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      The Dirty Relationship Between Russia and China

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      The leaders of Russia and China are joining forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing for the Winter Olympics to show solidarity with his largest trade partner at an event that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia are boycotting diplomatically.

      The statement that Putin signed with Chinese leader Xi Jinping confirms their overlapping interests, their joint insistence on the right to do whatever they like within their own borders, and their disgust over the destabilizing nature of various US military actions.

      In Ukraine, More Than European Peace Is at Stake

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      There’s much high-flown language in the statement about democracy, economic development and commitment to the Paris climate goals of 2015. But the timing of the statement suggests that it’s really about hard power. Putin didn’t travel all the way to Beijing and Xi didn’t meet with his first foreign leader in two years just to hammer out a general statement of principles. Putin wants China to have his back on Ukraine and is supporting Chinese claims over Taiwan and Hong Kong in return.

      This isn’t an easy quid pro quo, given that the two countries have long had a wary relationship. In the past, Russia eyed China’s global economic ambitions with concern, and a certain type of Russian conspiracy theorist worried about large numbers of Chinese moving into the underpopulated Russian Far East. Before Putin took over, China was uncomfortable with the political volatility of its northern neighbor. After Putin, Beijing was not happy with the Kremlin’s military escapades in its near abroad.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But that is changing. “For the first time in any of Russia’s recent aggressions, Putin has won the open support of China’s leader,” Robin Wright writes in The New Yorker. “China did not back Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, or its invasion of Ukraine in 2014, nor has it recognized Russia’s annexation of Crimea.”

      The geopolitics of the new relationship between China and Russia is certainly important. But let’s take a look at what’s really fueling this new alliance. Quite literally.

      Fossil Fuel Friendship

      Inside the Arctic Circle, just across from the bleak military outpost of Novaya Zemlya, Russia has built the northernmost natural gas facility in the world: Yamal LNG. More than 200 wells have been drilled to tap into the equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil. Nuclear-powered icebreakers clear the port of Sabetta for liquefied natural gas tankers to transport the fuel to points south. Russia also plans to build a train line to ship what it expects to be 60 million tons of natural gas per year by 2030.

      Russia can thank climate change for making it easier to access the deposits of natural gas. It can also thank China. Beijing owns about 30% of Yamal LNG. The Arctic is quite far away from China’s usual Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. Yamal is also an increasingly perilous investment because melting permafrost puts all that infrastructure of extraction at risk. But China needs huge amounts of energy to keep its economy growing at the rate the central government deems necessary.

      That’s why so many of the BRI projects involving Russia are centered around fossil fuel. At the top of the list is the first Power of Siberia pipeline, which opened in 2019 to pump natural gas from the Russian Far East into China. A second such pipeline is under consideration, which would connect China to… Yamal LNG.

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      At the moment, the natural gas from the Russian Arctic supplies consumers in Europe. With a second Power of Siberia pipeline, Russia could more easily weather a boycott from European importers. Yamal, by the way, is already under US sanctions, which has made Chinese financial backing even more essential. China is investing a total of $123.87 billion in the three phases of the Power of Siberia project, which is more than any other BRI oil and gas investment and four times what China spends on energy from Saudi Arabia.

      But these are not the only Belt and Road connections between the two countries. Five of the top 10 BRI mining projects are in Russia, including a $1.8 billion coal mining complex. China is also investing in an Arctic free trade zone and upgraded rail and road links between the two countries.

      Let’s be clear: the bear and the dragon don’t see eye to eye on everything. As Gaye Christoffersen writes in The Asan Forum: “China focused on infrastructural projects useful for importing Russian natural resources, while Russia focused on developing industries in resource processing. The two sides failed to reach a consensus. Later, China insisted, as a Near-Arctic state, on equal partnership in developing the Northern Sea Route, while Russia demanded respect for its sovereignty and rejected China’s Arctic claims. They are still in disagreement despite joint efforts.”

      But the basic relationship remains: Russia has energy to sell and China is an eager buyer. In a side deal that coincided with their recent Olympic statement, for instance, China agreed to purchase $117.5 billion worth of oil and gas. “Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, announced a new agreement to supply 100 million tons of crude through Kazakhstan to the Chinese state company China National Petroleum Corporation over the next ten years—while the Russian energy giant Gazprom pledged to ship 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year to China through a new pipeline,” writes Frederick Kempe at the Atlantic Council. Talk about greasing the wheels of cooperation.

