those differences, which are increasingly irreconcilable.

Each side pursues ideological purity at any cost because it is increasingly the route to power.

For Prof. Deneen, the urgent challenge is not to eliminate either of these parties but to pressure the elites, both financial and cultural, to put aside their animosities and participate in what he refers to as a “mixed regime.”

“Partisans in the electorate don’t like each other,” observes Steven W. Webster of Emory University in Atlanta. “That encourages political elites to bicker with one another. People in the electorate observe that. And that encourages them to bicker with one another.” 

Over the past several decades, the policy preferences of Democratic and Republican elites and voters have diverged considerably on a wide range of issues. 

Democrats have moved to the left and Republicans have moved even more sharply to the right. As a result, the ideological distance between each party’s supporters and the opposing party has increased markedly.

Unfortunately the reality of sharp partisan divisions over policy issues makes the possibility of reconciliation and cooperation between those in opposing partisan camps much less likely.

Some historians have sounded a similar alarm. “How, when, and why has the United States now arrived at the brink of a veritable civil war?” Victor Davis Hanson, a historian with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, asks in a July 2018 essay in National Review. 

Hanson fears the United States is “nearing a point comparable to 1860,” a year before the start of the American Civil War.

“Left-Right factionalism is increasingly fueled by geography,” he contends. “Red and blue states ensure that locale magnifies differences that were mostly manageable during the administrations of Ford, Carter, Reagan, the Bushes, and Clinton.”

Hansen blames, among other things, globalization, which “created new iconic billionaires in high tech and finance, and their subsidiaries of coastal elites, while hollowing out the muscular jobs largely in the American interior.”

Robert Reich, a former secretary of labour under President Bill Clinton, who is now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, imagines serious social unrest, in which Trump’s potential impeachment lead to calls for his supporters to take to the streets.

Besides, he recently observed in a Sept. 22 article on the website Salon, “no president has ever been sent packing. Richard Nixon resigned because he saw it coming. Trump would sooner start a civil war.”

A dangerously polarized and partisan country would get worse.

China Increases Diplomatic Pressure on Taiwan

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

As the People’s Republic of China celebrated its 70th anniversary Oct. 1, the communist giant continued to increase its pressure on Taiwan.

It considers the island to be part of the country and is determined to isolate it diplomatically and eventually reunite it with the mainland.

In recent weeks, it pressured two small Pacific Island states to switch their diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

Since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party took office in 2016, seven countries – El Salvador, Panama, Sao Tome and Principe, the Dominican Republic, and Burkina Faso – have already switched their allegiance to Beijing.

Tsai opposes closer political integration with China, ahead of a Jan. 11 presidential election on the democratically ruled island.

The Solomon Islands changed its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China on Sept. 16.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the Solomon Islands cabinet approved a resolution recognizing Beijing as the government of China.

China’s foreign ministry said in a statement it “highly commends” the decision to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

“We welcome this decision by the Solomon Islands and support the country to move forward in the development path it has chosen for itself,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

The Solomon Islands had conducted a weeks-long review of its policy towards China, which was offering $8.5 million in development funds to replace Taiwan.

Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu accused China of engaging in “dollar diplomacy” to obtain recognition.

Four days later, the Pacific nation of Kiribati also broke relations with Taiwan and recognized the Beijing regime.

“We support this important decision by Kiribati as a sovereign and independent nation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters.

“There is only one China in the world, and the People’s Republic of China government is the sole legal government representing the whole of China.”

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry stated that it “deeply regrets and strongly condemns the Kiribati government’s decision, which disregards the multifaceted assistance and sincere friendship extended by Taiwan to Kiribati over the years.”

The statement said that Beijing had lured Kiribati into switching diplomatic recognition by promising full funding, rather than loans, for airplanes and commercial ferries.

Beijing’s drive to cut off Taiwan’s diplomatic partners has fuelled worries in Washington and among U.S. allies such as Australia. The Solomon Islands and Kiribati are both located in waters that have been dominated by them since World War Two.

