U.S. Military Warns of Threat From Chinese-Run Space Station in Argentina

Defense officials are worried about a remote compound Beijing says helped it land on the far side of the moon.

The main antenna of a Chinese deep space ground station in the Neuquén province, Argentina. (Argentina Presidency of the Nation)

BY LARA SELIGMAN | FEBRUARY 8, 2019, 2:21 PM

 

Senior U.S. defense officials are growing increasingly concerned that the Chinese military can monitor and potentially target U.S. and allied satellites from a new deep space ground station in the Western Hemisphere, located in the deserts of Patagonia.

In wide-ranging testimony before the U.S. Congress on Feb. 7, Adm. Craig Faller, the newly confirmed commander of U.S. Southern Command, warned lawmakers about China’s accelerated expansion into Latin America. Not only does China support the autocratic regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua and employ predatory lending practices across the region, but it is also investing in key infrastructure such as a deep-space tracking facility in Argentina, Faller told lawmakers.

 

U.S. military and intelligence officials have been watching the development of this particular facility with growing alarm since its inception. Over the past few years, a powerful 16-story antenna has risen from the remote, 200-hectare compound in the Neuquén province. But the station, which is surrounded by an 8-foot barbed wire fence, operates with little oversight from Argentine authorities, experts say. The ground station reportedly began operations in April 2018.

China has insisted that the aim of the facility is peaceful space exploration and observation. For example, it is said to have played a critical role in China’s landing a spacecraft on the dark side of the moon in January.

Brian Weeden, a space policy and security expert with the Secure World Foundation, noted that the United States deploys antennas similar to the one in Patagonia all around the world.

“Unless there is something specifically different about this, it’s a little bit of the pot calling the kettle black,” he said. “To me, there is no specific piece of evidence other than it happens to be Chinese that signals that it is nefarious.”

But the U.S. military is concerned that the big-dish radar could be used for another purpose: collecting information on the position and activity of U.S. military satellites.

“Beijing could be in violation of the terms of its agreement with Argentina to only conduct civilian activities and may have the ability to monitor and potentially target U.S., allied, and partner space activities,” said Faller, who until recently served in the Pentagon as the top military aide to former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, said in his written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Both China and Russia have multiple ways of taking out or disabling U.S. and allied civil and military satellites, which provide critical navigation, communication, and command-and-control services around the globe, according to a report by the U.S. Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center. China has military units that have already begun training with anti-satellite missiles like the one used in a 2007 test to destroy a Chinese weather satellite, generating more than 3,000 pieces of dangerous debris that are still orbiting the Earth and endangering nearby space assets.

In addition to anti-satellite missiles, both nations have capabilities to jam U.S. and allied satellites, such as the ones that control unmanned U.S. military aircraft, according to the report. Airborne lasers can also be used to temporarily or permanently blind imagery satellites and other sensors.
Cyberattacks on key infrastructure, such as ground-based space stations, also pose a threat.
The U.S. intelligence community also believes China and Russia’s space capabilities are a risk to U.S. forces, even as both countries push for international agreements on the non-weaponization of space.

In addition to the operational Chinese army missile intended to target satellites in low-Earth orbit, China likely intends to pursue additional weapons capable of destroying satellites up to “geosynchronous” Earth orbit, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in his Jan. 29 testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“China’s and Russia’s proposals for international agreements on the non-weaponization of space do not cover multiple issues connected to the [anti-satellite] weapons they are developing and deploying, which has allowed them to pursue space warfare capabilities while maintaining the position that space must remain weapons-free,” Coats said, according to his written testimony.
Experts noted that Beijing’s claim that it will use the facility only for peaceful purposes can’t be taken at face value, as the Chinese national space agency is closely linked with the People’s Liberation Army.

Frank Rose, who served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control from 2014 to 2017 and currently is a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, said the geographic location of the new station provides China critical space coverage in the Southern and Western Hemispheres.

“It’s a question of covering certain orbits. There’s a reason why the U.S. has satellite tracking stations around the world—it gives you global coverage,” Rose said. “You can’t get global coverage from China.”

Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, said the ground station’s primary purpose may in fact be for peaceful research. The general shape and size of the dish is “consistent with what the Chinese say that it is,” he said, noting that the location “does make a certain amount of sense” because scientists need facilities positioned on all sides of the Earth for deep-space observations.

The personnel who operate the facility are either active-duty or former Chinese military, but that is “not inherently nefarious” given how closely the army is tied with the Chinese space program, Ellis said.

However, Ellis noted that the facility could also be used to collect other types of data, particularly on the various sensitive commercial and military satellites that frequently pass overhead.
It is also concerning that the Argentine government “really doesn’t have physical access” to the compound, he added, noting that it is a six-hour drive from the closest government facility.
Rose applauded the Trump administration for increasing its focus on space, including the plan to re-establish U.S. Space Command, but said that one “gaping hole” in their approach is the lack of diplomatic outreach to China on this issue. The Obama administration in 2016 held two rounds of space security talks with China, one in Washington and one in Beijing, he said, noting the participation of the State and Defense Department. But the Trump administration has not continued these talks, he said.

“I will give the administration some credit, they are focused on the threat to our space systems, and I give them credit for focusing public attention,” Rose said. “However it is not just a military solution to this problem—yes we have to protect our systems in outer space, yes we need to be prepared to respond to attacks, but there has to be a role for diplomacy.”