      A Future Eastern Alliance?

      Putin hasn’t given up on Europe. He still has friends in Victor Orban’s Hungary and Aleksandar Vucic’s Serbia. Europe remains the biggest market for Russian oil and gas. And both NATO and the European Union continue to attract the interest of countries on Russian borders, which means that the Kremlin has to pay close attention to its western flank.

      But the Ukraine crisis, even if it doesn’t devolve into war, could represent a turning point in contemporary geopolitics.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping share a great deal in common. They are both nationalists who derive much of their public legitimacy not from an abstract political ideology, but from their appeals to homeland. They have a mutual disgust for the liberalism of human rights and checks on government power. Despite their involvement in various global institutions, they firmly believe in a sovereignist position that puts no constraints on what they do within the borders of their countries.

      But perhaps the most operationally important aspect of their overlapping worldviews is their approach to energy and climate.

      Both China and Russia are nominally committed to addressing climate change. They have pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, though they both resort to some dodgy accounting to offset their actual emissions and meet their Paris commitments. China is more serious in terms of installing renewable energy infrastructure, with solar, wind and other sources responsible for 43% of power generation. Russia’s commitment to renewable energy at this point is negligible.

      But both remain wedded to fossil fuels. It’s a matter of economic necessity for Russia as the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, the second-largest exporter of petroleum and the third-largest exporter of coal. Fossil fuels accounted for over 60% of the country’s exports in 2019; oil and gas alone provide well over a third of the federal budget. All of this is in jeopardy because a good number of Russia’s customers are trying to wean themselves of fossil fuel imports to cut their carbon emissions and to decrease their dependency on the Kremlin.

      But not China. Despite its considerable investments into renewable energy, Beijing is still a huge consumer of fossil fuels. Chinese demand for natural gas has been rising for the last few years and won’t peak until 2035, which is bad news for the world but good news for the Russian gas industry. Oil consumption, which is more than twice that of natural gas and is rising more slowly, will peak in 2030.

      Coal is still China’s largest source of energy. “Since 2011, China has consumed more coal than the rest of the world combined,” according to ChinaPower. “As of 2020, coal made up 56.8 percent of China’s energy use.” In 2020, as Alec MacGillis points out in a New Yorker piece, China built three times more power-generating infrastructure from coal than the rest of the world combined, and it continues to mine staggering amounts of the stuff. Despite all the domestic production, however, China still relies on imports. Because of trade tensions with Australia — the world’s second-largest exporter of coal after Indonesia — China has increasingly turned to Russia to meet demand.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In other words, Russia and China are positioning themselves to use as much fossil fuel and emit as much carbon as they can in the next two decades to strengthen their economies and their hegemonic power in their adjacent spheres—and before international institutions acquire the resolve and the power to hold countries to their carbon reduction promises.

      Yes, other countries are slow to abandon fossil fuels. The United States, for instance, relies increasingly on natural gas for electricity generation to compensate for a marked reduction in the use of coal. Japan remains heavily dependent on oil, natural gas and coal. So, Russia and China are not unique in their attachment to these energy sources.

      But if the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels teams up with one of the world’s largest producers, it doesn’t just discomfit NATO generals and the trans-Atlantic establishment. It should worry anyone who believes that we still have a chance to prevent runaway climate change by 2050.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Ukraine crisis: miscalculation could trigger unintended wider conflict

