Turkish president brands Khashoggi killing a premeditated murder

Peter Symonds

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday provided details of the premeditated murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2 in the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. While Erdogan had promised to expose the “naked truth” about the brutal killing, his less-than-full account indicates that his government is intent on exploiting the issue to further Turkish interests in the Middle East.

Erdogan nevertheless did confirm incriminating details that had previously been leaked to the media, which puncture Saudi claims that Khashoggi’s killing was not planned, but was the result of an operation gone wrong. The speech will compound the political crisis in Riyadh, putting pressure on King Salman to take some action against his son and de-facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and his clique of advisers.

The following are the key elements of Erdogan’s speech:

* The planning for the murder began immediately after Khashoggi first visited the Saudi consulate on September 28 to finalise divorce proceedings. The first three-person team arrived from Saudi Arabia on October 1, while another team from the consulate went to examine Belgrad Forest and Yalova—areas now being searched by Turkish authorities for Khashoggi’s remains.

* On October 2, further agents, including generals, arrived from Saudi Arabia, and the assassination team, numbering 15 people, was assembled at the Saudi consulate prior to Khashoggi’s second visit. The hard-drive was taken out of the building’s surveillance system and Turkish staff were told to stay away from the consulate. Most of the team flew out of Turkey on the same day, while a Khashoggi look-alike took a commercial flight to Riyadh to lend credence to Saudi claims, now repudiated, that the journalist left the consulate alive.

* Erdogan appealed for answers to a series of questions, including who ordered the killing and the location of Khashoggi’s body. “Without these questions being answered,” he said, “nobody should think the issue will be closed. Intelligence and security institutions [in Turkey] have evidence showing the murder was certainly planned... Pinning such a case on some intelligence and security members will not satisfy us and the international community.”

Erdogan, however, did not confirm key aspects of the murder that have been leaked to the Turkish media. He said nothing about how Kashoggi had been murdered, and did not release audio and video recordings which, according to Turkish sources, would contradict Saudi claims that the journalist was killed accidentally in a fist fight following an argument in the consulate. One of the Saudi hit squad was allegedly a doctor who used a bone saw to dismember the body.

Erdogan pointedly did not refer directly to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman nor to evidence that implicates him in the murder. According to Turkish reports, the crown prince’s chief security and intelligence adviser Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb was on the spot in Turkey on October 2. Following the killing, he made four phone calls from inside the Istanbul consulate to Bader al-Asaker, who manages Prince Mohammed’s office in Riyadh. Saudi authorities insist that the crown prince knew nothing about the murder.

Erdogan’s deliberate omissions provide the Saudi regime with the leeway that it needs to concoct a new face-saving cover-up to protect top Saudi leaders, including the crown prince, who it has claimed knew nothing of the murder. Erdogan has had several phone calls with King Salman who agreed to establish a joint working group and to allow Turkish investigators into the Istanbul consulate.

Turkey may well be  seeking to remove, or at least clip the wings of, Prince Mohammed whose aggressive foreign policy has conflicted with Turkish interests. The crown prince, who has close ties with US President Trump, effectively seized power in June 2017 by ousting his cousin Mohammed bin Nayef. He then consolidated his grip over the state apparatus, including the military and intelligence agencies, through an “anti-corruption” purge of hundreds of journalists, businessmen, Islamic scholars and fellow royals.

Khashoggi was aligned with sections of the Saudi monarchy opposed to Prince Mohammed and fled abroad after he came to power. Far from being a champion of democracy, the journalist had longstanding ties with the Saudi intelligence agencies, which are notorious for their criminal activities in the region.

Erdogan came into conflict with Prince Mohammed when he instigated a Saudi-led economic and diplomatic blockade of Qatar in June 2017 after it refused to cut ties with Tehran and halt the construction of a Turkish military base in the Gulf state. In March 2018, the Saudi crown prince said that Turkey was part of a “triangle of evil,” along with Iran and “terrorist organisations,” and accused Erdogan directly of seeking to re-establish the Ottoman Caliphate—that is, Turkish domination over the Middle East.

At the same time, Erdogan does not want an open breach with Saudi Arabia. Turkey has heavily relied on Saudi investment to stave off a deepening of its financial crisis. Erdogan is also looking for concessions from the Trump administration, which is wanting to protect Saudi arms sales and investment.

Trump, who is under fire for not taking a tougher stance against Saudi Arabia, yesterday declared that the Khashoggi case was “the worst cover-up ever” and stated that there would have to be “some kind of retribution.” He told reporters that whoever was responsible was “in big trouble,” and said: “They had a very bad original concept, it was carried out poorly and the cover-up was one of the worst in the history of cover-ups.”

This utterly cynical statement is an indication of what is underway. It is significant that Trump is not critical of the brutal murder itself, but rather of the botched operation and subsequent cover-up. He has despatched CIA director Gina Haspel, who is herself directly implicated in the crimes of torture and forced disappearance, to “review” the evidence in the Khashoggi killing. He also spoke at length to Erdogan last weekend prior to the Turkish president’s speech yesterday. All this suggests that the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are engaged in elaborate behind-the-scenes negotiations to invent an improved cover-up that protects the interests of all three countries.

Neither Trump nor his critics in the US has any intention of damaging relations with the autocratic Saudi regime which has been a key cornerstone of US strategy in the Middle East. While Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pulled out of Prince Mohammed’s showpiece Future Investment Initiative conference, dubbed “Davos in the desert,” he nevertheless flew to Riyadh to meet with the crown prince on Monday behind closed doors.

Trump has declared that he will leave the imposition of any penalties on Saudi Arabia up to congress and appealed for bipartisan support. At the same time, in an interview with “USA Today,” he made clear he would oppose efforts to end billions of dollars’ worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which he described as an economic boon to Americans. “We have a very big picture we have to keep in mind,” he declared, noting Saudi Arabia’s role in countering Iran.

Trump’s comments reflect not only the attitude of his administration, but of the entire political establishment in Washington, which has turned a blind eye to the Saudi regime’s crimes and repressive methods for decades.

UNESCO/UNDP International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Research Challenge 2019 for Young Journalists

Application Deadline: 20th December 2018 11:59 p.m.

Eligible Countries: International

About the Award: Competitors are requested to submit 700 – 1000 words in an article relating to the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) implementation in a certain country or region – based on IATI data and data obtained using the country’s national Access to Information laws .
The competition opens on the International Day for the Universal Access to Information (IDUAI) as one of a range of activities marking 10 years since the launch of the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).
Investigate how a country of your choice is progressing towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and explore how funds for development are being utilised, using IATI data for your research and analysis to answer the following question:
‘How are aid and other external resources being used to achieve sustainable development’ – based on data published to the International Aid Transparency Initiative.
Submit your findings in an essay for the chance to win a laptop or tablet! The best articles will be published on the websites of UNESCO and the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI).