More violence in Paris as gilet jaunes protests enter 13th weekend

Scuffles break out as protesters march on National Assembly and Senate in Paris
Demonstrations began over fuel tax but have since broadened into a revolt against the political classes. Photograph: Arina Lebedeva/TASS

Sat 9 Feb 2019

Thousands of French gilets jaunes (yellow vests) demonstrators marched on Saturdayin what was their 13th weekend of action. There were scuffles in Paris and a demonstrator’s hand was mangled by a small explosive.

There was also an overnight arson attack on the Brittany residence of the National Assembly head, Richard Ferrand, though no immediate link was made to the actions against President Emmanuel Macron.

The demonstrations, named for high-visibility jackets worn by the protesters, began in mid-November over fuel taxes. They have since broadened into a more general revolt against a political class they view as out of touch with common people.

In Paris, several thousand people marched on Saturday beside symbols of power such as the National Assembly and Senate.

The demonstrations were mainly peaceful, but some protesters threw objects at security forces, a scooter and a police van were set on fire and some shop windows were smashed.

One participant’s hand was severely injured when he tried to pick up a so-called “sting-ball grenade” used by police to disperse crowds with teargas, a police source told Reuters.

Another man had blood streaming down his face in front of a line of riot police.

The interior ministry put the total number of protesters around France at 12,000, including 4,000 in Paris. The police source, however, said numbers were higher, with 21,000 demonstrators taking part in rallies outside Paris.

“We’re not children, we’re adults,” said Hugues Salone, a computer engineer from Paris, who among the chanting and placard-waving protesters. “We really want to assert our choices, and not the choices of the politicians who do not live up to them.”

Leaders of the movement have denounced the police for injuring protesters, but have also struggled to contain violence from their own lines.

Politicians from across the spectrum condemned the arson attack on the home of Ferrand, a close ally of Macron and president of parliament’s lower house.

He published pictures on Twitter of a scorched living room, saying police found materials soaked in fuel. Ferrand said criminal intent was the likely cause, although the perpetrators’ identity was unclear.

“Nothing justifies intimidations and violence towards an elected official of the Republic,” Macron tweeted in relation to the incident.

To guide or not to guide? Fed 'dots' complicate message

The Federal Reserve building is pictured in Washington, DC, U.S., August 22, 2018. REUTERS/Chris Wattie/Files

Howard Schneider-FEBRUARY 9, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. central bankers say clear communication is important, with economic research showing that if the public understands what the Federal Reserve is doing, monetary policy works better and the economy does better.

But when Fed officials meet again in March, it may be tough to tell a cogent story as the Fed’s two main tools for talking to the public head for a rare conflict.

The newest quarterly set of economic projections, including ‘dots’ representing policymakers’ rate forecasts, is likely to show they still expect to raise rates this year. Meanwhile, the official policy statement that comes at the end of each meeting will likely offer no hint about whether rates will rise, fall, or stay the same.

That could stoke fresh confusion over the Fed’s direction after months when Chairman Jerome Powell has struggled to provide a consistent message, prompting fresh calls for the central bank to overhaul some longstanding practices.

Policymakers like St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard have pressed for changes to the Summary of Economic Projections to make them less influential over how the path of Fed policy is perceived.

As time passes, the projections for where rates should be at year end seem more like explicit forecasts, Bullard said in a recent interview. Last December in particular the projections “put us in a box in a bad way” by setting expectations for a rate increase at that meeting even as some economic data appeared shaky. The rate increase proceeded.

“As you get closer to the end of the year you are giving more and more near-term forecasts,” said Bullard.

His idea? Change the system so policymakers always project at least one year ahead, parceling out any anticipated policy action over the eight meetings the Fed holds over a 12 month period.

Outside analysts of late have hammered the Fed for a communications policy described by some as “in tatters” or “a disaster.” They wonder how investors, convinced by the latest statement and policymakers’ public pledges of “patience” that rates won’t rise, will adjust to seeing higher rates penciled into the set of projections coming in March.

For further rate hikes to disappear from the March projections, policymakers would have to shave a full half a percentage point from the median estimate issued in December, which foresaw rates increasing from around 2.4 percent to 2.9 percent through 2019.

That would require seven of 17 officials to cut their forecast, and could raise its own red flag: What do they know that everyone else doesn’t?

In fact, a shift that large in the near-term outlook has happened just once since the Fed first issued quarterly projections in 2012.

That was in March 2015, when a global oil rout and slowing U.S. growth raised risks the Fed would never escape the zero interest rate environment that arrived with the financial crisis. The Fed’s rate “liftoff” got delayed to the end of that year, and rates barely moved again in 2016 as the U.S. economy seemed stuck in mud.

That’s not the economy the Fed sees right now, and not the one officials are likely to describe in their forecasts.

In addition to their estimates of the “appropriate” year-end federal funds rate, officials forecast unemployment, inflation, and growth in gross domestic product. All of those are likely to remain healthy by the March meeting.

The Fed’s policy statement, however, has been moving in a different direction under Powell, steadily stripping away the remnants of “forward guidance” about the direction of rates.