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      Ukraine crisis: miscalculation could trigger unintended wider conflict‘Risk of something going down like a mid-air collision, or a trigger-happy Russian or American, can really escalate things quickly’ The unprecedented Russian military encirclement of Ukraine has not only brought closer the prospect of a devastating war in that country, it has also raised the risks of triggering an unintended wider conflict.The US and Nato have been adamant that their troops will not enter Ukraine no matter what happens, and the Pentagon has pulled out the 160 national guard soldiers who were acting as military advisers.Biden warns Putin: you’ll pay a heavy cost if you attack UkraineRead moreEven during the cold war, Washington and Russia made sure their forces did not clash, and Joe Biden has made clear he would seek to keep it that way.“That’s a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another,” Biden said.However, the massing of Russian troops in Belarus and the deployment of a substantial Russian naval force in the Black Sea, matched on a smaller scale by Nato land, sea and air reinforcements on the alliance’s eastern flank, means there is much far more military hardware in close proximity than is normal. And with proximity comes the increased danger of accidents and unintended consequences.“The risk of something going down like a mid-air collision, or a trigger-happy Russian or American, can really escalate things quickly,” said Danny Sjursen, a former army major and director of the Eisenhower Media Network.“You’re setting yourself up for accidents and miscalculation, and that’s when you can get out of control real quick, because there are domestic considerations both in Russia and in the United States. An American pilot dies – now what? I’m not saying that necessarily means we go to cataclysmic nuclear war but it escalates things.”The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told CBS News on Sunday that the US had sought to be transparent about its troop deployments in eastern Europe in order “to avoid mistake miscalculation or escalation and also to send a very clear message to Russia we will defend every inch of Nato territory”.There is a long history of close encounters over the Baltic and Black Seas. Earlier this month US jet fighters scrambled to intercept Russian warplanes operating close to Nato airspace while British and Norwegian planes took off to monitor Russian aircraft flying into the North Sea.While Russia has shut off large parts of the Black Sea to conduct its manoeuvres, Nato navies have stayed out of the immediate vicinity for now, while building up their presence in the Mediterranean. If they do decide to go through the Bosphorus in a show of strength, or to safeguard commercial shipping, the risk will rise again.Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the danger is further heightened by Russia’s suspected use of “GPS spoofing”, interference with the navigational equipment of other vessels.On several occasions recently, civilian ships traveling in the Black Sea have encountered mysterious GPS troubles that showed the vessels being in a different part of the Black Sea or even on land. It was widely though the incidents were caused by Russia testing its technology.“It raises the risk for naval vessels that are in the Black Sea, which we should remember is not that big, and it’s crowded,” Braw said. “There’s enormous shipping activity in the Black Sea, and so all those crews face the risk of having no GPS.”The transfer of combat troops from Russia’s far east to Belarus has not only significantly increased the imminent threat to Ukraine, but also made eastern European Nato members increasingly nervous.“The closest training ranges in Belarus are 150 to 200km from Vilnius or Warsaw,” said Kristjan Mäe, the head of the Nato and EU department at Estonia’s ministry of defence. “This is a Russian force posture that hasn’t been there previously.”A refugee crisis at the Polish-Belarus border year led to a close encounter between the troops facing each other, with Warsaw complaining that Belarus forces opened fire in the direction of their soldiers.“We have to remember that the people who are actually out on the frontline are very young men and women and they face enormous responsibility,” Braw said. “Yes there is a chain of command but if there is some sort of provocation or aggression, intentional or unintentional, that is directed against them, then they have to respond.”The close encounters so far have occurred in peacetime. In the event of war, nerves will be far more on edge, communications could be hampered or flooded with disinformation.“We cannot be entirely confident that in the lead up to or during a conflict that Nato and Russia will be able to communicate, especially as current civil and military communication systems between them are not as robust or technically resilient as they should be,” Sahil Shah, a policy fellow at the European Leadership Network, said.“The world’s two largest nuclear-armed states have returned to the brink of conflict exactly 60 years after the Cuban missile crisis. If diplomacy is not pursued to the fullest extent, the risks of miscalculation and miscommunication could potentially pull in wider Europe into a devastating war. Without dialogue on how to manage de-escalation, it will be as if our leaders are running into a monsoon with newspapers over their heads.”TopicsUkraineEuropeRussiaJoe BidenVladimir PutinVolodymyr ZelenskiyUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Beware of this deadly mix: oligarchic economics and racist nationalist populism | Robert Reich