Kiribati occupies a strategic location roughly halfway between the United States and Australia. The latter, along with Taiwan, has been a leading donor to Pacific nations, but Beijing is increasingly challenging that position.

The decisions by the two island countries were a major win for China as it seeks to turn a dwindling number of countries that recognize Taiwan into acknowledging the People’s Republic.

The losses leave Taiwan recognized by only 15 countries, mostly small nations in the Pacific and Latin America. If Taiwan eventually loses all diplomatic allies, it could weaken its claim to be a sovereign nation.

Still, domestic support for Taiwanese president Tsai has improved against a backdrop of rising anti-China sentiment in Taiwan amid continued anti-government protests in Hong Kong.

Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed early this year to start exploring a Taiwanese version of the governance formula under which Beijing guaranteed Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy when it was returned to China in 1997. Tsai has categorically rejected his overture.

Russia's New Presence in Africa

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Russia is seeking to bolster its presence across Africa by building relations with existing rulers, and political, military and business figures.

On May 28, the Kremlin announced that Sochi will host the Russia-Africa Summit, co-chaired by Vladimir Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who also currently heads the 55-member African Union.

To be held Oct. 22-24, this is the first event of this kind in the history of Russian-African relations, with the heads of all states on the African continent invited, as well as leaders of major sub-regional associations and organisations. Roughly 3,000 African businesspersons are expected to attend this event.

Putin told them that Russia “renders comprehensive support to our African partners’ efforts in settling local conflicts and crises, countering terrorism and extremism, drug trafficking and cross-border crime, as well as other challenges and threats to regional and global security.”

During the summit, special attention will be paid to the current state and prospects of Russia’s relations with African countries and to the expansion of political, economic, technical and cultural cooperation.

During the cold war, the Soviet Union supported liberation movements in the developing world and backed insurgent communist guerrillas fighting in Angola, Algeria and what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

But when the USSR collapsed Moscow’s influence faded. In the 1990s, a weakened Russian Federation was too preoccupied with its own economic and political troubles to pose much of a geopolitical challenge.

Putin showed little interest in Africa in the 2000s. But western sanctions imposed in 2014 over the annexation of Crimea have changed that, and his recent interest in Africa is in large part pragmatic.

Moscow is now keen to find new markets and to strike new partnerships, and Africa provides inviting opportunities. Russian interests range from gold in Sudan and bauxite in Guinea, to phosphates and mineral resources in Mauritania, to diamonds in the DRC.

Securing valuable votes on the UN Security Council and worrying western nations are two other reasons for the Russian push in Africa.

In January, Madagascar inaugurated President Andry Rajoelina, who defeated 35 rivals in two rounds of voting. According to a report by the BBC Russian Service, he may have received campaign financing from Russia. The Russians also set up a French-language news service.

Russia is also getting involved militarily on the continent. So far it has also signed military cooperation deals with some 20 African states. Russian troops and contractors have also been on assignments in Egypt, Libya and Sudan.

It has a peacekeeping mission in the troubled Central African Republic, which allows Moscow to expand across the continent, while Russian companies strike lucrative mineral deals.

Russia has donated weapons to bolster the country’s fight against militia groups after receiving an exemption from a United Nations arms embargo.

On May 24, Russia said it was sending military specialists to the DRC to service Russian-made military hardware and equipment there. The military deal was signed after talks between Putin and his Congolese counterpart Denis Sassou Nguesso in the Kremlin.

Russia’s policy bluntly states its plans for Africa. The goal is to shore up Moscow’s power and, to borrow a phrase, “make Russia great again.”

Mostar is a Microcosm of a Deeply Divided State

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer 

Almost a quarter century after the Dayton Accords signed in 1995 ended the horrific war between Muslim Bosniaks, Roman Catholic Croats, and Orthodox Christian Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this fragile entity remains a state held together by “Scotch-tape” – the European Union and NATO.