MESSAGES MISALIGNED

Since the Great Recession, the statement has included some sort of pledge about rates, considered an important element of crisis management. By promising lower rates for a longer period, for example, households and businesses might have greater confidence to borrow and invest.

Fed officials regard that as no longer appropriate in an economy that is mostly back to normal. The Fed wants to be free to move rates up, down, or not at all, and at its own pace, based on how the economy performs. Last month it dropped long-standing language from its post-meeting statement pointing to further increases.

While the statement and projections have not always been well aligned, until now they have at least pointed in the same direction. Both were anchored at zero in the early years, then both indicated rates would move higher as the crisis faded.

With even that directional alignment about to end, Powell has been trying to diminish the significance of the projections, saying after the Fed’s December meeting that they provide “useful information about ... participants’ thinking, but the median is not a consensus judgment,” or a “plan.”
It’s a message Fed officials have raised before. Few buy it.

The median ‘dot’ in the quarterly ‘dot plot’ graphic of each official’s estimate for year-end rates may not be a product of consensus, and investors may squabble over whether the Fed will reach it.
But its existence does frame the public and market judgments, a constraint some are urging the Fed to escape.

“Market participants and commentators seem to put much more weight on small differences (in the projections) ... than is consistent with our imprecise knowledge” of how the economy and policy will evolve, former Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn said in a recent paper urging changes to the projections.

 “This focus detracts from the more appropriate and helpful discussion of the underlying forces at play and the risks.”

Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci

Arms & Secret Deals

by Mark Curtis-Feb 9, 2019

Feb 9, 2019

Forty years ago, the Iranian revolution sent a shockwave through the Middle East, overthrowing the Western client, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and bringing to power the Islamic regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

While Iran now poses the biggest challenge to Western power in the Middle East, British relations with Islamic Iran were not always so antagonistic. Britain dropped its support for the Shah before the 1979 revolution, seeking to ingratiate itself with Iranian opposition forces led by Khomeini. Once his regime was in power, Whitehall went so far as to arm it, even brutally conniving with it, seeing it as a counter to the Soviet Union.

The Shah was put in power in 1953 in an Anglo-American covert operation – known as “Boot” – instigated by London, removing Iranian leader Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalised British oil operations. “Our policy,” a British official later recalled, “was to get rid of Mosaddegh as soon as possible.” In fact, declassified files show that Britain’s ambassador in Tehran preferred “a dictator” who would “settle the oil question on reasonable terms.”

A little known aspect of the 1953 coup is British plotting with Ayatollah Sayyed Kashani, a predecessor of Khomeini. Kashani helped fund mobs that rioted against Mosaddegh in collaboration with MI6, which had bribed army, police, political and media figures. “These forces,” explained MI6 officer Christopher Woodhouse, who ran the U.K. end of the operation, “were to seize control of Tehran, preferably with the support of the Shah but if necessary without it, and to arrest [Mosaddegh] and his ministers.”

The Shah ruled for a further quarter of a century, brutally repressing opposition through his notorious  internal security service, SAVAK, which the U.K.  helped train. A year before the revolution, in April 1978, then Conservative opposition leader, Margaret Thatcher, visited Tehran and described the Shah as “one of the world’s most far-sighted statesmen” who had given Iran “dynamic leadership” and is “leading Iran through a twentieth century renaissance.”

A few months later, James Callaghan’s Labour government secretly agreed to the Shah’s request to supply 175,000 CS gas canisters and up to 360 armoured personnel carriers to Iran to help the regime put down growing demonstrations against it.

Switching Sides

By October 1978, with unrest in Tehran threatening the regime, Callaghan wrote: “I would not give much for the Shah’s chances,” and told his foreign secretary, David Owen, to “start thinking about reinsuring,” meaning to develop contacts with opposition figures.

By December, officials concluded that the Shah’s survival was unlikely and that Iran seemed on the verge of a revolution. Foreign Office officials then argued for Britain to completely switch its support to the Iranian opposition, though the declassified files do not state which figures.

The Shah fled Tehran on Jan. 16, 1979, and on Feb. 1, Khomeini returned from exile to Iran. Britain tried to “insure” itself further with the new Islamic regime by avoiding any association with the Shah. London and Washington both refused to allow their onetime placeman political asylum. “There was no honour in my decision,” Owen later wrote, “just the cold calculation of national interest.” He added that he considered it “a despicable act.”

In February, with real power concentrated in the Council of the Islamic Revolution, dominated by fundamentalists loyal to Khomeini, Callaghan recognized the new government of Mehdi Bazargan, a scholar jailed by the Shah. Cabinet Secretary Sir John Hunt wrote to Callaghan saying that “we should lose no opportunity to foster our relationship with the new government.”

Margaret Thatcher also reassured the new government that the arms ordered by the Shah, notably a massive tank deal, would continue to flow, along with “oil, trade and other interests.” Weeks later, an Islamic Republic was declared, with a new constitution reflecting the theocracy.

Arming Iran

Under the new Thatcher government, Britain continued to arm and train the new Iranian regime. By April 1980, months into the U.S.  hostage crisis, Britain was still training around 30 Iranian military officers in Britain. With Soviet invasion forces in Afghanistan, Thatcher saw Iranian theocracy as a counter to Soviet ideology.