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      Beware of this deadly mix: oligarchic economics and racist, nationalist populismRobert ReichA treacherous alliance is growing that will undermine democratic institutions in the US and elsewhere The United States presents itself as the beacon of democracy in contrast to the autocracies of China and Russia. Yet American democracy is in danger of succumbing to the same sort of oligarchic economics and racist nationalism that thrive in both these powers.After all, it wasn’t long ago that Donald Trump – who openly admired Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin – encouraged racist nationalism in America while delivering much of the US government into the hands of America’s super-rich.Now state-level Republicans are busily suppressing votes of people of color and paving the way for a possible anti-democratic coup, while the national Republican party excuses the attack on the Capitol – calling it “legitimate political discourse” – and censors Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the only two congressional Republicans serving on the panel investigating that attack.America’s oligarchic wealth, meanwhile, has reached levels rivaling or exceeding those of Russia and China. During the pandemic, America’s 745 billionaires increased their holdings by 70%, adding $2.1tn to their wealth in just over a year.A portion of this wealth is going into politics. As early as 2012, more than 40% of all money spent in federal elections came from the wealthiest of the wealthiest – not the top 1% or even the top tenth of the 1%, but from the top 1% of the 1%.Now, some of this wealth is supporting Trumpism. Peter Thiel, a staunch Trump supporter whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $2.6bn, has become one of the Republican party’s largest donors.Last year, Thiel gave $10m each to the campaigns of two protégés – Blake Masters, who is running for the Senate from Arizona, and JD Vance, from Ohio. Thiel is also backing 12 House candidates, three of whom are running primary challenges to Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for the events of January 6.It’s not just Republicans. Last year, at least 13 billionaires who had previously donated to Trump lavished campaign donations on Democratic senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records.The combination of oligarchic wealth and racist nationalism is treacherous for democratic institutions in the US and elsewhere. Capitalism is consistent with democracy only if democracy reduces the inequalities, insecurities, joblessness, and poverty that accompany unbridled profit-seeking.For the first three decades after the second world war, democracy did this. The US and war-ravaged western Europe built the largest middle classes the world had ever seen, and the most buoyant democracies.The arrangement was far from perfect, but with the addition of civil rights and voting rights, subsidized healthcare (in the US, Medicare and Medicaid), and a vast expansion of public education, democracy was on the way to making capitalism work for the vast majority.Then came a giant U-turn, courtesy of Ronald Reagan in America and Margaret Thatcher in Europe. Deregulation, privatization, globalization, and the unleashing of finance created the Full Monty: abandoned factories and communities, stagnant wages, widening inequality, a shrinking middle class, political corruption and shredded social support.The result has been widespread anger and cynicism. Even before the pandemic, most people were working harder than ever but couldn’t get ahead, and their children’s prospects weren’t any better. More than one out of every six American children was impoverished and the typical American family was living from paycheck to paycheck. At the same time, a record high share of national wealth was already surging to the top.Starting last July, America did an experiment that might have limited these extremes and reduced the lure of racist nationalism. That’s when 36 million American families began receiving pandemic payments of up to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for each child under six).Presto. Child poverty dropped by at least a third, and the typical family gained some breathing space.But this hugely successful experiment ended abruptly in December when Senator Joe Manchin joined 50 Republican senators in rejecting President Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which would have continued it.They cited concerns over the experiment’s cost – an estimated $100bn per year, or $1.6tn over 10 years. But that’s less than big corporations and the rich will have saved on taxes from the Trump Republican tax cut of 2018. Repeal it, and there would be enough money. The cost is also less than the increase in the wealth of America’s 745 billionaires during the pandemic. Why not a wealth tax?The experiment died because, put simply, the oligarchy didn’t want to pay for it.Oligarchic economics coupled with racist nationalism marks the ultimate failure of progressive politics. Beware. When the people are no longer defended against the powerful, they look elsewhere.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Sledgehammer review: David Friedman comes out swinging on Trump and Israel