At the summit of this ramshackle country stands the presidency, controlled by three elected presidents, one each for the three ethnic groups.

Since they agree on virtually nothing, it is governed, in reality, by a so-called High Representative. The current incumbent is the Austrian diplomat Valentin Inzko. 

He has the power to adopt binding decisions when local parties seem unable or unwilling to act, and he can remove from office public officials who violate legal commitments or, in general, the Dayton Accords.

A cumbersome state apparatus with 14 levels of government and no clear reconciliation strategy opened the door to continued ethno-nationalist brinkmanship and endemic corruption. 

Also, half the country has been turned into a de facto Serb statelet, the Republika Srpska, the other half given over to the Croat and Bosnian Muslim population.

If the external forces keeping the peace ever stopped, war would resume almost immediately. In a sense, it has never really ended.

The former Yugoslav republic had a multiethnic population of Bosniaks,Croats and Serbs. The latter two groups wanted to join their ethnic kin in Croatia and Serbia when Yugoslavia disintegrated. War followed.

With at least 130,000 people dead and some 2.2 million turned into refugees and internally displaced persons by ethnic cleansing between 1992 and 1995, no one was left untouched by the conflict.

Sarajevo was besieged and indiscriminately shelled by Bosnian Serb snipers. Banja Luka, the country’s second largest city, was systematically cleansed of non-Serbs and all its mosques demolished. The city of Mostar, a UNESCO world heritage site, would find itself similarly encircled. 

Divided cities are places of extreme exclusion and polarization, and Mostar has been divided since 1992. Though in 2004 the city was reunified by an interim city statute, it remains highly contested. 

Mostar is located in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the confusingly-named part of the country outside the Republika Srpska that is mainly Bosniak and Croat.

Throughout 1992, tensions between Croats and Bosniaks increased in Mostar and by April 1993 Mostar had become a divided city with the western part dominated by Croats and the eastern part controlled by the Bosniaks. 

Its famous 16th-century stone bridge was destroyed during the fighting but has since been rebuilt. The Croat–Bosniak conflict ended in 1994; by then some 2,000 people had been killed.

Today, the city’s population of 105,00 is divided between Croats, at 48.4 per cent and Bosniaks at 44.1 per cent. There is a very small Serb population. The city of Mostar has the largest population of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is a city that, while officially reunited, remains associated with the seeming impossibility of eradicating the ethnic divisions that paralyse it.

Power is divided between the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia and Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) and the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the same parties that reduced the center of the city to a wasteland.

There are two separate fire brigades, two garbage collection companies, two hospitals, two electricity companies, two bus stations, two popular nightclubs, and two soccer teams. 

Of course, schools are also either Croat or Bosniak. They all attest to the continued division.

Mostar, and all of Bosnia-Herzegovina, is not so much at peace as in a state of non-war.

Will Scots Try to Leave the UK Again?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

In many ways, the success of the 2016 referendum on Brexit was the product of a resurgent English nationalism. 

The other parts of the United Kingdom voted to remain. In Scotland, 62 per cent of the voting population, and every single council area, voted to stay in the European Union.

The UK since the 1990s has gone through several rounds of devolution of powers, notably to Scotland, which have turned it into a highly asymmetrical, de facto partially federal, system.

In September 1997, a referendum was put to the Scottish electorate and secured a majority in favour of the establishment of a new devolved Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Two years later, power was transferred from the British parliament to the new assembly, though Scotland continued to be represented at Westminster as well.

How has this affected the sovereignty movement in Scotland? Independence, once only supported by marginal groups, is now the preferred option of almost half the population.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) now dominates the political landscape. It is the largest political party in Scotland, where it holds 62 of the 129 seats in the Scottish parliament, as well as 35 of the 59 Scottish seats in the British House of Commons.