Type: Contest

Eligibility: The categories* for essay submission are:

• Journalists age group 15 – 20
• Journalists age group 20 – 25
• Journalists from Australia, Canada, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and the US
• Journalists from Africa
• Journalists from Asia
• Journalists from Latin America and the Caribbean

*Based on the number of submissions, the categories might be adapted to allow for a fair competition. A global winner will also be chosen from all categories by the judges.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: Prizes for the winners in each category include laptops or tablets, as well as the publication of the winning essay(s) on the IATI and UNESCO websites.

How to Apply: Check out guidelines for detailed instructions on eligibility, submission and rating criteria of the IATI Research Challenge for Journalists on UNESCO’s website. Submit your essay to: iati-challenge@undp.org by the deadline of Thursday 20 December 2018.

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

The Middle East, Not Russia, Will Prove Trump’s Downfall

Patrick Cockburn

The Middle East has a century old tradition of being the political graveyard of American and British political leaders. The list of casualties is long: Lloyd George, Anthony Eden, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Tony Blair and George W Bush. All saw their careers ended or their authority crippled by failure in the region.

Will the same thing happen to Donald Trump as he struggles with the consequences of the alleged murder of Jamal Khashoggi? I always suspected that Trump might come unstuck because of his exaggerated reliance on a weak state like Saudi Arabia rather than because of his supposed links to Russia and Vladimir Putin. Contrary to the PR company boosterism of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and his ambitious projects, Saudi Arabia has oil and money, but is demonstrably ineffective as an independent operator.

The Middle East disasters that toppled so many Western leaders have a certain amount in common. In all cases, the strength of enemies and the feebleness of friends was miscalculated. Lloyd George was forced to resign as prime minister in 1922 because he encouraged the doomed Greek invasion of Anatolia which almost led to a renewed Turkish-British war.

George W Bush and Tony Blair never understood that the occupation of Iraq by American and British ground forces had no support inside Iraq or among its neighbours and was therefore bound to fail. A British military intelligence officer stationed in Basra told me that he could not persuade his superiors of the potentially disastrous fact that “we have no real allies anywhere in Iraq”.

The political debacle most similar to Trump’s ill-judged reliance on the Crown Prince and Saudi Arabia over the last three years was American policy towards the Shah and Iran in the years leading up to his overthrow in 1979. US humiliation was rubbed in when its diplomats were taken hostages in Tehran which torpedoed Carter’s hope of a second term in the White House.  

There are striking and instructive parallels between US and British policy towards Iran in the lead up to the revolution and towards Saudi Arabia in 2015-18. In both periods, there was a self-destructive belief that an increasingly unstable hereditary monarchy was a safe bet as a regional ally as well as being a vastly profitable market for arms. 

The Shah and MBS both promoted themselves as reformers, justifying their authoritarianism as necessary to drag their countries into the modern era. Foreign elites fawned on them, ignored their weaknesses, and were fixated by the mirage of fabulous profits. A British ambassador to Iran in the 1970s was said  – I quote from memory – to have rebuked his embassy staff with the words: “I don’t want any more elegantly written reports about social conditions in Iranian villages. What I want is exports, exports, exports!”

Brexit has taken Britain off the world stage and it must be happy in future with whatever crumbs it can scrounge in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. But Trump sounds very much like this long-forgotten ambassador when he justifies the US strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia by referring repeatedly to a $110bn in arms contract.

In practice, hereditary monarchies are at their most unstable during a leadership transition, attempts to reform, efforts to expand as regional powers or as initiators of war. In England, the pacific and cautious King James I was succeeded by his arrogant, arbitrary and incautious son, King Charles I, with unfortunate consequences for the monarchy.

Vulgar display was a feature of the Shah’s Iran 40 years ago as it is of Saudi Arabia today. In his case, there was the celebration of 2,500 years of the Persian Empire at Persepolis in 1971, which fed the ruling elites of the world with exotic delicacies such as 50 roast peacocks with tail feathers restored and stuffed with foie gras along quail eggs filled with caviar, which the Shah could not eat because he was allergic to caviar.

The Saudi equivalent to Persepolis is the much-publicised “Davos in the Desert” or, more prosaically, the “Future Investment Initiative” being held this week in Riyadh and from which politicians and businessmen have been very publicly dropping out as mystery over the disappearance of Khashoggi has deepened. Much of the media is treating their decision to stay at home as some sort of moral choice and never asks why these luminaries were happy to act as cheerleaders for Saudi Arabia in the same time the UN was warning that 13 million Yemenis are on the verge of starvation because of the Saudi-led military intervention.

It is no excuse for the Trump administration or the defecting guests in Riyadh to claim that they did not know about Saudi Arabia’s potential for random violence. As long ago as 2 December 2015,  the German federal intelligence agency, the BND, published a memo predicting that “the current cautious diplomatic stance of senior members of the Saudi royal family will be replaced by an impulsive intervention policy.” It went on to say that the concentration of so much power in the hands of Prince Mohammed bin Salman “harbours a latent risk that …he may overreach.”

Support free-thinking journalism and subscribe to Independent MindsThe memo was hurriedly withdrawn at the insistence of the German foreign ministry, but today it sounds prophetic about the direction in which Saudi Arabia was travelling and the dangers likely to ensue.

Trump has put a little more distance between himself and the Crown Prince in the past few days, but he makes no secret of his hope that the crisis in relations with Saudi Arabia will go away. “This one has caught the imagination of the world, unfortunately,” he says though he may believe he can shrug off this affair as he has done with so many other scandals.

Just for once, Trump’s highly developed survival instincts may be at fault. His close alliance with Saudi Arabia and escalating confrontation with Iran is the most radical new departure in Trump’s foreign policy. He withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in defiance of the rest of the world earlier this year on the grounds that he can extract more concessions from Iran by using American power alone than Barack Obama ever did by working in concert with other states. This  struggle is so important because it is not just between the US and Iran but is the crucial test case of Trump’s version of American nationalism in action.

The White House evidently calculates that if it draws out the crisis by systematic delaying tactics, it will eventually disappear from the top of the news agenda. This is not a stupid strategy, but it may not work in present circumstances because the Saudi authorities are too inept – some would say too guilty – to produce a plausible cover story. The mystery of Khashoggi’s disappearance is too compelling for the media to abandon and  give up the the chase for the culprits.

Above all, the anti-Trump portion of the US media and the Democrats smell political blood and sense that the Khashoggi affair is doing the sort of serious damage to the Trump presidency that never really happened with the Russian probe.

“No People, Big Problem”: Democracy and Its Discontents In Latvia

Jeffrey Sommers

No people, no problem (Нет людей, никаких проблем) is the quote often attributed to Joseph Stalin. Yet, if there is a lesson from Latvia’s October 6, 2018 national election, the problem was not the oft-repeated histrionics about its electoral takeover by ethnic Russians. The problem was demographics (‘No people, big problem’) and waning enthusiasm for democracy.