This took on brutal proportions in 1982, when Britain secretly helped the Iranian regime nearly destroy the communist Tudeh Party, the main leftist organisation in Iran. MI6, working with the CIA, passed to the Iranians a list of alleged Tudeh agents acquired from a Soviet defector, in order to curry favour with the regime and reduce Soviet influence. Dozens of Tudeh agents were subsequently executed, more than 1,000 members were arrested, and the party was banned.

But Britain went still further, even as it by now regarded the Iranian revolutionary regime as a strategic threat to the West. As Iran fought Iraq in the brutal Gulf war in the 1980s, the Thatcher government armed both sides. From the very first day of the war, Britain sent millions of pounds worth of tank barrels and tank engines to Iran, helping to maintain the tanks Britain delivered to the Shah during the 1970s.

Whitehall also connived with a company called Allivane International to secretly ship arms to Iran in the mid-to-late 1980s, while another project enabled the British company BMARC to export naval guns, spares and ammunition to Iran via Singapore in 1986. Around the same time, a government-owned company exported five shipments of tetryl chemicals, a compound used to make explosives, breaking both the UN embargo and Britain’s own export guidelines.

Unfinished Business

The British tank exports agreed under the Shah are still plaguing relations between the two countries. Declassified files show that the new regime wrote to Britain in February 1979 repudiating six military contracts signed by the Shah for more than 1,500 British tanks worth £1.25 billion. The two countries are still haggling over the interest rate to be paid by Britain to settle a debt for the tanks that were bought by Iran but never delivered. Iran has been seeking to recover its money since 1979.

The British would like to remove the Iranian regime from the Middle East, and extremists in the U.S.  and Israel are now pushing for war. But this is not 1953, and Whitehall surely realises that Iran is much stronger than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.

For now, London will continue promoting its commercial interests with Iran, while sometimes playing the side of the U.S.  in confronting it. British policy towards Iran has often been based on pure expediency. We can only wait to see if the U.K.  ends up playing more of a restraining than supportive role over regime change in Iran.

Mark Curtis is an historian and analyst of U.K. foreign policy and international development and the author of six books, the latest being an updated edition of “Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam.”

The US-China trade war is hurting tech companies on both sides

Labour members voted to put Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt forward as a candidate for Parliament.Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt for Thanet South

Asa Winstanley Activism and BDS Beat 8 February 2019

Local party members are resisting a decision by Labour’s ruling body to bar a pro-Jeremy Corbyn activist from standing for Parliament, after false allegations of anti-Semitism were leveled against her.

Local members in April had voted to endorse Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt as their candidate in the next general election.

But Gordon-Nesbitt was soon smeared by Guido Fawkes, a hard-right website.

Labour’s head office wrote to her soon after with “evidence” apparently gleaned from the same site, stating that after a complaint, she was being investigated for comments on social media “which may meet the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the Labour Party.”

This was a reference to the controversial IHRA “working definition” of anti-Semitism adopted by Labour last year. The document forbids criticizing Israel as a racist state.

In December, Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) stepped in to formally remove Gordon-Nesbitt as a candidate, for tweets that allegedly had the potential to bring the party into “disrepute.”

A Twitter account associated with Gordon-Nesbitt had in 2017 posted supportive messages defending Jackie Walker – a local Black and Jewish anti-racist activist currently facing down expulsion from Labour over her anti-Zionist views.

Gordon-Nesbitt told The Electronic Intifada that members “are absolutely furious. We had a general council meeting last night, and there was mutiny” at the NEC’s undermining of local party democracy.

Almost 2,000 people have signed an online petition calling for her reinstatement.

Members’ support

Gordon-Nesbitt told The Electronic Intifada she would fight the decision.

“I was all set to walk away before Christmas,” she said in a statement, “but I’ve been amazed and inspired by the response of Labour Party members.”

She said that “after eight months of great teamwork, the verdict of the local party seems to be that they still want me as their candidate.”

She said she had joined the Labour Party to advance grassroots democracy, and accused the NEC of “ignoring the will of the members and denying one of its democratically elected parliamentary candidates the right to a fair hearing.”

Members last month overwhelmingly passed an emergency resolution which calls the NEC decision unfair, arguing that “Rebecca has shown herself to be an exemplary candidate.”

But now, Gordon-Nesbitt told The Electronic Intifada, she is fundraising to take the Labour bureaucracy to the High Court to challenge the decision.

The crowdfunding campaign has raised more than $8,700 so far.

Gordon-Nesbitt said: “The last thing I want to do is go to court, but we have to make the Labour Party more accountable to its members and this seems to be the only way of doing it.”
Gordon-Nesbitt said her legal team includes the well-known radical lawyer Michael Mansfield QC.

Smears

The old tweets, which a three-person panel of the NEC had interrogated Gordon-Nesbitt for, were from a now-deleted account of a think tank that she contributed to.

While she told The Electronic Intifada that she didn’t recognize some of the tweets in the right-wing blog, she took responsibility for three.

These tweets defended Jackie Walker, saying that the allegations “of anti-Semitism leveled at Jackie Walker are politically motivated” and that “anti-Semitism has been weaponized by those who seek to silence anti-Zionist voices.”

The account also tweeted that accusations of anti-Semitism are sometimes “leveled in an attempt to discredit the left” – a fact which The Electronic Intifada has reported in detail for three and a half years now.