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      Sledgehammer review: David Friedman comes out swinging on Trump and IsraelThe former US ambassador has written a predictably unsubtle memoir, aimed squarely at the 2024 Republican primary David Friedman was Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel. But that job title alone fails to adequately convey his proximity to the 45th president and his impact on US policy. Their time together marked a repudiation of Barack Obama’s vision for the Middle East. Sledgehammer, Friedman’s memoir, reminds the reader of all of this as insistently as its title suggests.Trump risked disaster with Abbas praise in key Israel meeting, ambassador saysRead moreWith Friedman’s assistance, the US helped forge the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and four Arab countries. The US also moved its embassy to Jerusalem and left the Iran nuclear deal. As for the Palestinians, put it this way: they no longer occupy rent-free space in the Republican conscience.Unlike other Trump appointees, Friedman was often in the room when it happened. To all intents and purposes, he was not subordinate to Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first secretary of state. And as an enthusiastic backer of Israeli settlements in occupied territories, he had little interest in preserving the status quo.More than a half-century had elapsed since 1967 and the six-day war. Israel’s hold on the West Bank had grown organic. The Oslo Accords gave way to the second intifada and Gaza continued to smolder, despite Israel’s withdrawal more than a decade before. Godot had failed to arrive. Friedman’s book with its unsubtle title has a subtitle too: “How Breaking with the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East”.Obviously, he overstates. The Palestinians are not, of course, content. War rages in Yemen. Drones and missiles hit the Emirates. Things between Israel and Iran can get worse and probably will.Friedman was Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer. When Trump announced his presidential campaign, Friedman was doubtful. Both men venerated their fathers but, as Friedman acknowledges, they had little else in common. The author is still married to his first wife. Religion is central to his life. He is an Orthodox Jew, the son of a rabbi. While ambassador, his daughter made aliyah. That is, she moved to Israel and became a citizen.Friedman quotes a senior but unidentified state department aide as telling him: “Don’t be so Jewish. You represent the United States of America … Just a free word of advice.” Suffice to say, Friedman was not amused. Although he held a presidential appointment, he was not part of the club.Sledgehammer is also about ethnic grievance and expectations of Jewish solidarity – perhaps misplaced. Before joining the Trump administration, Friedman branded Obama antisemitic and trashed J Street, a liberal Jewish group, as “worse than kapos” – Jewish prisoners who worked as guards in Nazi concentration camps. Such intemperate comments came with a political cost. The Senate confirmed him by the narrowest of margins, 52-46.On the page, Friedman says those were sincere expressions. He used the term “kapos”, he says, because he felt “J Street had betrayed the Jewish people”. Elsewhere, he admonishes American Jews against criticizing the Israeli government. He laments a growing schism among US Jews, even while describing his own testy relationship with the Reform movement.In 2020, American Jews went for Joe Biden by nearly 40 points but Trump was the clear favorite in Orthodox enclaves. In Israel, Trump is lionized. “Loved” is Friedman’s word.He likes wielding his sledgehammer at the left. The right, not so much.He castigates Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, progressive Democratic congresswomen, for hostility to Israel. As ambassador, he was fine with an attempt to stop them entering Israel as part of a congressional delegation.On the other hand, he has nothing to say about Charlottesville in August 2017, its tiki torches and cries of “Jews will not replace us” and Trump’s view that there were “very fine people” on the neo-Nazi side on that day of violence and shame.Friedman’s outrage appears selective.He is also silent on Trump delivering a tart “fuck him” to Benjamin Netanyahu – Israel’s former prime minister and a Friedman friend – in an interview memorialized in Barak Ravid’s book, Trump’s Peace.Instead, Friedman swings repeatedly at Mahmoud Abbas, challenging the Palestinian leader’s desire to reach an agreement with Israel.Once again, Trump might well disagree. Trump told Ravid he believed Netanyahu “did not want to make peace. Never did.” As for Abbas, “We spent a lot of time together, talking about many things. And it was almost like a father. I mean, he was so nice, couldn’t have been nicer.”Friedman was particularly close to Netanyahu, so much so that lines could blur. According to Ravid, Friedman sat in on Israeli government meetings until he was tossed out by cabinet members. Friedman’s memoir does nothing to dispel that report.He describes his efforts to help Netanyahu cobble together a government. He zings Avigdor Lieberman, former Netanyahu confidant and current Israeli finance minister, for refusing to come to the struggling prime minister’s rescue. The fact Netanyahu was then under a legal cloud and now stands on trial for corruption escapes real mention.‘Apartheid state’: Israel’s fears over image in US are coming to passRead moreElsewhere, Friedman criticizes Benny Gantz, Israel’s defense minister and Netanyahu’s jilted coalition partner. Although Gantz had been chief of staff of Israel’s military, says Friedman, he was not the politician Netanyahu was. Then again, Friedman also expresses his gratitude for his relationship with Gantz, who he describes as “6ft 4in and ruggedly handsome, an unusual look for an Israeli politician”. Trump too has praised Gantz, albeit at Netanyahu’s expense.What Friedman does next will be interesting. Like Trump, he has left New York for Florida. His book jacket posts a blurb from Nikki Haley, formerly governor of South Carolina and a potential candidate for the Republican nomination if Trump does not seek it. Friedman has also described Ron DeSantis, of Florida, as Israel’s greatest friend among all 50 current governors.Friedman is far from finished. Sledgehammer is not just a memoir. It is a well-written audition for 2024 and beyond.
      Sledgehammer: How Breaking With the Past Brought Peace to the Middle East, is published in the US by Broadside Books
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      Biden releases $7bn in frozen Afghan funds to split between 9/11 families and aid