Democracy’s health worsens in Latvia, while it is on life-support in many parts of the world. The problem with Latvia’s election was, first, how few people voted, as only 54 percent of the eligible electorate participated (remembering Latvia still has significant, but declining number of ethnic Russian non-citizens, who can’t vote in national elections). This turnout represented a drop from many of Latvia’s previous elections and is low compared to most other EU national votes. Voter turnout has been dropping globally (with some variation by country and time) for three decades at least.

The second problem with Latvia’s election is how few people remain in the country to vote. Since independence in 1991, Latvia has lost over a quarter of its population through emigration and low birth rates. Some of the earliest losses were from Soviet loyalists seeking refuge east when the USSR collapsed. Yet, emigration, or “exit,” as the late political economist Albert O. Hirschman termed it, has continued in Latvia and represents the ultimate vote of no confidence. Latvia, like many post-Soviet states, has seen sustained waves of emigration as often punishing regimes of austerity were imposed on its people to “restore macro-economic stability.”

In Latvia, this occurred as recently again as in 2008, when it suffered the world’s largest contraction of GDP (over 20 percent in the two years following the global financial shock). The ensuing brutal austerity regime led even the IMF to try and restrain the Latvian government from imposing such harsh measures on its people. A massive “vote” of exit followed again as people left in search of better conditions. Several years of exceedingly low birth rates followed for those who remained. Thus, not only is Latvia bereft of many people it once had, but for some of those staying, the choice increasingly made is to not vote as the ballot box has not delivered positive change.

Despite big increases in GDP since independence from the Soviet Union, Latvia’s average take home pay now approaches just 700 euros a month. This paltry sum must cover costs for essentials such as food, energy and clothing which are more expensive than in the US. In the countryside, wages can be lower still. Yet, there is one upside from these demographic losses. With its aging population having dropped to under 2m (from a Soviet peak of 2.67 million) a labour shortage has resulted. This, plus becoming less dependent on offshore banking and raw timber extraction, is creating a more balanced economy where wages are rising. That said, Latvia remains a hard place to live for many, albeit better than in many points east (e.g., most of Russia, Ukraine, etc.).

Populist Shift

The third problem with Latvia’s election was the emergence of a right-wing populist party named “Who Owns the State?” (KPV), fronted by a stage actor whose surname translates into the avuncular sounding “neighbour.” Latvia’s KPV is anti-immigrant and decidedly eurosceptic. While not in the order of popularity of Viktor Orban in Hungary, or the Law & Justice Party (PiS) in Poland, or the populist coalition in Italy, the KPV rapidly rose from obscurity to take 14 per cent on October 6, making it the second highest vote getter in Latvia.

The two ethnic Russian parties, meanwhile, together got some 23% of the vote, which nearly matches ethnic Russians’ share of the population. Thus, they are in no position to dictate anything, despite concerns voiced about election meddling and propaganda to the east from Russia. The leading ethnic Russian party even saw its vote margin slightly fall, thus making many international media reports about an “ethnic Russian takeover” even shriller. Even so, all the other established political parties saw more dramatic declines in support.

This past decade’s reigning centre-right (neo)liberal party in Latvia emerged this election as the re-branded “New Unity” (the prefix “New,” being, well, new). It was also the party trusted by most EU institutions. New Unity massively lost support, dropping to under 7 percent, but with a “half new” liberal party picking up 13 percent of the vote. In short, the liberals are in disarray.

Lastly, a genuine social democratic party (the Progressives) has arisen with no connections to special interest cash. They lean towards youth and are comprised of artists, entrepreneurs and professionals. With almost no money, the Progressives managed to corral significant support from Latvia’s small youth electorate. Unfortunately, Latvia leans old. Yet, the Progressives cleared the 2 percent threshold to secure future public funding for elections.

The chief lessons from Latvia’s election are that ethnic Russians have not taken over. Their main political party remained stable and saw its support slightly decline. Meanwhile, the other established parties all saw big losses and none more so than “Unity,” the most neoliberal and pro-EU/pro-NATO party. The biggest lesson, however, is that Latvia’s population is still declining after 27 years of independence. Voter turnout also continues to fall, while mirroring the global trend towards right-wing populism.

International Hypocrisy

Elias Akleh

By now all international media resources; newspapers, magazines, TV channels, and internet social media, are busy reporting the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi; a Saudi reporter, who was loyal to the regime until he turned against Muhamad bin Salman (MBS) and his suppressive policies.

Once MBS was announced crowned prince in 2015 and started his war against Yemen, critic Khashoggi found it safer for himself to leave Saudi Arabia. He moved first to UK and later to USA. In his writings Khashoggi harshly criticized the policies of the young prince. Eventually he was lured to the Saudi consulate in Turkey, where he was reported murdered and butchered into small pieces that were buried in different parts of Turkey’s wilderness.

Understanding Saudi culture and the practices of the Saudi royal family, one will come to the logical conclusion, supported by the events and evidences, that MBS has ordered the murder of Khashoggi. The Saudi royal family is notorious in assassination and sentencing to death all alleged criminals and political activists, who dare to criticize their policies. The streets of capital Riyadh have been the witness of so many public gruesome beheadings; 158 in 2015, 154 in 2016, 146 in 2017 and 73 in 2018 as of July 17.

Although the royal family denied any involvement or knowledge of Khashoggi’s murder and had promised to conduct an investigation in the murder, in investigation led by the prime suspect; MBS himself, the Saudi Kingdom was met with harsh condemnations and calls for punishment. Saudi Arabia started to feel the repercussions of such calls when international banks, corporations, investors, major media outlets and world leaders started to pull out of the Saudi Future Investment Initiative (FII); a massive economic conference colloquially known as “Davos in the Desert”, hosted by MBS himself on October 23-25. The initiative is part of MBS’ ambitious “2030 Programme” to make the Saudi kingdom less reliant on oil.

Jim Yong-kim of World Bank, Christine Lagarde of International Monetary fund, Stacey Cunningham president of New York Stock Exchange, John Flint CEO of HSBC, as well as Credit Suisse, and Standard Chartered decided not to attend at Davos. Investment companies such as Uber, Mastercard, Virgin Group, JPMorgan Chase, Ford Motor Comp., Viacom Inc, and private equity firms such as Blackstone, BlackRock and Bain Capital are pulling out of Davos. Media outlets such as Bloomberg, CNN, New York Times, CNBC, The Economist, Financial Times and Los Angeles Times among others decided not to attend. Antonio Guterres; Secretary General of the UN, and Audrey Azoulay of UNESCO expressed their deep concern about the murder and called for investigation and punishment of the perpetrators. Many world leaders condemned Khashoggi’s murder and called for reprimanding the kingdom. Many European politicians and American senators called for halting the sale of weapons to the kingdom.