Gordon-Nesbitt later clarified on Facebook that “these tweets were in no way intended to imply that anti-Semitism doesn’t exist in the Labour Party. It is possible for two things to be true at once.”

The Thanet South seat she had been up for was won by the Conservative candidate in the 2017 election, and the NEC’s move leaves the constituency without any current Labour candidate.
Gordon-Nesbitt is being supported by left-wing group Jewish Voice for Labour, which called the NEC’s decision “appalling.”

Campaign group Labour Against the Witchhunt has drafted two model motions to help pressure the NEC to review its decision.

Big in Japan: From jobless artist to origami king of Gaza

Ahmed Hmeid was an unemployed graffiti artist - until he discovered the art of paper folding

It took Ahmed Hmeid one year to master his interpretation of origami (MEE/Muhamed Alhajjar)

By 

Maha Hussaini-

8 February 2019 11:30 UTC | Last update: 1 day 13 hours ago

GAZA STRIP – In the densely-populated coastal enclave, where more than half the population is unemployed, Ahmed Hmeid, a Palestinian artist from the Nussairat refugee camp, knew he needed to break new ground in order to make a living.

The 29-year-old, who used to practise graffiti regularly, became familiar with origami through the internet, and soon it became his source of living. "Art, and especially drawing, has always been my passion. I used to spend hours on Instagram every day checking posts with new and creative graffiti ideas," Hmeid told Middle East Eye.

"One day while I was going through some graffiti accounts, I came across a picture that showed paper folded in a beautiful way to create a shape. I did not know back then the name of this art, so I just saved the picture but could not stop thinking about it."

Ahmed Hmeid, 29, is a Palestinian artist from the Nussairat refugee camp (MEE/Muhamed Alhajjar)

Mesmerised by this art that was new to him, Hmeid set out to discover everything he could about its origins.

"I did not find other similar pictures at first because I could not search for the art when I did not even know its name," he said. "So I showed the picture to a friend of mine who told me that it is called origami and that it is originally a Japanese art form, and this is when my journey started."

Origami, the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding, is widely practised by many facets of society including children, youth, and the elderly.

"I spent five months just researching about origami and learning how it is created, and then another year practising it until I reached a point where I could say I had mastered it," he continued.

Ahmed Hmeid uses donated and worn books to make his origami (MEE/Muhamed Alhajjar)

"Unlike common origami artists who create shapes using paper, I usually use whole books to create one name or symbol. It is not easy and it costs a lot more, but it creates such unique shapes and people love it."

A unique source of living

After graduating from high school in 2007 and choosing not to attend university, Hmeid was faced with the reality that it was nearly impossible for him to get a job, where even someone with a bachelor’s or master’s degree is challenged in finding work in Gaza.

"I grew up in a poor family and we could barely meet our basic needs. This has encouraged me to look for new sources of living," he said. "As you know, it is not easy to find a job here, especially when you do not have a college degree, but I did my best to find an alternative."

According to the World Bank, the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip jumped to 53.7 in the second quarter of 2018, while it has exceeded 70 percent amongst youth.

Hmeid spent a year mastering the art of origami (MEE/Muhamed Alhajjar)

But Hmeid remained determined and did not give up as he knew he had to find a way to challenge the rampant unemployment.

"It all started last September when a young lady from Gaza who owns a handmade gift shop heard from some colleagues that I created origami art. So she contacted me and asked me to make a piece with her name, Hayat (Arabic for life) on it," he recalled.

'She paid me 100 Shekels and I was astonished someone would pay this much for paper art'

"I created her name using an old book and took it as a gift to her shop. When she saw it, she did not stop talking about how perfectly done it was and she offered to pay me for it.”

Although Hmeid refused payment for the gift, Hayat insisted that he deserved a reward.

"She paid me 100 Shekels ($27) and I was astonished someone would pay this much for paper art," he added. "She offered to post it on Instagram and I asked her to tag my account as part of advertising for my new business, and this is how people started to know about my art."

Hmeid’s social media presence has attracted local and international followers (MEE/Muhamed Alhajjar)

In order to create new works of origami art using books, Hmeid reached out to friends on social media for old and worn books.

"In only one day after I asked for books, 18 people offered me a lot of books for free, but I refused them all except for two," he said.

"The other 16 were all good Arabic books that could be very useful, but this was not what I wanted. I did not want to ruin books for art, I only accepted the ones that were very worn and useless."

Since starting last year, Hmeid has created more than 50 pieces using books to reflect the classic culture of origami with a modern touch.

"I sold a lot of pieces and people loved them. However, I still cannot depend on origami alone for a living, especially during this period when people can hardly secure their basic needs."

‘The border is an obstacle, again’

Hmeid’s social media presence has attracted local and international followers, such as Japanese origami artist, Hanklay, who admires Hmeid’s work and has been supportive by encouraging him and giving advice.

"The art captured his attention as I managed to create a new version of origami, one that is originally Japanese, well-known in Europe, and with Arabic letters," Hmeid said. "He soon suggested that we organise a joint exhibition in Japan where he uses the Japanese language and I use the Arabic one - but the border is an obstacle, again."