In September 2014 1.6 million Scots – about 45 per cent of the electorate -- voted to restore Scottish sovereignty, on a turnout was over 84 per cent. (Scotland was united with England and Wales into a unitary Great Britain in 1707.)

Regional-nationalist parties have typically adopted strategies of “independence in Europe,” implying secession from the existing state but continued membership of the EU as an additional member state.

This appeal to the European dimension has played a central role in their campaigns. It has paid off, particularly in Scotland. 

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister and SNP leader, wants to see another Scottish referendum by 2021. She has called for a general election in Britain in order to defeat Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

 “The facts are simple: the SNP has a mandate for a referendum, the Scottish Parliament has voted for a referendum and the Scottish people want an independence referendum,” SNP Deputy Leader Keith Brown has said.

Ian Blackford, the SNP’s House leader in the British Parliament, has asserted that it would be anti-democratic for any politician in London to oppose another referendum.

“It’s particularly important given that in our referendum in 2014, we were told if Scotland stayed in the UK, our rights as EU citizens would be respected,” he added. “We are being taken out of the European Union against our will.”

It can no longer be presumed that Scotland would vote “no” again in an independence ballot. But an independent and EU-member Scotland would face severe challenges in managing relations with a rump UK, a country no longer in the EU, but one which would remain Scotland’s largest market and most important partner in so many ways. 

Remaining part of the UK and holding membership in the EU look more and more like mutually exclusive options, rather than complementary ones.

Thus, Scotland’s independence movement faces both renewed urgency in the eyes of many and even more formidable political and economic obstacles than in 2014.

U.S. Trapped Between Iran, Saudi Arabia

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

The United States has sent troops to Saudi Arabia, following the drone and cruise missile attacks that caused major fires at two of Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in the kingdom's oil-rich Eastern Province.

Washington and Riyadh accused Iran of involvement in the attacks, which interrupted about half of the company’s total output. They believe the weapons were actually launched from southwestern Iran.

Iran maintains advanced missile and drone programs which allow it to support regional proxies, such as the Houthis in Yemen.

It does so because it operates in a gray zone between war and peace in order to challenge the status quo while managing risk.

Saudi defence systems apparently failed to detect the attacks, underscoring the country’s vulnerability.

Tehran has rejected the accusations-- denial has always been one of its trademarks. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country did not want to engage in a military conflict with neighboring Saudi Arabia or its allies. But Riyadh claims to have proof it was Iran behind the attacks.

Evidence points in the Islamic Republic’s direction. After all, Iran’s officials have openly signaled that they will jeopardize oil commerce unless the U.S. ends its campaign of “maximum pressure” and lifts its sanctions, which are crippling Iran’s economy.

Iran began to escalate its tactics in May, after U.S. President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and ended any waivers on Iran’s oil-export sanctions, seeking to drive Tehran’s oil revenues toward zero.

Since then, Iran has shot down an American drone and captured a number of oil tankers in international waterways.

“World powers know that in the case that oil is completely sanctioned and Iran’s oil exports are brought down to zero, international waterways can’t have the same security as before,” Rouhani stated in August.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif followed this threat with another. He indicated that Tehran might act “unpredictably” in response to “unpredictable” U.S. policies under Trump. He raised the specter of “all-out war” in the event of U.S. or Saudi military strikes.

The departure of Trump’s national security adviser, the hawkish John Bolton, on Sept. 10 has been celebrated in Tehran, seen as an indication that the U.S. is wavering in its determination to stop Iranian aggression.

Iran’s leaders may have bet that President Trump, wary of Middle East conflicts, would decline to respond with force.

“Iranian hard-liners consider Trump’s inconsistency to be weakness,” according to Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. 

Iran is no pushover. It has a nuclear arms program, supports two terrorist proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, and has turned war-torn Syria and Iraq into vassal states. It has a foothold in Yemen.

But Iran’s attacks cannot go unanswered. If they don’t Iran will not stop, and its attacks will only intensify.