A lot of “hooplas” for the murder of one person, yet dead silence for the murder of millions others, including women and children, in the seventy years old Zionist occupied Palestine, in the eight years old American/Israeli/Gulf states war against Syria and in three years old Saudi/Emirati war against Yemen.

Zionist Jewish terrorist groups and militias, similar to al-Qaeda and ISIS, had occupied Palestine in 1948, perpetrated numerous massacres against civilian Palestinians, razed to the grounds hundreds of Palestinian towns, ethnically cleansed almost 800 thousand Palestinians, and established a colonial state of Israel. In 1967 those Zionist Israeli Jews again perpetrated more war crimes and occupied the rest of Palestine, destroyed more towns, massacred more Palestinians and built more illegal colonies. Although these Israelis entered into peace treaty with the Palestinians they are still ethnically cleansing and murdering in cold blood Palestinians, usurping their land, and expanding and building more colonies in violation of all peace treaties and in violation of UNSC resolutions. Israeli crimes against Palestinians, as well as other Arab states such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, have never stopped, but rather are increasing in number, in intensity and in ferocity.

Due to their narcissist elitist racist religious belief that they, alone and no other nation, are god’s chosen people, Israeli Jews act as if they enjoy a divine impunity that allows them to perpetrate genocidal crimes against Palestinians and against other nations in violation of all human norms and beyond all international laws and conventions. Nurturing this Jewish narcissistic belief are the encouragement, unconditional support, and the immunity and protection Israel enjoys from some western states, specifically the USA and UK, who brag about being champions of human rights, beacon of freedom and democracy, and holding the torch of justice for all.

The US had used its Veto power to protect Israel from at least 44 UNSC resolutions. On top of those Israel has violated 300 other resolutions regarding its occupation of Palestine. To make matters worse the US leads other western countries in describing the Israeli genocidal crimes against Palestinians as “self-defense” and every Palestinian defensive and peaceful reaction as terrorist attacks.

Israel is encouraged to continue its ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians. The latest Israeli erasure of Palestinian villages is going on now in Khan El-Ahmar village. The villagers are the Bedouin Jahalin tribe, who became homeless refugees after being forcefully expelled from their original village in the Negev in 1952 by the Israeli army. They rebuilt new homes and a local children school in Khan El-Ahmar under the Jordanian rule. At the present, Israel is in the process of demolishing the whole village in order to gain more land to expand its illegal Maale Adumim colony a short distance away. Palestinians are conducting daily sit-ins to prevent the demolition of the village and to prevent a second Nakba to its inhabitants.

Israeli genocidal crime of Palestinian civilians is still an ongoing process. Israeli Jews consider Palestinians as the descendants of Amalekites; the worst enemy of ancient Israel. Jewish god ordered the Jews to wipe off Amalekites off the earth. This order is still ingrained in the Jewish psyche, who keep reminding their off springs of this order. On the walls of the holocaust memorial in the Hague hangs a plaque with a text in Dutch and Hebrew from Deuteronomy 25: 17-19 stating “Remember what Amalek has done to you … blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.”

Present Israeli Jews are still in the process of “plotting out the remembrance of Amalek(Palestinians) from under heaven” as can bee seen recently in the Gaza Strip. Israel has turned Gaza Strip into the largest ever concentrated prison camp (worst than Nazi concentration camps) for its two million inhabitants; mostly refugees who were ethnically cleansed from Palestine during the 1948 Nakba. For the last twelve years these Palestinians have been starved into sickness, their water been poisoned, their electricity was cut, their fishing marine space has been extremely limited, their towns, their homes and their fields were severely bombed with the devastating bombs including the illegal white phosphorous bombs in Israel’s wars of aggression in 2008-2009 and again in 2014,  and their women and children are being shot dead daily.

After seventy years passage of UNSC resolution 194 stating that these Palestinian refugees have the legitimate right to return to their towns and homes they were kicked out of, but none of the international legal organization nor any other country helped them implement this resolution, these Palestinian refugees decided to peacefully march back to their towns in what was dubbed “The Great Return March”. This march started on Friday 30th of last March and has been going on every Friday since then; so far, a total of 30 march attempts. Unfortunately, Israeli army snipers stood in their way, and have murdered in cold blood 212 Palestinians including teen agers, women, paramedics and reporters, and had injured a total of 22,000 others causing a lot of limb amputations due to their use of the explosive hollow pointed bullets, poisonous gas and stun grenades. Yet, despite the obvious fact that Israel is the number one rogue state in the world, Nikki (Nimrata) Haley; the American ambassador to the UN, had the audacity to describe this Israeli army killing fields against civilians in Gaza as the most restrained army in the whole world.  “No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.” She stated.

Yet, none of the self-proclaimed peace-loving justice-calling world leaders, media outlets, banking systems, investors and corporations, who boycotted Saudi Davos in the Desert initiative as a reprimand to Saudi murder of one person; Jamal Khashoggi, have lifted a finger, uttered a word or boycotted Israel for the latest murder of hundred Palestinians nor for the razing of any Palestinian village. Are the lives of these hundreds of Palestinians, and the lives of hundreds of thousands who were murdered since 1948, not worth one life of a Saudi reporter?

There is no puzzle in this picture. International humanity is dead while hypocrisy is thriving and the ultimate goal and justification is money. The Saudi royal family is a filthy rich oppressive theocratic dictatorship, who had been protected in the past by the British and in the present by the American administration. For such protection the Saudi family has to pay and they pay dearly in different forms as in military weapons deals and economic privileges to foreign investing corporations. Trump expressed this situation openly and eloquently when he described Saudi Arabia as “a milk cow which would be slaughtered when its milk runs out.”

All these political and economic pressure exerted by world leaders, bankers, investors and media outlets are merely more attempts to milk Saudi Arabia as much as possible in more weapons deals and more economic privileges. Saudi Arabia has a lot of milk; money, unlike the Israeli case where the USA is Israel’s milking cow.

What goes for the case of Palestinian victims goes also for the Syrian and Yemeni victims. The world leaders and corporations who are milking Saudi Arabia are the same perpetrators committing, though covertly, war crimes against Syria and Yemen.

When comparing the international reactions to the murder of one person; Khashoggi in this case, with the reactions to the heinous war crimes against millions of innocent people in Palestine, Syria, Yemen or in any other place around the globe for that matter, one cannot help but question the validity of the famous proverb that “justice will always prevail”. Are we cheating ourselves and our children when we assert the fallacy that evil will be defeated and justice will always prevail at the end? Studying the history of Mankind, one discovers that those, who had the military power to assert their rights and their own form of justice even if they contradict the rights and justice of others had always prevailed, and those, who lacked military power had no chance to assert their own rights and had always perished. This proves that the rule of law, even the laws approved on internationally, is irrelevant, and that might is right still prevails in this world.