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      Biden releases $7bn in frozen Afghan funds to split between 9/11 families and aidMoney would go toward humanitarian efforts for Afghan people and to US victims of terrorism, keeping it out of hands of Taliban Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday releasing $7bn in frozen Afghan reserves to be split between humanitarian efforts for the Afghan people and American victims of terrorism, including relatives of 9/11.In a highly unusual move, the convoluted plan is designed to tackle a myriad of legal bottlenecks stemming from the 2001 terrorist attacks and the chaotic end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, which ignited a humanitarian and political crisis, the New York times reports.But critics warned that it could tip Afghanistan’s already-strained banking system over the edge into systemic failure and deepen a humanitarian crisis that has left millions facing starvation and almost the entire country – 98% – short of food.“You’re talking about moving toward a total collapse of the banking system,” Dr Shah Mohammad Mehrabi, a longtime member of the bank’s board and economics professor at Montgomery College in Maryland, told the New York Times. “I think it’s a shortsighted view.”Cash shortages have already led to strict weekly limits on how much of their savings people can withdraw, deepening the economic crisis as inflation soars.In August the Taliban seized control and the former government collapsed, leaving behind just over $7bn in central bank assets deposited in the US Federal Reserve bank in New York. As Afghanistan’s top officials, including the president and central bank governor, fled the country, the Fed froze the account as it was unclear who was legally authorised to access the funds.The Taliban took over the central bank – known as Da Afghanistan Bank – and immediately claimed a right to the money, but under longstanding counter-terrorism sanctions it is illegal to engage in financial transactions with the organisation. Furthermore, the US does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.As the Biden administration mulled over what to do with the funds, a group of relatives of victims of the September 11 attacks, who years ago won a default judgment against the Taliban and al-Qaida, sought to seize the Afghan bank assets. In a case known as Havlish, the plaintiffs persuaded a judge to dispatch a US marshal to serve the Federal Reserve with a “writ of execution” to seize the Afghan money.The Biden government has intervened in the lawsuit, and is expected to tell the court that the victims’ claims for half the money should be heard (several other victims’ groups have also asked for a share). If the judge agrees, Biden will seek to direct the remainder toward some sort of trust fund to be spent on food and other humanitarian aid in Afghanistan – while keeping it out of the hands of the Taliban.The process is likely to be long and messy, with advocates and some 9/11 victims arguing that the Afghan assets should all go to help the Afghan people who are facing mounting hardship.The money – which includes currency, bonds and gold – mostly comes from foreign exchange funds that accumulated over the past two decades when western aid flowed into Afghanistan. But it also includes the savings of ordinary Afghans, who are now facing growing violence and hunger with the economy and rule of law in freefall.“The 9/11 victims deserve justice but not from the Afghan people who themselves became pawns caught in the middle of the US-led ‘war on terror’ and an oppressive Taliban regime,” said Adam Weinstein, research fellow at the Quincy Institute, who also served as a US marine in Afghanistan.“The idea that overnight, the central bank reserves went from belonging to the Afghan people to being the transferable property of the United States is nothing short of colonial.”In another sign of the desperate humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, the World Health Organization said on Friday that a raging measles outbreak had infected tens of thousands and killed more than 150 people last month alone.The UN health agency said the outbreak was particularly concerning since Afghanistan is facing massive food insecurity and malnutrition, leaving children far more vulnerable to the highly contagious disease.“Measles cases have been increasing in all provinces since the end of July 2021,” a WHO spokesman, Christian Lindmeier, told reporters in Geneva.He said cases had surged recently, ballooning by 18% in the week of 24 January and by 40% in the last week of the month.In all, 35,319 suspected measles cases were reported in January, including 3,000 that were laboratory confirmed, and 156 deaths. Ninety-one per cent of the cases and 97% of the deaths were children under the age of five.Lindmeier stressed that the measles-related deaths were probably underreported and the numbers were expected to swell. “The rapid rise in cases in January suggests that the number of deaths due to measles is likely to increase sharply in the coming weeks,” Lindmeier said.TopicsAfghanistanJoe BidenSeptember 11 2001US foreign policyUS politicsFederal ReserveTalibannewsReuse this content More