Hmeid hopes to show his art abroad one day, but the Israeli siege on Gaza makes this only a dream for now (MEE/Muhamed Alhajjar)

Since 2006, after Hamas won legislative elections, Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip. Residents face tight restrictions on movement in and out of the territory. Egypt also enforces the siege at the Rafah border.

"Like any other person who is proud of what he has achieved, I would certainly want to travel the world and show my talent to everyone," Hmeid said. "I want to represent my country and talk about the challenges I had to go through in order to be where I am today, but I simply cannot travel.

'I want to represent my country and talk about the challenges I had to go through in order to be where I am today, but I simply cannot travel'

"A lot of people abroad and also in the West Bank and Jerusalem see my art on social media and send me messages asking if I can make them special order pieces," he said. "I sadly apologise since I cannot deliver their orders due to the restrictions on movement on both the Erez and Rafah borders."

Hmeid still has hope that one day he will put on his own exhibition and represent his country.

"I cannot give up on my talent now after all that I have gone through. If they close the borders I will organise my exhibition here, in Gaza, and my art will reflect the suffering."

The US-China trade war is hurting tech companies on both sides

A woman using her smartphone while walking past advertising outside a Huawei store in Beijing. January 29, 2019. Source: Wang Zhao / AFP

8th Feb7

CHINESE tech companies are facing significant challenges as a result of the trade war between the US and China. Cybersecurity and other concerns regarding the rise of Chinese technology leave American allies at a fork in the road.

Which equipment providers will build their 5G networks?

To customers, 5G represents a faster network, to businesses would, it represents the ability to incorporate greater use of virtual reality and artificial intelligence services.

Instantaneous data transactions open up the possibility of devices continuously feeding information to one another in real time. Not only will this enable operations to be automated but it will also allow cities to operate without human intervention.

SEE ALSO: Are Huawei and ZTE really a national security risk?

“This will be almost more important than electricity,” said Chris Lane, Hong Kong-based Senior Research Analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

“Everything will be connected, and the central nervous system of these smart cities will be your 5G network.”

The 5G system is reliant on highly complex software that needs constant updating. This is, of course, invisible to consumers. However, he who controls the networks controls the information flow.

Last year, the US started its global campaign to stop Chinese firms from participating in this new arms race. Citing threats to the Amerian national security, the Trump administration has been putting the heat on for its allies.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (L) and Meng Wanzhou, Executive Board Director of the Chinese technology giant Huawei, attend a session of the VTB Capital Investment Forum “Russia Calling!” in Moscow, Russia October 2, 2014. Picture taken October 2, 2014. Source: Reuters/Alexander Bibik

Its request for an embargo on Huawei Technologies, China’s leading telecommunications producer worldwide, has gained extensive media coverage.

Australia and New Zealand rejected the telecommunication industry request to use Huawei 5G equipment in August and November respectively. Japan, the UK, Germany, Malaysia, and Canada have had news that curbs Chinese firm expansion opportunities too.

“The core issue is that both nations want to dominate a sector defined by network effects. The best innovators leverage bigger data sets, larger consumer bases, global customers, while the most aggressive nationalists aim to box-out others’ products and people,” political analyst Bruce Hehlman told Axios.

He highlighted China’s “overwhelmingly aggressive” 2025 plan to dominate the tech industry should not be underestimated.

SEE ALSO: Cybercrime cost Hong Kong businesses a whole lot more this year

As the US ban looms over Chinese tech companies, Huawei Technologies tells suppliers to move production to China.

Sierra Leone Times reported that what had been a steady flow of Chinese investments into tech firms is slowing down.

In 2018, more than US$2 billion worth of Chinese investments went into American tech firms. Forbes reported that the figure is a ghastly 80 percent drop from the year before.

With intensified tension between the US and China, the figure could plummet further.

“There is no doubt there are legitimate concerns — both national security and economic — related to China,” explained Dean Garfield, Head of Information Technology Industry, a trade group representing the US and global tech companies.

US President Donald Trump (R) and China’s President Xi Jinping (L) along with members of their delegations, hold a dinner meeting at the end of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Buenos Aires, on December 01, 2018. Source: Saul Loeb/AFP

Garfield’s outlook remains objective.

“The thing that we in the tech sector try to avoid is being reductionist in assuming simply because it is China that it is bad. That is simply not the case.”

Counterintuitively, both the US and China still need one another for this technology arms race. While the US relies on China for the manufacture of electronics, China is dependent on the US for (silicone) chips.

The trade war will most definitely hurt the Chinese tech firms, but is also beginning to have a negative impact on US-based tech giants.

Apple CEO Tim Cook cited the trade war as a reason for weaker sales in the region.

“Market data has shown that the contraction in Greater China’s smartphone market has been particularly sharp.”

A study showed that Apple only had a 1 percent growth year-on-year with 41 million units in its Q2 2018 report. On the other hand, Huawei has gone up 41 percent year-on-year with 54 million units.

At the end of the day, if tensions don’t dissipate, the fallout of the US-China trade war will be more global than most people perceive — but only time will tell who it will hit the hardest.

This article originally appeared on our sister site Tech Wire Asia. 

Who is getting poorer? Who is getting richer?