Brazil: The Eternal Country of the Future Trapped in Its Colonial Past

Jorge Majfud

Former military officer Jair Bolsonaro has advanced to a run-off presidential election in Brazil. (Photo: O Imparcial)

Days before the elections in Brazil, a young Brazilian approached me and said, “God willing, Bolsonaro to win. He is a military man and will end corruption.” I did not want to answer. I esteem this boy as a good person, maybe too young to be anything else. But these two brief sentences summed up several volumes of Latin American history to its present.

Beginning with the obvious: if there were governments and corrupt regimes on the continent, those were the military regimes. First, because every dictatorship is corrupt by definition, and second, because direct robberies were always massive, by denouncing the disappearances, then only to reappear by floating in a river with evidence of torture. It would suffice to mention the most recent investigation into the fortune of General Pinochet, a military leader who accumulated several million dollars in salary as an unelected president, without mention of such details as the thousands killed and many more persecuted during his rule. There were shams of decorated honors for assuming “moral reserve” and for the “bastion of courage” by owning weapons financed by the people’s work, only to later be threatened by their own armies in “bringing order,” by garrison and cemeteries. That same barbaric culture of innumerable generals, soldiers, and scoundrels boasting to be “macho” and valiant fighters, never won or went to any war against other armies, but dedicated themselves to serving the rural oligarchy by terrorizing and threatening their own people. In the coining of a neologism, millions of thugs are now hidden within their new condition of digital cowangry.

This military mentality applied to civil practice and domestic life (deviates from any raison d’être of an army) is a Latin American tradition born prior to the Cold War and long before the new republics were born and consolidated with corruption, deep in hypocritical racism. This is especially true in Brazil, the last country in the continent to abolish slavery. Even Captain Bolsonaro’s vice presidential candidate, General Mourão, a mulatto man like most of his compatriots, is pleased that his grandson contributes to the “branqueamento da raça (whitening of the race).” Have any of us ever crossed paths with this kind of deep racial and social disregard for 90 percent of their own family? The same historical problems permeate in other regions that stand out for their brutality in Central America and the Caribbean.

The second, and less obvious, is the appeal to God. In the same way that the United States replaced Great Britain in its consolidation of Spanish colonial verticality, the Protestant churches did the same with those ultraconservative societies (limitless landowners and silent masses of obedient poor), which had been shaped by the previous hierarchy of the Catholic church. It took some Protestant sects like the Pentecostals and others at least a century more than the dollar and the cannons. The phenomenon probably started in the Sixties and Seventies: those innocent, presumably apolitical, gentlemen, who went door to door talking about God, should have a clear political translation. The paradoxical effect of Christian love (that radical love of Jesus, a rebel who was surrounded by poor and marginal people of all kinds, who did not believe in the chances of the rich reaching heaven, and did not recommend taking the sword but turning the other cheek, who broke several biblical laws such as the obligation to kill adulteresses with stones, who was executed as a political criminal) ended up leading to the hatred of gays and the poor, in the desire to fix everything with shots. Such is the case of medieval candidates like Captain Jair Messias Bolsonaro and many others throughout Latin America, who are supported by a strong and decisive evangelical vote. These people in a trance are watered in sweat and hysterical cries and say they “speak in tongues,” but just speak their disjointed language of political and social hatred in blind fanaticism that God prefers them with a gun in their hands rather than peaceably fighting for justice, respect for the different, and against arbitrary powers.

In the midst of the euphoric golden decade of progressive governments, such as Lula’s, we note two mistakes: naive optimism and the dangers of corruption, and the ramifications of a domino effect because corruption was not a creation of any government, but instead a mark of identity of the Brazilian culture. To name just one more case, this is also the state of affairs in neighboring Argentina.

We must add to all this that the traditional social narrators of a more rancid and powerful Latin America can be found in Maduro’s Venezuela where the equally pathetic opposition is never mentioned. As the example, this is the perfect excuse to continue terrorizing about something that almost all the countries of the continent have lived with since the colony: poverty, economic crises, dispossession, impunity, civil and military violence. So it is Venezuela that is exemplifying Brazilian propaganda and not the Brazil of Lula that took 30 million out of poverty, the one with super entrepreneurs, the one of “Deus é brasileiro (God is Brazilian),” the Brazil that was going away to eat the world and had passed the GDP of U.K.

It was the perfect alibi: for others to believe that corruption did not have 200 years of brutal exercise but had been created by the last five to 10 years of a pair of leftist governments. On the contrary, these governments were an ideological exception within a deeply conservative, racist, classist, and sexist continent. Everything that now finds resonance from Europe to Latin America, to the United States, abandons the ideals of Enlightenment and plunges neurotically into a new Middle Ages.

We still don’t know whether this medieval reaction of the traditional forces in power is just that; a reaction, or a long historical tendency of several generations that began in the Eighties and stumbled 15 years ago.

For the second round in Brazil, the coalition against Bolsonaro has already launched the slogan: “Juntos pelo Brasil do diálogo e do respeito (Together for Brazil for dialogue and respect).” This motto only goes to show that those who oppose Bolsonaro in Brazil, like those who oppose Trump in the United States, do not understand the new cowangry mentality. The cowangry need to know that there is someone else (not them) who is going to return women to the kitchens, gays to their closets, blacks to work on the plantations, and poor to the industries, that someone is going to throw a bomb in some favela (“dead the dog, dead to the rage”). Someone will torture all who think differently (especially poor blacks, teachers, journalists, feminists, critics, educated people without titles, and other dangerous subversives with foreign ideas, all in the name of God) and in that way, someone will punish and exterminate all those miserable people solely responsible for the personal frustrations of the cowangry.

New Zealand military covered up killing of Afghan children

Tom Peters 

On October 15 the magazine North and South published allegations that the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) covered up the killing of two Afghan children by a member of the elite Special Air Service (SAS) unit.

The 10-page article by journalist Nicky Hager was based on accounts by unnamed members and ex-members of the SAS and NZDF. It reported that in 2004 an SAS medic joined a raid on an Afghan village, led by US forces. During the fighting, the medic shot dead two Afghans defending the village. He later discovered they were just boys, aged 12 and 13.

The article is the latest revelation of potential war crimes committed by New Zealand troops in Afghanistan. The Labour Party-led government of Prime Minister Helen Clark sent the SAS to join the US-led invasion in 2001. For 17 years NZ forces have been deployed in the impoverished country, under Labour and National Party-led governments alike.

Troops were also sent to the Iraq war in 2003 as part of the bipartisan agenda to strengthen New Zealand’s alliance with US imperialism. The Labour Party-led government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently extended NZ’s deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and sent troops to support the US military encirclement of North Korea.

Hager and journalist Jon Stephenson co-authored a book last year, Hit and Run, which described in detail how a New Zealand-led raid on a defenceless Afghan village in 2010 led to six civilian deaths and injured 15 people. The NZDF denied the allegations and the government has established an inquiry into what took place. Most of the hearings, however, will be held in secret.