The Iranians and Saudis are fighting for hegemony in the Muslim Middle East, especially in the Persian Gulf.

They are natural enemies that justify themselves by labeling each other apostates, with Riyadh heading the Sunni branch of Islam and Tehran the rival Shi’ite camp.

 And America is caught in the middle, forced to support one theocracy against the other.

Israel Caught Between Beijing and Washington

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

China is now making a concerted effort to expand its strategic presence and economic clout in the Middle East.

Chinese officials see the Middle East as an intrinsic part of the Belt and Road Initiative, the framework of trade and commercial ties between China and various world regions that has become Beijing’s signature foreign initiative since its launch in 2013. 

So Israel, too, has been impacted by China’s deepening economic presence.

Over the past decade, the Jewish state has broadened its global appeal as a start-up nation in technology and innovation to attract foreign direct investment. This effort has proven extremely successful. 

As of mid-2018, Israel’s tech industry had drawn in more than $3.2 billion. A growing share is Chinese in origin. In fact, China is on track to overtake the United States as Israel’s single largest overall source of investment.

This will have a potential impact on Israel’s strategic partnership with the United States. Washington is increasingly alarmed over China’s growing penetration of Israel’s high-tech sector. 

The Chinese now directly control, or have influence over, as much as one-quarter of Israel’s total tech industry, including sensitive projects jointly being developed with the United States.

Officials in Washington worry that Beijing’s activities are not at present being properly scrutinized or controlled. So China’s growing involvement could end up adversely affecting joint projects between Jerusalem and Washington. 

Here’s one example: In 2015, a Chinese conglomerate known as the Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) signed a multi-billion-dollar deal with the Israeli transportation ministry for the future rights to operate the Haifa port. 

SIPG will take control of day-to-day operations at the port for a quarter-century beginning in 2021. 

It was controversial from the outset because Haifa is more than simply a commercial hub; it also regularly hosts naval visits from the U.S. Sixth Fleet and joint drills between the U.S. and Israeli navies. 

This has made the question of who operates the port a key concern for Washington, with U.S. military officials warning that port visits could end, or at least lessen, once China assumes control of the facility, due to concerns over potential Chinese intelligence operations.

John Bolton, then the U.S. National Security Advisor, personally cautioned Israel when he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials in Jerusalem in January 2019.

Some Israelis agree. Israel should reverse its decision because a national security asset should never be in the hands of a foreign country, Matan Vilna’i, Israel’s former ambassador to China between 2012 and 2016, and an ex-deputy defence minister, told the Jerusalem Post. 

Vilna’i said that it is completely acceptable for Israel to deal with the Chinese on infrastructure projects because of their expertise. For instance, he pointed to the problems currently plaguing the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv train line, which, he asserted, probably would never have happened had the Chinese handled the project. But it should steer clear of deals like this.

Other senior Israeli officials said they are aware of Washington’s concerns and are working to address them.

“The State of Israel is dealing with all aspects connected to the establishment and management of infrastructure by foreign companies in Israel,” Transportation Minister Israel Katz, stated.

So China’s growing stake in Israel is one that, if not properly regulated and overseen to Washington’s satisfaction, could adversely affect the vibrancy of Israel’s strategic partnership with the United States, and even curtail future cooperation between the two countries.

Africa's Giants Turn on Each Other

By Henry Srebrnik,, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Africa’s two largest economies are at loggerheads, due to an outbreak of violence against Nigerians and other foreigners in South Africa.

The two population giants – with nearly 260 million residents between them – have long competed for regional influence. But tensions have intensified lately on account of deadly riots in Johannesburg, in which Nigerian-owned businesses have been targeted in for violence.

The unrest, driven by xenophobic sentiments toward outsiders, has left at least 12 people dead in South Africa and led to nearly hundreds of arrests as people angered over unemployment and poor living conditions attacked property owned by immigrants.