• The share of wealth held by the richest 1% of people has been rising in many countries since the early 1990s
• Earlier this year the Legatum Institute hired Picketty to answer the riticisms and to enlarge his findings
• The poorest half of the American population received 24% of all income and 21% in Europe in the 1990s

 2019-02-09

Every so often reports emerge that attempt to measure the best countries to live in. The Nordic countries plus New Zealand, Holland and Switzerland, usually come out top. Sweden is number one just for the sheer stability of life and security. Denmark is seen as the most agreeable place to live. The highest rate of longevity is found in Japan. The best schools are in Finland, New Zealand and Canada. Political and press freedom put the Nordics at the top of the league.  

Last year, the Legatum Institute based in London published a report looking at inequality. Its timing could not be more perfect with the newly elected US Congress saying it will undo the harm caused by President Donald Trump’s tax bill which increased inequality by a substantial amount.  

In 2013 the French economist, Thomas Piketty, published his blockbuster book, “Capital In The Twenty-first Century”, arguing that inequality was steadily increasing. There was wide acclaim, and quite a bit of criticism. The debate over the book raged in the serious newspapers and journals for many months.  

Earlier this year the Legatum Institute hired Picketty to answer the criticisms and to enlarge his findings. His new report, drawing on several years’ work, tries to answer four questions. First, where is inequality most pronounced? Second, is the world becoming more or less equal? Why are the experiences of Europe and the US so different? Fourth, have we returned to the levels of wealth inequality last seen a century ago?  

In the US, the richest 1% held 27%  of the nation’s wealth in 1990. This rose to 37% by 2014 and is still  rising. till it’s not as bad as in the early years of the twentieth century when in 1913 in the UK the richest 1% held two-thirds of the nation’s wealth

Picketty and his collaborators fashioned a World Wealth and Income Database that positions every country in a league table.  

The most unequal region in the world is the Middle East, where the top 10% receive 60% of all income. India, Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa are not far behind.  
The most equal region is Europe, where the figure is 37%. China is the next most equal, with a top income share of 41%. This comes as a surprise considering the media often focuses on what it claims is the country’s widening inequality.  

One other surprise to me is the finding that in most parts of the world, over the past decade, income inequality has fallen or stabilised. Nevertheless, there are many countries where inequality has got seriously worse.  

During the 1980s it rose fast in Britain and Russia during the 1990s. In the US it started to rise fast in the 1980s and has gathered steam ever since, not least because of regressive Republican-led, tax policies, and the unequal availability of good schooling. Educational inequalities in the US are “massive”, says the report. Yet the US and Western Europe had similar levels of inequality in 1980. In Europe over the last forty years, except in Britain, it has either stabilised or improved.  

The poorest half of the American population received 24% of all income and 21% in Europe in the 1990s. Since then in Europe these income shares have changed only a little. In marked contrast, in the US the share of income received by the top 10% has nearly doubled, to 20%, and the share received by the bottom half has roughly halved to 13%.  

What about wealth inequality? This includes such things as the housing and property owned, the money saved in shares and banks, the cars and in some cases the planes and yachts owned. It includes what has been inherited.  

The share of wealth held by the richest 1% of people has been rising in many countries since the early 1990s. In the US, the richest 1% held 27% of the nation’s wealth in 1990. This rose to 37% by 2014 and is still rising. Still it’s not as bad as in the early years of the twentieth century when in 1913 in the UK the richest 1% held two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. By 1988 this share in the UK had fallen to 15%.  

High rates of home ownership, rapid house price growth since the mid-1990s and a liberal inheritance attack have dramatically boosted the wealth of the middle class. All western countries have a growing middle class that has experienced this good fortune to a smaller or greater extent. In some cities, like London, Washington DC, Paris, Berlin and Stockholm house prices have rocketed. The poor, but wise, twenty-five-year olds who bought in the 1960s have become millionaires.  

I add my own thoughts to all this to fill out the picture. In recent years prosperity has grown in by far the majority of countries, governance and personal freedom have improved, the number of wars, deaths from wars and the number of people living in the direst poverty, suffering the worst diseases, has gone sharply down, especially in the Third World. Only in the US do we see a significant setback in such good fortune. Tragically for many, under Trump, it is going to get worse.  

Hezbollah Is in Venezuela to Stay

Regime change in Caracas won’t change the country’s problematic relationship with the terrorist group.

BY COLIN P. CLARKE

 | FEBRUARY 9, 2019, 3:29 AM
A poster shows Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Arab leader Jamal Abdel Nasser on Dec. 7, 2006 in Beirut. (Ramzi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images)

Responding to a question on current instability in Venezuela and the presence of terrorist groups in the region, specifically Lebanese Hezbollah, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed in a recent interview that the Trump administration believes that the “Party of God,” as Hezbollah is known, maintains “active cells” in Venezuela. He went on to say that “Iranians are impacting the people of Venezuela,” because Hezbollah is trained, financed, and equipped by Tehran.

Some security policy analysts seemed surprised by Pompeo’s claims, but they shouldn’t be.
Hezbollah has long maintained a presence in Latin America, especially in the infamous Tri-Border Area, a semi-lawless region where Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil converge. But even beyond the Tri-Border Area, Hezbollah is well-entrenched in Venezuela, where the Shiite terrorist group has long worked to establish a vast infrastructure for its criminal activities, including drug trafficking, money laundering, and illicit smuggling. For example, Margarita Island, located off the coast of Venezuela, is a well-known criminal hotbed where Hezbollah members have established a safe haven. Under the regime of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the government took a more active approach to offering sanctuaryto Venezuela-based supporters of Hezbollah.