The North and South article explains that the SAS medic violated the Geneva Conventions, which strictly ban medical personnel from shooting anyone, except in self-defence. A former SAS member told Hager the corporal was severely “damaged” by taking part in the raid. “He was thinking, ‘Shit, I’ve killed kids’” and was “angry at [the SAS commanders] for sending him into it and, when it turned to custard, for turning on him.”

According to the source, the NZDF initially considered court-martialling the corporal, a claim the NZDF denies. Instead, the article explains, details of the raid were kept secret and the medic was given New Zealand’s second-highest medal, the Gallantry Decoration. In a July 2007 ceremony, Prime Minister Clark presented the award, saying it was “for displaying outstanding courage and leadership, and accepting extraordinary risks... testimony to the dedication, skill and professionalism of the NZSAS.”

The ex-SAS member came forward to Hager after seeing then-Chief of Defence Force Tim Keating deny any responsibility for the civilian deaths documented in Hit and Run. The source said in his opinion Keating was lying. He said: “The SAS is at the extreme end of thinking they’re above the law, that they don’t have to be held accountable to others. We can say we never committed war crimes, but we have.”

The article also detailed the violent, abusive, alcohol-soaked culture within the NZDF, which is at odds with the picture painted by its well-funded public relations department. In preparation for greater wars, the NZDF is engaged in a recruitment drive, with posters and online advertisements telling young people they can follow their “passion” in the armed forces.

Hager pointed to several allegations of sexual assault and rape that were ignored or downplayed by the NZDF. Hayley Young, a navy marine engineer, said she was raped in 2009 while posted on a British warship, but her navy friends told her speaking out would be “career suicide.” When she left the navy in 2012, she sent a letter to the captain of fleet personnel and training detailing what she had endured.

Young was given no support. She was horrified to discover, 18 months later, that the navy was “using her face, without asking her, on thousands of brochures and posters promoting NZ Navy careers to young women.” Young told North and South her case was “the very tip of an iceberg.”

Sources also told Hager that homophobic bullying was common, despite the NZDF being named the 2018 Supreme Winner in the Diversity Awards, “based on information NZDF had provided about itself.”

In 2010, 20-year-old Ethan Hall fell from a building in Palmerston North after being bullied at Linton Military Camp. Three soldiers who believed Hall was gay had held him down and tortured him by scorching his leg with a gas burner. One of Hall’s former colleagues told Hager he was driven to suicide. A coroner ruled Hall’s death an accident based on a commanding officer’s statement that the bullying had been an isolated incident.

Other sources outlined the lack of support for soldiers returning from combat overseas. One former SAS trainer said: “NZDF doesn’t care about the people who work for them... When they come home, anger management and PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] are treated as their personal problems.” Another source said: “Three to six months after a deployment, you start to see people with alcohol problems, domestic violence, drugs, financial problems, affairs, suicide, anxiety and depression.”

The military has remained virtually silent on the North and South article. A brief report by Newstalk ZB said “in an initial response to specific points, the Defence Force says the claims are either incorrect, or that it has taken appropriate action.” It did not elaborate.

The Labour Party-led coalition government has said nothing, including the Green Party and New Zealand First, underscoring the cross-party agreement with the government’s militarist agenda. Defence Minister Ron Mark, from the right-wing nationalist NZ First, is a former soldier who completed the SAS selection course in 1982.

The corporate media, after a handful of reports, has buried the story. Pro-Labour Party commentator Chris Trotter, writing on the Daily Blog, called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the alleged “breaches of the Geneva Convention, dishonesty and cover-ups, sexual assault and torture.” He blamed these heinous crimes, not on militarism or imperialism, but on “a culture of toxic masculinity.” He called for a “purge” to ensure that the armed forces are led by “brave, upright and honourable personnel.”

In fact, the atrocities and brutality exposed by Hager and Stephenson are the direct and foreseeable product of the much bigger crimes perpetrated by New Zealand’s ruling elite. Genuine accountability requires the prosecution not just of leading military personnel, but the leaders of successive Labour and National-led governments who authorised participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have killed more than a million people.

Sharp decline in numbers in latest China Rich List

Robert Campion

The Hurun Research Institute released its annual China Rich List for 2018 on October 10, the 20th annual ranking of the richest individuals in China. The number of individuals with a personal wealth greater than 2 billion yuan ($US290 million) fell to 1,893 in 2018, a sharp 11 percent decrease from last year’s tally of 2,130 billionaires.

This is the first absolute drop in numbers since 2012 and the highest turnover in names ever. Moreover, some 219 new names appear on the list, which means that in all 456 multi-millionaires are no longer on the list—a fall of 21 percent. The decline reflects the impact of a slowing Chinese economy, the impact of the US trade war measures and sharp falls in China’s share markets this year.

The list included 620 US dollar billionaires, slightly down from last year. Despite this year’s fall in numbers, there is still an astounding 89 percent more billionaires on the list than 5 years ago and a four-fold increase from 10 years ago. When Hurun reports began in 1998, the list had no dollar billionaires and only eight individuals in China with wealth over the benchmark of 2 billion yuan.

The report notes that the increase is taking place amid “the fastest wealth creating period in the history of the world”. Globally, Chinese entrepreneurs now comprise 35 percent of the Hurun Global Rich List, overtaking US entrepreneurs for the first time two years ago.

At the same time, wealth in China is becoming more concentrated among the upper stratum. “The Big Three are pulling away from the rest,” said Hurun Report chairman and chief researcher Rupert Hoogewerf. Furthermore, he added, “the wealth of the top 10 placings equates for(sic) 10 percent of the total wealth on the list, and that of the top 200 accounts for half of the total wealth.”

The wealthiest individual in China is Jack Ma, the owner of e-commerce giant Alibaba, whose wealth shot up 35 percent to $US39 billion. The growth was largely due to the increased value of his Ant Financial, which is now the world’s most valuable financial technology (fintech) company, worth $US150 billion as of June. The market value of Alibaba reached $390 billion at the end of September, making it the most valuable company in China and one of the 10 largest companies globally.

Hui Ka-yan, the chairman of property developer Evergrande Group, lost 14 percent of wealth from last year and dropped to second place ($US36 billion). The wealth of the third richest individual—Pony Ma Huateng of Tencent, a conglomerate of internet-related services and products—dropped by 4 percent to $US35bn.

Manufacturing proved to be the main source of wealth, as it has been for the past five years, with 26.1 percent of the Rich List making their money from the sector, slightly down from last year’s 27.9 percent amid the growing US-China trade war. Real estate came in second rising from 14.6 percent to 14.9 percent, while finance and investments ousted IT with a year-on-year increase from 10.9 percent to 11.6 percent.