Much of the problem comes from the open borders policy initiated by the post-apartheid government. Black Africans from all over the continent, particularly Nigeria, moved to South Africa.

They often put South African Blacks out of work by accepting lower wages and some set up small businesses in direct competition with existing ones.

The reaction in Nigeria to the current violence saw people in that country attack South African-owned shops. Nigeria recalled its ambassador to South Africa, while South Africa closed its diplomatic missions in the Nigerian cities of Abuja and Lagos.

“After receiving reports and threats from some of the Nigerians, we decided to temporarily close while we are assessing the situation,” said South African Foreign Ministry spokesman Lunga Ngqengelele.

 “Our government regrets all violence against foreign-owned stores or Africans from other countries who are resident in South Africa,” South Africa’s Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation.

As animosity between the two countries heightened, Nigerian legislators suggested that the foreign ministry should issue travel alerts to Nigerians planning to visit South Africa. And two of Nigeria’s top musicians, Burna Boy and Tiwa Savage, announced they were refusing to perform in South Africa.

On Sept. 4, Nigeria announced it would boycott the World Economic Forum on Africa that took place in Cape Town. It was to discuss the African Continental Free Trade Area, an agreement made this year that sets the stage for the creation of the largest free-trade area in the world.

 “We cannot have a continental free trade agreement and have a situation where there is black-on-black violence in South Africa,” maintained Oby Ezekwesili, a former Nigerian politician who was attending the Forum.

“The young people who are out there are extremely angry,” she added. “We have a problem of bad politics on the continent.”

As well, an influential Nigerian student body in late August demanded that all South African-owned businesses leave the country.

The National Association of Nigerian Students picketed branches of South African telecoms giant MTN, and those of supermarket chain Shoprite.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sept. 16 condemned the attacks on foreigners and sent envoys to Abuja to placate Nigeria. He must get a handle on the situation, as Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to visit South Africa in October.

The two nations were once very close. Nigeria was so supportive of the anti-apartheid movement that it had imposed a mandatory deduction from civil servants’ salaries that went to help South Africans.

The situation couldn’t be more different today, when the two states verge on diplomatic breakdown -- with its roots in xenophobia.

South Africa Explodes in Anger

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Mobs rampage in major cities. The country is criticized by other African states. There is talk of boycotting its businesses abroad.

Are we talking about the white-governed apartheid South Africa of three decades ago? No, it’s today’s democratic nation, ruled since the 1994 election that ended minority rule and brought to power the African National Congress.

So what has happened? The current attacks on foreign-owned shops in the country began after South African truck drivers started a nationwide strike to protest against the employment of foreign drivers on Sept. 1. 

They blocked roads and torched foreign-driven vehicles, mainly in the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province. Drivers were subject to xenophobic attacks and harassment.

The violence coincided with attacks against foreigners in Johannesburg, South Africa’s commercial hub, and Pretoria on Sept. 2-3.

It left at least 10 people dead, with dozens more arrested for the widespread looting and arson of foreign-owned shops and businesses.

This comes at a time of high unemployment, and some South Africans blame foreigners for taking their jobs. The unemployment rate in South Africa is nearly 28 per cent.

The government minister responsible for small business development, Lindiwe Zulu, said the rioters “feel there are other Africans coming into the country and they feel these Africans are taking our jobs.”

But the country's police minister, Bheki Cele, said “criminality rather than xenophobia” was to blame.

South Africa is a major destination for migrants in search of work from the southern Africa region and beyond. There are some four million migrants in South Africa, a nation of more than 50 million. 

While many have moved from neighbouring Lesotho, Mozambique, and especially Zimbabwe, whose citizens make up the biggest migrant population in South Africa, others come from as far as Somalia, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

That’s because South Africa has had an almost open-borders policy since the end of apartheid.

Approved refugees enjoy most of the same fundamental rights as South African citizens, thanks to the nation’s liberal constitution.

