World Economic Forum Special Meeting

Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman will patronize the World Economic Forum (WEF) Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth, and Energy for Development on April 28 and 29 in Riyadh.

More than 1000 global leaders, including heads of state and government, and thought leaders from across the public and private sectors, as well as from international organizations, academic institutions, and non-government organizations will participate in the two-day event convened by Saudi Arabia.

The Special Meeting, which will focus on three central themes of Global Collaboration, Growth, and Energy for Development, will address the most pressing present day global development challenges.

The sessions will witness productive dialogues to enhance global collaboration and stimulate collective international action to devise sustainable solutions in a world marked by growing social and economic disparities, as developed nations surpass pre-pandemic levels of activity, while emerging economies continue to play catch-up, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Under Global Collaboration, dialogues will explore how to overcome today’s geopolitical upheavals and challenges, especially with the mounting humanitarian crises in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, while looking to foster inclusive dialogues between the Global South and North.

On the topic of Growth, the deliberations at Special Meeting will examine how the trends of transformation, innovation and economic policy-making are helping to create inclusive growth models through new investment frameworks, while looking to outline solutions to the deepening inequalities between developed and developing economies.

Under Energy for Development, leaders attending the meeting will focus on the need to achieve a net-zero future through an inclusive global energy transition.

The Special Meeting marks a continuation of the long-standing technical and policy-making collaboration between Saudi Arabia and the World Economic Forum, and builds on the impact of the Kingdom’s active participation and contributions at the Forum’s annual meetings held in Davos, Switzerland each year.

The agenda of the Special Meeting, which has been designed to revive the spirit of cooperation and collaboration, includes several panel discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities, and represents a unique convergence of global leaders and experts committed to forging a path towards a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable world.

The choice of Riyadh as the host for the WEF Special Meeting is tipped to be as a testament to Saudi Arabia’s global role in fostering international cooperation and collaboration. Since the launch of Saudi Vision 2030, Riyadh has emerged as a global capital and platform for thought leadership and action, innovation, and solutions that deliver worldwide impact, it was pointed out.

Iran to prosper despite external pressures

In mid-April, Iran launched a barrage of rockets and drones at Israel—an unprecedented direct attack that marks a major escalation of tensions between the two perennial geopolitical enemies. Yet even as the external threats to Iran’s economy have increased, the country’s energy sector has appeared to go from strength to strength, with news reports highlighting that Iranian oil exports have recently risen to a six-year high.

Iranian oil exports to rise

Iran’s oil production is estimated to average 3.1 million barrels per day this year, which would be the highest reading since 2018—the year then-US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. This will be in stark contrast to the Middle East’s other major oil exporters, which unlike Iran are mostly subject to OPEC curbs ‑ output from Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE is seen falling this year. As a result, Iran’s economy is expected to grow more quickly than the Middle East and North Africa average in 2024.

Further sanctions to be ineffective

Though Western nations are reportedly readying further sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, they are likely to miss the mark, given Iran’s considerable experience and skill at averting sanctions, and the fact that almost all the country’s oil is already being sold to China, not the West. US President Joe Biden is unlikely to push hard to enforce sanctions given that lower oil supply could spur already-persistent inflationary pressures and dampen his chances of beating Trump in the November elections.

Iran’s economy to be subdued domestically

Deteriorating geopolitics may not overly harm the oil sector, but the same is not true of domestic demand. The national currency has depreciated by over a quarter so far this year in the parallel market as a result of political tensions, which will leave Iran with the unenviable record of having the region’s second-highest inflation rate this year after Lebanon. This will entrench already tough domestic economic conditions and hit consumer spending and investment in turn.

Conflict with Israel is the elephant in the room

The probability is that there will be no all-out war between Iran and Israel. If this were to occur—which is not off the table, given the hawkish military leadership in both countries and the high risk of political miscalculation—all bets would be off, and Iran’s economy would quickly wave goodbye to its current resilience.