Many of those on the Rich List have strong political ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The number of those on the Rich List appointed to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) decreased from last year by 10 percent to 142 individuals. However, the wealth of those present at this year’s NPC and CPPCC sessions in March actually increased almost 20 percent from last year to $US624 billion—larger than the GDP of neighbouring Taiwan.

Business people were formally welcomed into the CCP as advisors in 2002, coinciding with China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Their representation has steadily increased to about 20 percent of the 3,000-member NPC, according to the state-owned media earlier this year.

The CCP, which has presided over four decades of capitalist restoration in China, represents the interests of the wealthy elite that have amassed great riches through the exploitation of, and at the expense of, the working class. Social inequality has deepened despite an overall rise in the per capita GDP and the emergence of substantial middle class layers.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country’s Gini coefficient was 0.467 in 2017, the last time it was measured officially. The scale runs from zero, which would mean the same income for everyone, to 1, which signifies absolute inequality—one person receives all income.

An International Monetary Fund working paper released in June called ‘Inequality in China–Trends, Drivers and Policy Remedies’ placed China among the most unequal countries in the world and noted the sharp increase in income inequality since capitalist restoration in the early 1980s. It pointed out that those in the rural areas were falling further behind: households in urban areas had an average disposable income of around $5,600 in 2017, almost three times that of those in the countryside ($2,064).

While those living in absolute poverty has dropped, large numbers of people still live in desperate situations, particularly in rural areas. According to Oxfam, there are still over 70 million people who live below the national poverty line of less than 2,300 Yuan (353.75 US Dollars) a year.

The minimum monthly wage for workers varies across provinces and within provinces. The figures for 2016 varied from 1,030 yuan ($US148) to 1,895 yuan ($US273)—a miniscule fraction of the income of the ultra-wealthy members of the Hurun Rich List.

The social gulf between rich and poor, as well as rising living expenses, including health and education, is fuelling a resurgence of the class struggle. While no official figures of protests and strikes are available, the China Labour Bulletin based in Hong Kong reported that the first eight months of this year alone saw 1,194 strikes, almost matching last year's total of 1,257.

Thousands mourn victims of school shooting in Crimea

Andrea Peters 

Thousands of people attended funerals and memorial services in recent days for the victims of a mass shooting that took place in Crimea, Russia last Wednesday. More burials in towns across the country are expected this week, as families from as far away as the Ural Mountains mourn their loss.

Just before noon on October 17, Vladislav Roslyakov opened fired at the Kerch Polytechnical College, killing 21 people and injuring 73. The fourth-year student, aged 18, began his rampage in the college’s cafeteria, where he detonated a homemade bomb, according to some reports. He then made his way through the building, shooting bystanders at random before turning his gun on himself.

Among the dead were five staff members of the college. The other fatalities were students at the vocational institution, which offers training in a variety of applied sciences. Of the students killed, a majority were under the age of 18.

A special team of pediatric surgeons from Saint Petersburg was dispatched to nearby hospitals to help treat the youngest among the injured. Doctors are dealing with shrapnel wounds as well as gunshot wounds as a result of the explosive device apparently set off during the attack.

There is some speculation, based on video evidence, that Roslyakov had an accomplice. A copy of surveillance camera footage was recently posted on Vesti.ru, but has since been taken down, after objections to making it public.

Public officials have announced that families of the dead will receive 1 million rubles, just over $15,000. Those of the injured will get half that amount.

Kerch, the site of the tragedy, is a port city of just under 150,000 on the far eastern edge of Crimea. In addition to attracting tourists to its ancient ruins and nearby beaches along the Black and Azov seas, Kerch is home to fishing, metallurgical, iron and shipbuilding enterprises. A newly opened bridge connects Kerch and all of Crimea to Russia’s mainland.

The Crimean peninsula, formerly a part of Ukraine, became a region of Russia in 2014 after a popular referendum held in the aftermath of a far-right coup in Kiev. In opposition to the anti-Russian government installed in Ukraine with the support of the US and Germany, in March 2014 Crimea’s population—overwhelmingly Russian-speaking—voted to become a part of their eastern neighbor. While the Kremlin has sought to make much of the social and economic improvements made in Crimea in the aftermath of Russia’s takeover, wages still remain well below the national average and much of the population struggles to pay for basic necessities.

Roslyakov’s motives are unknown. He was, by all accounts, a quiet and socially isolated young man. In 2016, he stopped using his social media accounts but continued to have an internet presence using a number of pseudonyms. According to press reports, Roslyakov followed sites that promoted Nazis and violence and viewed material on executions and bomb-making. He had a gun permit and purchased his weapon legally, although Russia has relatively tight gun laws and widespread gun violence is uncommon.

Prior to carrying out the attack, Roslyakov destroyed his personal effects in a fire, including his clothes, laptop and cell phone. Investigators are currently working to retrieve information from his electronic devices.

There is some speculation, based on what he was wearing at the time of the shooting and the videos he watched online, that Roslyakov modeled himself after the Columbine massacre killers. In 1999, two seniors at Columbine High School in Colorado murdered 12 people in one of the first mass school shootings in the US. Dozens more such horrific events have taken place at schools in the US since.

The Kremlin blamed Western influences for the crime, with Russian President Vladimir Putin declaring that one could see in the event the effects of “globalization” and “social networks.” The Russian authorities, which preside over a society with extreme levels of social inequality and widespread feelings of despair, are incapable of providing any sort of honest account, much less an explanation, of what kind of reality might drive an individual to such psychopathic levels of violence. Instead, they seek to use the tragedy as a means to crack down on the internet and promote Russian nationalism by implying that what happened is the product of a Western culture they oppose.

In Ukraine there has been an effort to blame Russian influence for Roslyakov’s murder spree. One pro-Kiev human rights group declared that it was a product of the militarization of everyday life in the region, which they insist was illegally invaded and seized by Moscow. The idea, however, that such pro-Ukrainian forces are concerned about mass violence is absurd. The government in Kiev is under the control of far-right politicians who allow murderous gangs of Nazi sympathizers to rage around the country.

Europe makes delayed criticism of Saudis over Khashoggi murder

Jean Shaoul

Britain has issued a joint statement with France and Germany condemning “in the strongest possible terms” the torture and murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The foreign ministers said there was an “urgent need for clarification on exactly what happened” after Khashoggi entered the consulate on October 2. “Defending freedom of expression and a free press are key priorities for Germany, the United Kingdom and France,” the three declared.

The hypocritical protest comes in the wake of the media’s almost universal dismissal of Saudi Arabia’s latest version of the events surrounding Khashoggi’s assassination, calling it a crude cover-up to protect Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is presumed to have ordered the assassination.

All three imperialist powers have extensive economic interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, none more so than Britain. London, taking its cue from the US, barely commented on the affair until President Donald Trump, under pressure from the political establishment in Washington, qualified his previous support for the Kingdom’s transparent lies, saying he was “not satisfied” with the Saudi explanation and was dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Riyadh.