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      ‘Disgusting’: Republican Senate hopeful condemned over ‘showdown’ TV ad

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      ‘Disgusting’: Republican Senate hopeful condemned over ‘showdown’ TV adJim Lamon’s ad depicts ‘shootout’ with Democrats including Mark Kelly, senator whose wife Gabby Giffords was shot in deadly attack A Republican Senate primary candidate in Arizona has been condemned for a “disgusting” campaign ad in which he shoots at lookalike actors portraying Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and the incumbent Arizona senator Mark Kelly.Biden says Americans in Ukraine ‘should leave now’ as diplomatic talks falter – liveRead moreJim Lamon, an energy executive, shared the ad on Twitter, saying it would be aired at this year’s Super Bowl.Lamon would face Kelly in a general election in the autumn should he secure the Republican nomination.Kelly is the husband of the former Democratic congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, who was shot in the head in 2011 while greeting constituents outside of a local grocery store.In Lamon’s ad, styled as a western, figures identified as the “DC gang” enter a town wearing cowboy boots and carrying firearms, their faces half-covered by bandannas. Onlookers are upset by their presence, with one declaring: “We’re tired of being pushed around!”Lamon enters, along with Mark Lamb, a real-life local sheriff, and Brandon Judd, the current president of the National Border Patrol Council. Lamon addresses the three actors playing Biden, Kelly and Pelosi, saying: “The good people of Arizona have had enough of you.”“It’s time for a showdown,” Lamon adds.When the Democrats draw their firearms, Lamon fires his own gun, shooting the weapons out of their hands as the rest of the town cheers. The three Democrats run away.Criticism towards the ad has been swift, with many people pointing out other recent instances of violent imagery used by members of the Republican party. Last November, Paul Gosar, Republican representative for Arizona, was officially censured by the House after sharing an animated video depicting him killing the Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacking Biden.Shannon Watts, founder of the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, called Lamon’s ad “disgusting”.A spokesperson for the Lamon campaign refused to respond to the Washington Post about criticism of the ad, but said it “shows the DC gang drawing on Lamon and he merely shoots the weapons out of their hands”.“Unlike Kelly, Jim Lamon will shoot straight with Arizonans and take the fight to Biden – and he damn sure won’t let the left bully him into backing down,” the spokesperson said.TopicsRepublicansArizonaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      The Taliban Uses Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      After the collapse of the Afghan government last August, the only significant challenge to the Taliban’s primitive totalitarianism was mounted by women in big cities — the capital Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif in the north, and Herat in the west, among others. The Taliban’s approach to women’s rights brought fears of violence that engulfed the country in the 1990s when the Talibs first won power. But Afghan society has undergone considerable changes since then, and many Afghan women refuse to accept the militants’ restricted approach to their right to work and education.

      FO° Live: Women Under the Taliban

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      In response, the Taliban have deployed various oppressive measures. In September, they replaced the Women’s Affairs Ministry with morality police, which enforces the armed group’s strict religious doctrine on the country. At the same time, while trying to confine women to their homes by forbidding them to work or study, the Taliban are using the threat of violence against women as a bargaining chip against the Western powers.

      Violent Tactics

      In September last year, the Taliban attacked the media to prevent them from covering the women’s protests in Kabul. Two Etilaatroz journalists were tortured. Etilaatroz is one of the leading Afghan newspapers and a critical voice mainly focused on investigative journalism. An attack on the newspaper was a clear signal for everyone covering the protests against the Taliban.

      Since the armed group took control of the country, at least 318 media outlets closed in 33 of 34 provinces and, according to the International Federation of Journalists, 72% of those who lost their jobs are women.

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      But the Taliban quickly changed their tactics to tackle women’s protests through more intimidating methods, including nighttime house searches to locate those who dared raise their voice. Tamana Zaryabi Paryani, a member of the movement demanding rights to work and education, is just one of the women taken from their homes in Kabul in the middle of the night; her whereabouts remain unknown. Some families report being contacted by detainees from Taliban prisons in undisclosed locations.