More controversial than what Pompeo said, however, should have been what he implied—namely, that regime change would rid Venezuela of Hezbollah. Whatever the benefits of replacing the current Venezuelan regime with Washington’s preferred alternative, there’s reason to doubt that it would change the country’s problematic relationship with the terrorist group.

Hezbollah has a long and sordid history in Venezuela. A cocaine-smuggling ring active throughout the 2000s and led by a Hezbollah-linked Lebanese national named Chekry Harb, a drug trafficker and money laundering kingpin who went by the nickname “Taliban” and used Panama and Venezuela as critical hubs in an operation that sent narcotics from Colombia to the United States, West Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Proceeds from the cocaine-trafficking ring were laundered into Colombian pesos or Venezuelan bolivars, with Hezbollah netting between 8 and 14 percent of profits.

Hezbollah’s reliance on sympathizers within its diaspora communities, including in Venezuela, has significantly minimized the group’s potential exposure to detection. Venezuela’s border security officials and law enforcement, amid the country’s general desperation, have been largely unwilling to resist bribes and kickback schemes offered by Hezbollah members and their cadres.

Given the present instability in Venezuela, it’s fair to wonder what would happen with Hezbollah under a government led by opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who was recently recognized as the legitimate ruler of the country by the United States and dozens of other nations, including European heavyweights France, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Spain. A government led by Guaidó would almost certainly be more active in opposing Hezbollah’s presence on Venezuelan soil, not just nominally but in more aggressively seeking to curtail the group’s criminal network and, by extension, the influence of Iran. As part of a quid pro quo for its support, Washington would likely seek to lean on Guaidó to crack down on any Iran-linked activities throughout the region.

But there is a major difference between will and capability. And while a Guaidó-led government might initially demonstrate strong political will in countering Hezbollah and Iran—at least to appease the Trump administration—Venezuela as a country faces an immense challenge in attempting to rebuild its shattered society. Pushing back against Hezbollah may simply fall much lower on the list of priorities for Guaidó and his administration than the United States might like.

The uncertain nature of Venezuela’s security services and military suggests a serious capability gap to contend with when working with Caracas. Venezuela has maintained close links to Russia militarily, and it remains unknown what portion of the security services are or will remain loyal to Maduro. The United States experienced great success with Plan Colombia, a multiyear, multibillion-dollar effort to engage in security cooperation with and build the capacity of Colombian law enforcement and military forces. But replicating the success of Plan Colombia, which helped the Colombian armed forces gain a significant advantage over the FARC, has proven elusive in other contexts, including in Mexico, where the Mérida Initiative, a security cooperation agreement between the United States and Mexico focused on counter-narcotics, failed to successfully combat drug trafficking and organized criminal networks in that country.

During his first two years in office, President Donald Trump has demonstrated a desire to extricate the United States from costly overseas interventions. This is just one of several reasons why a “Plan Venezuela” aimed at helping that country rebuild critical government institutions may be unfeasible. To be successful, such a strategy would require a multiyear commitment of U.S. trainers (troops, contractors, or a mixture of the two) to work with Venezuelan authorities to counter the unique threat posed by Hezbollah, a group that combines terrorist and criminal activities to great effect. Another challenge is the baseline capability of the Venezuelan military and security services, certainly well below where Colombian personnel were when U.S. troops first began training them in the early 2000s.

There is also the issue of Iran. Hezbollah is backed by a regime in Tehran that provides it with upward of $700 million annually, according to some estimates. Venezuela serves as Iran’s entry point into Latin America, a foothold the Iranians are unlikely to cede without putting up a fight. Moreover, Russia retains a vested interest in propping up Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and keeping him in power, given the longstanding relationship between the two countries.
Moscow recently warned the United States against intervening in Venezuela militarily. Further, after cooperating closely in Syria, Hezbollah is now a known quantity to the Kremlin and an organization that President Vladimir Putin could view as an asset that, at the very least, will not interfere with Russia’s designs to extend its influence in the Western Hemisphere.

Treating the Maduro regime as illegitimate, sanctioning its top officials, and sending aid despite a blockade will hasten its demise and speed the transition to democratic governance.

ARGUMENT | 

IRWIN COTLER, BRANDON SILVER

If the Maduro regime is ultimately ousted from power, it will likely have a negative impact on Hezbollah in Venezuela. After all, the group’s tentacles extend into the upper reaches of Venezuela’s current government—Tareck El Aissami, the minister of industries and national production, was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department under a counter-narcotics authority and allegedly has a close relationship with Hezbollah.

Yet on balance, Hezbollah has deep roots in Venezuela, and completely expelling the group—no matter how high a priority for the Trump administration—remains unlikely. The best-case scenario for Washington could be an ascendant Guaidó administration that agrees to combat Hezbollah’s influence—if the new government is willing to accept a U.S. presence in the country to begin training Venezuelan forces in the skills necessary to counter terrorism and transnational organized criminal networks with strong ties to Venezuelan society. But that scenario, of course, is dependent on the United States offering such assistance in the first place.

Colin P. Clarke is a Senior Fellow at The Soufan Center and an adjunct senior political scientist at Rand Corp.