That may change. Xenophobia has long been a problem in South Africa, though the first major outbreak of riots targeting outsiders in the country occurred in 2008, when 62 people were killed. The violence was brought under control only after the government deployed the military.

There were subsequent incidents, particularly in 2015, when unrest in the cities of Johannesburg and Durban claimed seven lives and led to large-scale looting.

This time, there was anger across Africa. The African Union Commission condemned the violence. Its chairman, Moussa Faki Mahamat, called on South Africa to restore law and order.

Officials in Zambia reacted with outrage after that country’s truck drivers were attacked. Information and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Chanda Kasolo called it “barbaric.”

Zambia’s soccer association cancelled an international game against South Africa scheduled to take place in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.

In the Congo, demonstrators outside of the South African Embassy in Kinshasa held signs that read “Don’t kill our brothers” and “No xenophobia.”

Zimbabwe government spokesperson Nick Mangwana stated that he expected the South African government to protect its immigrants. Tanzania suspended flights to Johannesburg.

Governmental delegations from Nigeria, Rwanda, Malawi and Congo pulled out of the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting on Africa, which took place in Cape Town in early September.

Meant to be a showcase for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, it instead became an embarrassment.

Macron Attacks Brazil's Leader

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

Advocates of the postwar international economic and political system hate political leaders who care first and foremost about their own national sovereignty. 

Among their objects of distaste are Vladimir Putin of Russia, Victor Orban of Hungary, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Nahendra Modi of India, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the power behind the throne in Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) government.

Most of all, they despise U.S. President Donald Trump.

We can now add Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro to the list of this axis of nationalism. Since his election last year, he has been subjected to unrelenting criticism by the left-liberal media in North America and Europe, sometimes referred to as Brazil’s “Mini Trump.”

The global elites have been using climate change as a stick with which to beat nationalists. French president Emmanuel Macron’s attack on Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is the most recent example. 

At the recent G7 summit, held in in Biarritz, France, Macron tweeted that the devastating fires now burning in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest, often referred to as the “lungs of the world,” amounted to an international crisis and a threat to the word’s battle against global warming. 

The Amazon has seen more than 85,000 fires break out so far this year -- a 77 per cent rise from the same period in 2018.

Bolsonaro reacted by accusing Macron of having a “lamentable colonialist mentality” rooted in condescension. The idea of creating an international alliance to save the Amazon would be treating Brazil like “a colony or no man’s land.”

Bolsonaro further admonished Macron, warning him to stop “messing with us.” The diplomatic row between the leaders even got personal when Bolsonaro insulted the French president’s wife.

But Bolsonaro finally agreed that environmental challenges must be met -- while respecting “national sovereignty” -- and on Aug. 28 announced there would be a meeting of countries that share the Amazon to tackle the devastating fires.

The declaration followed Bolsonaro’s accusation that France and Germany had tried to “buy” Brazil’s sovereignty through their pledge of $20 million in aid at the G7. He had initially rejected their offer.

However, acceptance of the funds, he later clarified, would hinge on the Brazilian government being able to administer the aid. Meanwhile, Brazil has sent 44,000 troops to the region to fight the fires. Bolsonaro also issued a 60-day ban on burning in Brazil.

Canada is offering to send water bombers and $15 million to help the affected regions.

Bolsonaro’s government had found itself under increasing international pressure over its environmental policies even before the major fires broke out earlier in August.

Germany and Norway both suspended their contributions to Brazil’s Amazon Fund earlier in August. Over the past decade, Norway has donated $1.2 billion to the conservation fund, which is managed by the Brazilian Development Bank. Germany has contributed $68 million.

However, on Aug. 30 German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her readiness to assist Brazil in protecting the Amazon region.

Bolsonaro, though, received praise from Trump, who tweeted that he was doing a “great job.”

Bolsonaro said the tweet pleased him “a lot.”  Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo met Trump in Washington and said the two countries were “on the same page” over the fires.

Macron was probably gritting his teeth.