 

United States godfathering Israel

Lately, the United States blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have recognized a Palestinian state. Twelve members of the Security Council had voted in favor of the resolution, while two countries – the UK and Switzerland – abstained. The United States vetoed it.

The Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, sharply criticized the US veto, saying in a statement that it was unfair, immoral, and unjustified, and defies the will of the international community, which strongly supports the State of Palestine obtaining full membership in the United Nations.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz praised the US for vetoing what he called a shameful proposal.

US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel had announced earlier that the US would vote against the Security Council resolution, saying that the US has been very clear, consistently, that premature actions in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people, referring to the headquarters of the United Nations.

He also noted there was no unanimity as to whether the Palestinians met the criteria for membership as a state in the UN, saying the US believes future statehood should be dependent on negotiations between Israel and representatives of the Palestinians.

“The most expeditious path towards statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority with the support of the United States and other partners who share this goal,” Patel said.

Palestinian attempts for recognition as a full member state began in 2011. They are currently a non-member observer state, a status that was granted in November 2012.

At the time, UN Ambassador of the Palestinian Territories Riyad Mansour called the step a historic moment, adding that he hoped the Security Council will elevate itself to implanting the global consensus on the two-state solution by admitting the state of Palestine for full membership.

Israel’s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan condemned Friday’s move as consideration of a Palestinian terror state.

“This won’t be a regular state. It will be a Palestine-Nazi state, an entity that achieved statehood despite being committed to terror and Israel’s annihilation,” Erdan added.

The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed disappointment over the UN Security Council's failure to pass a draft resolution that would have granted full UN membership to the State of Palestine.

The ministry said this decision contributes to the ongoing challenges faced by the region, particularly by allowing the continuation of Israeli occupation forces' actions without repercussions.

The ministry emphasized that the obstruction of Palestine's full membership in the UN hinders peace efforts and allows violations of the international law to persist.

Saudi Arabia reiterated its call for the international community to take decisive actions to stop attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip and to support the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood. This state, according to Saudi Arabia, should be established within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, aligning with the parameters set forth by the Arab Peace Initiative and other relevant international resolutions.

 

Israel-Iran encounters and US military strategy

The US military's success in helping Israel stop a recent massive wave of Iranian missiles and drones might suggest Washington is well prepared militarily for whatever comes next as Iran and Israel move from shadow warfare to direct confrontation.

Current and former US officials say US forces are not positioned for a major, sustained Middle East conflict and the Pentagon may have to revisit assumptions about military needs in the region if the crisis deepens.

"I don't think we have all the forces that we would want to support Israel if there was a direct war between them and Iran," said Michael Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under the Trump administration.

Though Tehran has indicated it had no plans to retaliate for an apparent Israeli strike on Friday, the tit-for-tat attacks have raised fears of an unpredictable regional war that the United States has sought to prevent.

In the months since an attack by Hamas militants on Israel triggered a war in Gaza that has ignited unrest throughout the Middle East. The United States has rushed thousands of US service members to a region that had seen a steadily declining US presence over years.

Many of those new US troops are on warships and aircraft that move in and out of the region, and are only temporarily deployed. That US strategy to rely on surge forces could be tested now Iran and Israel have broken the taboo of open military strikes against each other.

"What it means for the US military is that I think we have to revisit this idea of what are the necessary, sustainable military capabilities that we have to maintain in the region," said Joseph Votel, a retired four star Army general who led US troops in the Middle East.

Votel and other former officials said the US military's success in downing Iran's drones and missiles last Saturday was presumably aided by detailed US intelligence that allowed the Pentagon to anticipate the timing and targets of Iran's attack.

"I think the bigger concern is our ability to be responsive over a sustained period of time," Votel said.

US officials say Iran does not appear to want an all-out war with Israel, and Tehran has played down Friday's strike. Still, experts warn the situation is unpredictable, particularly as long as the Israel-Hamas conflict rages.

US Army General Michael "Erik" Kurilla, the current head of Central Command, told lawmakers last month that he had requested more troops than the Pentagon had sent to his region, which President Joe Biden's administration has said is a lower priority than the challenge from China.