Even then, Britain’s comments were carefully calibrated. At the end of last week, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the “response will be considered” if Saudi Arabia was found to be responsible for Khashoggi’s disappearance. When asked if the UK would stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia, he cited a “strategic relationship” and told the BBC that the UK had “a very strict arms sale control mechanism.”

A spokesman for International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, who has now pulled out of this week’s investment conference in Saudi Arabia, said, “The UK remains very concerned about Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance... those bearing responsibility for his disappearance must be held to account.”

Britain’s “considered” response contrasts starkly with its virulent anti-Russia campaign after the alleged novichok poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in March. Theresa May’s Conservative government insisted that the father and daughter were the victims of an operation ordered by President Vladimir Putin. May expelled dozens of Russian diplomats and called for an extension of sanctions against Moscow, without offering any evidence proving Moscow’s culpability.

Britain’s quiescence reflects its dependence on the House of Saud for policing the oil-rich Gulf, as well as concerns for its massive arms sales to the kingdom and other equally reactionary petro-monarchies as they come under threat from their own populations. Since 9/11, this has been legitimised with the rhetoric of “combatting terrorism and radicalisation,” with successive governments piously invoking the catechism, “Gulf security is our security.”

London’s fundamental interest in the Gulf, at one time under its imperial “protection,” is to ensure that profits accrue to its oil corporations, BP and Anglo-Dutch Shell.

Israel’s defeat of the Arab nationalist regimes in 1967 and 1973, the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973 after the establishment of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and rising demand for oil served to strengthen and enrich the feudal states of the Arabian Peninsula and enhance their influence.

By 1976, Britain was an economically spent force and had to turn to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. Under those conditions, it bent over backwards to ensure that the Gulf states’ wealth was recycled through the City of London and used to buy British military hardware and manufactured goods.

The higher oil prices also helped to make the exploration of North Sea oil economically viable, with the result that Britain now obtains only 3 percent of its oil and 20 percent of its gas supplies from Qatar. As a major producer, the British oil sector—like its US counterpart—gains from higher prices in a way that non-producers do not, while the government gains additional revenues via taxation. This makes a close working relationship with Saudi Arabia, whose significant reserves enable it to act as a “swing producer,” advantageous.

The Gulf has become even more important since 2016, with the May government making a concerted push—under the rubric of “Global Britain”—to offset the implications of Brexit for the UK.

Today, the Gulf’s sovereign wealth funds and private fortunes constitute a vital source of investment in Britain’s property market, corporations and banks. These capital flows have helped balance the UK’s chronic trade deficit, maintain the value of the pound and generate profits for the British financial sector.

The £43 billion al-Yamamah arms deal signed in 1985, and secured by Britain’s largest manufacturing corporation BAE with massive bribes, provided the House of Saud with a modern air force and aerial defence system. In 2006, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened to stop a Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery by BAE in order to secure another Saudi arms deal worth £40 billion, which was signed in 2007.

These weapons, and the military training that goes with them, were used by the Saudi royal family and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council to suppress dissent in Bahrain—Britain’s former colonial possession—in 2011. Media reports revealed that Britain had provided extensive training for the Bahraini military and police, alongside a Defence Cooperation Agreement to provide “a framework for current and future defence engagement activity, including training and capacity building, in order to enhance the stability of the wider region.”

Bahrain, where Britain recently opened a permanent military base staffed by up to 500 soldiers, sailors and airmen, provided Britain with an important staging post for operations against Afghanistan and Iraq. The new facilities will enable Britain to police the Gulf and the strategic Straits of Hormuz and play a key role in a military conflict with Iran.

According to the Daily Telegraph, writing in 2011, Britain had a secret military training unit in Saudi Arabia, where British personnel trained security forces in crowd control. The House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs provided more details in 2014, confirming that British army personnel were training the National Guard and stating that the UK had some 130 military personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia.

Britain has continued to supply arms, intelligence and training to Riyadh, as well as diplomatic cover for its military operations in Yemen. According to the United Nations, the war in Yemen has caused the deaths, including indirectly through famine, of more than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, with 14 million now facing starvation.

Speaking of the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir stated in January 2016, “We have British officials and American officials and officials from other countries in our command and control centre. They know what the target list is and they have a sense of what it is that we are doing and what we are not doing.”

As well as civil servants and military personnel, BAE’s contracts with the kingdom include joint activities with the Ministry of Defence Saudi Armed Forces Projects (MODSAP), with the line between the government, BAE and its subcontractors increasingly blurred.

These arms deals play a major role in sustaining British arms exports and the UK defence industry, positioning Britain as the world’s second largest arms exporter. They also underpin the viability of the Gulf’s petro-monarchies and Britain’s position as a military power. Just last year, the UK signed a new Military and Security Cooperation Agreement confirming its commitment to the House of Saud.

London’s reluctance to comment on the Khashoggi assassination stems from its fear that the crisis triggered by the killing will compound economic problems in Saudi Arabia and fuel demands for sweeping social change. Seven years after the revolutionary movement that swept the Mubarak dictatorship from power in Egypt, the former colonial power dreads a mass political upheaval in the oil-rich country and its Gulf neighbours.

US-MEPI Student Leaders Program 2019 for Students from Middle East and North Africa

Application Deadline: 31st December, 2018.

Eligible Countries: Algeria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia.

To Be Taken At (Country): USA

About the Award: The Student Leaders program is a rigorous exchange program for up to 60 undergraduate and graduate students from the Middle East and North Africa. Students are divided among U.S. academic institutions where they develop leadership skills and expand their understanding of civil society and participatory governance and how both may be applied in their home communities. Participants have the opportunity to meet their American peers, engage in local community service activities, and observe and take part in the governmental process on the local, state, and federal levels. The program includes academic coursework, as well as study tours to various regions of the United States.

Type: Undergraduate, Masters

Eligibility:

• Students from the following countries named above are eligible to apply.
• This program is open to university students between the ages of 20 and 24. We seek a gender-balanced pool of candidates and give preference to traditionally under-served participants. While nominees may be undergraduate or graduate students in any field of academic specialization, it is critical that they exhibit a serious interest in pursuing leadership opportunities in their home countries and demonstrate a desire to deepen their civic engagement.
• Those who have previously traveled to the U.S. or studied abroad are ineligible. Applicants should demonstrate sufficient English-language skills to participate in U.S. university-level classes and must be enrolled in and attending a university in their home countries. At the time of application and while participating in the program, participants cannot hold U.S. citizenship or be a U.S. Legal Permanent Resident.

Number of Awards: Up to 60

Value of Award: Expenses for the program are fully paid by the U.S. Department of State.

Duration of Program: 5 Weeks (June 26 – July 31, 2019)

How to Apply: Participants apply for the program online here and are then interviewed and nominated by Embassies.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: U.S. Department of State.