      The Taliban deny capturing, detaining or killing women and other opponents. This tactic aims to mislead public opinion, the media and policymakers in Western countries. The situation may be even more critical in the provinces, beyond the eyes of the media. In September last year, the Taliban killed a former police officer with the ousted Afghan government in front of her family in Gor province; she was pregnant at the time of her murder.

      There is no way to assess the true number of disappeared women across the country. Some of them are known by the media, such Mursal Ayar, Parwana Ibrahimkhel, Tamana Paryani, Zahra Mohammadi and Alia Azizi. Most of them belong to the protest movement against the Taliban’s policies. Azizi worked as a senior female prison official in Herat and went missing when the Taliban took control of the city. Amnesty International urged the Taliban to investigate the case and release her “immediately and unconditionally” if she is in their custody.

      Last week, the UN repeated its call and asked the Taliban to release the disappeared women activists and their relatives. The German Embassy, currently operating from Qatar, has called for an investigation into the missing women. It is entirely possible that the Taliban will eventually release some of the captives, claiming that they were rescued from the clutches of the kidnappers, in order to portray themselves as a responsible government.

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      Gang rape is another tactic that the Taliban deploy against women in detention. The Independent reports that last September, bodies of eight detainees arrested during a protest in Mazar-e Sharif were discovered. According to reports, the girls were repeatedly gang-raped and tortured by the Taliban. Sexual assault is a many-sided weapon against women in a society based on strict honor codes. Some of those who survived the rapes were killed by their families.

      In January, The Times reported that the staff in the government-run Mazar-e Sharif Regional Hospital claim that they receive around 15 bodies from Taliban fighters each month — mostly women with gunshot wounds to the head or chest.

      Bargaining Chip

      Violence has been the Taliban’s primary tool both in war and during negotiations with Western powers. Over the course of two decades of conflict, the Taliban used violence as a means to win recognition as a political force. During their talks with the US and the Afghan government, the Taliban escalated violence to enhance their position at the negotiating table. Now, they are pursuing the same strategy by trading repression for recognition.

      Since the Taliban took control of the country, women’s rights are a constant subject of ongoing diplomatic discussions that have so far brought no result. The international community has failed to press the Taliban to form an inclusive government and respect women’s rights.

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      But the armed group wants the international community to recognize their government. In January, a Taliban delegation was invited to Oslo to talk with Western powers and representatives of Afghan women for the first time. At the meeting, Hoda Khamosh, a civil society activist, asked the Taliban delegation: “why are the Taliban imprisoning us in Kabul and now sitting here at the negotiating table with us in Oslo? What is the international community doing in the face of all this torture and repression?”

      Since then, nothing has changed. The reality is that the Taliban used the talks in Oslo as an opportunity to make an international appearance to advertise their government. They are deploying precepts like women’s rights to force more international engagement. While Norway was criticized for inviting the Taliban and offering them exposure, Switzerland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it invited the Taliban to talk about “the protection of humanitarian actors and respect for human rights.”

      The Taliban is an ideological, zealot religious movement, and years of experience suggest that they are unlikely to revise their position on women’s rights and other fundamental issues, including human rights and political pluralism. Talking about women’s rights in Western capitals is just an opportunity for them to normalize their regime and travel abroad. Human rights violations, particularly violence against women, not only serve the Taliban’s ideological purposes but have turned into a convenient bargaining chip against the international community.

      It is critical that Western powers support fundamental human rights in the country without providing the Taliban with opportunities for blackmail, implementig realistic measures to press the group to release activists and to respect women’s rights. First, it is important to maintain or escalate the current sanctions regime against the Taliban leadership. Second, making sure that there is no rush to recognize the Taliban regime mong foreign governments is another key leverage point.

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      Third, there is a need to appoint a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation and document violations to hold the Taliban accountable. Fourth, it is important to extend and support the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan to help monitor the human rights situation in the country.

      Finally, the international community can continue its humanitarian support through UN agencies and other organizations without recognizing the Taliban. Recognition of the group will not only increase human rights abuses but will send the wrong signal to other extremists in the region. All these measures will reduce the Taliban’s ability to use violence as a bargaining chip against the international community.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More