In written testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, Kurilla said a dangerous shortfall in US intelligence assets, targeting expertise and linguists contributes to gaps and seams in our ability to detect and disrupt plots, increasing freedom of movement for violent extremist organizations.

Although Kurilla's comments appeared more focused on Afghanistan, some intelligence shortfalls have already affected US strategy since the start of the war in Gaza.

For example, a lack of detail about Houthi weapons stockpiles before the Iran-backed group started attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea has made it hard to determine the effect of months of strikes on the group's arsenal of missiles and drones, said officials.

Still, sending more US troops to the Middle East and bolstering intelligence assets longer-term could prove difficult, officials say.

"Troops are spread around Europe and those that aren't are going through overdue maintenance cycles," one US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"And Asia is supposed to be the focus."

Another official said it was still unclear whether the US military was prepared to pull forces from Asia or Europe, despite the increase in tensions.

Prior to October, the last time the United States surged thousands of troops into the Middle East was under former President Donald Trump, during a series of escalatory actions that culminated in the US killing of Iran's top general and a retaliatory missile attack by Tehran on a US base in Iraq.

The first US official noted that the surge of troops in 2019 and 2020 was possible because, unlike today, Washington did not have to dedicate so many personnel and resources to Europe, a new reality following Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Mulroy said the United States should strengthen its position in the Middle East without abandoning its China-first focus.

 

 

Western media: Bias against Palestinians

A series of studies have been published in recent weeks analyzing coverage of the war in Gaza, and the results reveal an overwhelming bias against Palestinians.

In the first six weeks of the war, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times used the terms "slaughter" and "massacre" 60 times more frequently in reference to Israelis than Palestinians, despite Palestinian deaths outnumbering those of Israelis by an order of magnitude.

CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News mentioned Israeli deaths four times as often as Palestinians during roughly the same time frame.

And on the four major Sunday morning TV talk shows, Israeli guests outnumbered Palestinians 10 to 1.

In the words of Mehdi Hasan — the former MSNBC journalist whose show was canceled after he committed the unpardonable sin of asking tough questions of a senior Israeli government official — "What else do you call that other than the deliberate dehumanization of the Palestinian people?"

Need to check Israeli attempts

The Iran-Israel shadow war has very much come out into the open. Tel Aviv had been targeting Tehran’s assets for over a decade, particularly in Syria, taking advantage of the chaos engendered by that country’s civil war. A number of Iranian scientists, especially those associated with the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, had been assassinated within Iran in hits widely considered to have been orchestrated by Israel.

While the Iranians are known for their strategic patience, and for playing the long game, the April 01 Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus, in which a number of senior Iranian generals were killed, had crossed a red line. There was tremendous pressure on Iran from within to reply to this Israeli transgression, and the ayatollah and his generals had to respond without triggering a major regional war.

Tehran’s response came in the shape of the April 13 assault on Israel, a barrage that was short on destructiveness, yet scored a major strategic and PR victory for Iran. The suspected Israeli strikes targeting Iranian facilities in Isfahan early on Friday are the latest move on this dangerous chessboard.

While Tel Aviv has officially kept mum about the Isfahan misadventure — Israel rarely owns up to subterfuge outside of its borders — some politicians in the Zionist state have celebrated the attacks, while American media, quoting sources, have said this is Israel’s handiwork. The Iranians themselves appear to be downplaying the event, and an airbase and nuclear facilities in the area seem to be safe.

Once again, the clamour for de-escalation has been echoing from global capitals. Surely a wider war is in no one’s interest — except perhaps for the extremists in Israel — but true de-escalation means Israel must start behaving like a normal state, not a rogue nation that threatens the entire region, as well as the forsaken Palestinians captive in the occupied territories.

The UN secretary general has said “one miscalculation … one mistake, could lead to the unthinkable”. But this is perhaps just what Benjamin Netanyahu and the cabal of zealots in the unruly coalition that backs him may want. After all, Israel has been facing global opprobrium for its butchery in Gaza, while Netanyahu is facing significant domestic opposition for his handling of the debacle.

Thus, a war with Iran may be a useful distraction to shift the focus from Palestine, and rally Israel’s Western friends behind it to protect the Middle East’s ‘only democracy’ against Tehran.

Suffice to say, any scenario pitting the Israeli-Western collective against Iran and its ‘axis of resistance’ allies will result in an explosion in the Middle East, causing oil prices to skyrocket, and global trade to be upended. To avoid this, Washington, London and Brussels need to check Israel’s destabilizing behaviour.

Courtesy: Dawn

Warmongers approve US$95 billion package

The US House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a US$95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners, reports Reuters.

Passage of the long-awaited legislation was closely watched by US defense contractors, who are in line for huge contracts to supply equipment for Ukraine and other US partners.

The legislation now proceeds to the Democratic majority Senate, which passed a similar measure more than two months ago. US leaders from Democratic President Joe Biden to top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell had been urging embattled Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring it up for a vote.

The Senate is set to begin considering the House-passed bill on Tuesday, with some preliminary votes that afternoon. Final passage was expected sometime next week, which would clear the way for Biden to sign it into law.

The bills provide U$60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine, including US$23 billion to replenish US weapons, stocks and facilities; US$26 billion for Israel, including US$9.1 billion for humanitarian needs, and US$8.12 billion for the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his thanks, saying US lawmakers moved to keep "history on the right track."

"The vital US aid bill passed today by the House will keep the war from expanding, save thousands and thousands of lives, and help both of our nations to become stronger," Zelenskiy said on X.

The Biden administration is already finalizing its next assistance package for Ukraine so it can announce the new tranche of aid soon after the bill becomes law in order to meet Ukraine’s urgent battlefield needs, a White House official said.

Biden, who had urged Congress since last year to approve the additional aid to Ukraine, said in a statement, "It comes at a moment of grave urgency, with Israel facing unprecedented attacks from Iran and Ukraine under continued bombardment from Russia."

The vote on passage of the Ukraine funding was 311-112. Significantly, 112 Republicans opposed the legislation, with only 101 in support.

"Mike Johnson is a lame duck ... he's done," far-right Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene told reporters afterward.

Marjorie has been a leading opponent of helping Ukraine in its war against Russia and has taken steps that threaten to remove Johnson from office over this issue. Greene stopped short of doing so on Saturday.

During the vote, several lawmakers waved small Ukrainian flags as it became clear that element of the package was headed to passage. Johnson warned lawmakers that was a "violation of decorum."

The House's actions during a rare Saturday session put on display some cracks in what generally is solid support for Israel within Congress.

Recent months have seen progressive Democrats express anger with Israel's government and its conduct of the war in Gaza.

Saturday's vote, in which the Israel aid was passed 366-58, had 37 Democrats and 21 Republicans in opposition.

Johnson this week chose to ignore ouster threats by hardline members of his fractious 218-213 majority and push forward the measure that includes Ukraine funding as it struggles to fight off a two-year Russian invasion.

The unusual four-bill package also includes a measure that includes a threat to ban the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok and the potential transfer of seized Russian assets to Ukraine.

Some hardline Republicans voicing strong opposition to further Ukraine aid argued the United States can ill afford it given its rising $34 trillion national debt. They have repeatedly raised the threat of ousting Johnson, who became speaker in October after his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted by party hardliners.

"It's not the perfect legislation, it's not the legislation that we would write if Republicans were in charge of both the House, the Senate, and the White House," Johnson told reporters on Friday. "This is the best possible product that we can get under these circumstances to take care of these really important obligations."

Representative Bob Good, chair of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, told reporters on Friday that the bills represent a "slide down into the abyss of greater fiscal crisis and America-last policies that reflect Biden and (Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer and (House Democratic leader Hakeem) Jeffries, and don't reflect the American people."

But Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who carries huge influence in the party, on April 12 voiced support for Johnson and in a Thursday social media post said Ukraine's survival is important for the US.