ALGIERS: Algeria launched its campaign Wednesday for constitutional reforms for a “New Republic” that the government hopes will satisfy a popular protest movement — to the apparent indifference of many.
The constitutional changes, a flagship initiative of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, are set to be put to a referendum on November 1, the anniversary of the start of Algeria’s 1954-1962 war of independence from France.
“November 1954: liberation, November 2020: change,” the official campaign slogan reads.
But many ordinary Algerians — struggling during a deep economic crisis that has seen unemployment soar — appear skeptical it will make any meaningful difference.
“What change are we talking about? Nothing has changed with these people in power,” said Ali, a former trade union official.
Popular anti-government demonstrations led by the Hirak — meaning in Arabic, “the movement” — pushed ailing president Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power last year.
Protesters demanded radical changes to the entire state system they revile as undemocratic and corrupt.
In a bid to shore up his mandate, Bouteflika’s successor Tebboune pledged to revise the constitution and allow people to approve or reject proposals in a referendum.
But some see the referendum as a cynical way for the government to appear to bring change while maintaining its power.
“They want to steal the hopes born from Hirak,” Ali added.
While the referendum was mentioned on radio and television stations, there were no campaign posters seen on the streets of Algiers.
“Why vote for a project to which I do not have access?” said elderly Algerian Brahim Bahmed, complaining that the “promised broad debate did not take place.”
“It’s hard to imagine popular enthusiasm during the campaign,” said political scientist Mansour Kedidir, noting that ordinary citizens “care more about the precariousness of life than the rhetoric of reform.”
Opposition parties are themselves divided, with some calling for people to vote against the changes, and others to boycott the referendum entirely.
“Abstention risks being… the main winner and a crisis of legitimacy its logical consequence,” said Louisa Dris-Ait-Hamadouche, a lecturer from the University of Algiers.

DUBAI: Economically battered even before the COVID-19 crisis, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is hard pressed to defy predictions of greater gloom.

Extended lockdowns, border closures and flight cancelations have exacerbated the economic pains of millions of skilled and unskilled laborers, mainly in middle- and lower-income countries, already struggling to meet daily needs.

With government measures to combat COVID-19 threatening to tip millions of people into poverty — hitting women, refugees, migrant workers and those in the informal economy the hardest — a huge increase in inequality is very likely, the international charity Oxfam said in a recent report.

“If another decade of pain is to be averted, governments need to take immediate action to reduce inequality through providing public services to protect ordinary people by taxing the richest and guaranteeing decent work.”

At the same time, the combined wealth of the rich in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) increased by nearly $10 billion, more than twice the total emergency financing the region received from the International Monetary Fund to help it weather the global crisis, according to Oxfam, a confederation of nearly 20 charitable organization working to alleviate poverty around the world. 

The pandemic has “exposed the lack of protection for the most vulnerable people in MENA, deepened the gap between the rich and the poor, and exacerbated the existing inequality in the region, said the report, entitled “For a decade of hope, not austerity, in the Middle East and North Africa.” 

“Sometimes you have an idea of the size of the wealth and the inequality in the region, but when you are able to quantify some of these issues, this can be very important,” said Nabil Abdo, senior policy adviser and co-author of the Oxfam report, in an interview with Arab News from Beirut. “I think that is the important thing we did in this report.” 

Based on nearly three months of research and data from government and international and regional organizations, the report focuses on four Arab countries — Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Lebanon. Data on the region’s wealthy was based on Forbes magazine’s list. 

“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the lack of protection for the most vulnerable people in MENA, and will result in these people being even more vulnerable than they are already,” the report said.

“The impacts of the pandemic are expected to create a deep economic hole, out of which countries will have to climb. A fiscal deficit of 11.1 percent in regional GDP is expected, compared with 3.2 percent in 2019,” Oxfam said.

“Remittances, which constitute 5.7 percent of GDP, are expected to fall by almost 20 percent. Foreign investment is projected to drop by 45 percent, and an astonishing 1.7 million jobs expected to be lost — 700,000 held by women — with an estimated total loss of income of $42 billion. It is thought that more than 10 percent of working hours in the region were wiped out in the second quarter of 2020, equivalent to at least 8 million full-time jobs.”

The middle and working classes are expected to suffer the biggest hit, says the report, with the economic measures introduced to prevent the spread of the virus likely to push an additional 45 million people into poverty across the region.

“This will intensify the already huge inequalities found in MENA, where the richest 10 percent of the population control 76 percent of all income,” the report said.

The affluent were “untouched,” and their wealth has increased by at least $9.8 billion between March and August 2020, according to Oxfam.

Bridging the gap, Nabil Abdo says, requires a combination of policies. Foremost would be tax reforms in the form of a new “solidarity tax” on the net wealth of the extremely rich and a reduction in taxes levied on the poorest.

Other steps recommended by him include strengthening “weak” social protection nets; investing in public services including health, education and transportation; ensuring “dignified and decent work” with full rights such as leave and pensions for people and migrant workers; and relaxation in terms and conditions for loans to support small and medium enterprises.

Hussein Mohamed Suleiman, an economic researcher at Cairo’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, says new taxes on the wealthy is an idea worth exploring as long as it does not amount to excessive revenue collection.

“You have to be careful, or you might face capital (and) business flight. We are living now in an open world, so if you overtax businesses, they might go elsewhere, while you actually need them,” Suleiman told Arab News from Cairo.

“You have to avoid taxing corporate profits too much, and start taxing spending, such as in real estate, and personal wealth,” he said. “Some are proposing progressive consumption tax, not income tax. In other words, a wealthy person who earns a large amount of money is not taxed that much. But if he or she starts spending this money on luxuries, then it is taxed.”

In Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab region, COVID-19 has exacerbated the gap between the rich and the poor, which has been widening for the past three years in tandem with the implementation, in consultation with the IMF, of an economic reform program.

Egypt’s poverty rate, which had reached 32.5 percent in mid-2018, is believed to have risen since then. Unemployment is estimated at about 10 percent, but the situation might have worsened due to the pandemic’s impact on the country’s main income sources, namely tourism revenues, remittances from expatriates abroad and trade through the Suez Canal, which together traditionally have accounted for nearly 15 percent of Egypt’s GDP.

Though Egypt has tried to minimize economically damaging lockdowns, many parts of the world have stopped “sending tourists” or conducting trade through the Suez waterway.

Jordan, which introduced strict measures during the first six months of the pandemic, is also suffering. At least 15 economic sectors, including tourism facilities, transportation and meeting halls, are on the verge of complete shutdowns.

Nearly 200,000 people have lost their jobs in a country where nearly 90 percent of the domestic economy is based on small and medium enterprises, according to economist and columnist Khaled Al-Zubeidy. “In June, the official unemployment percentage reached 23 percent, the highest in the history of the kingdom,” he told Arab News from Amman.

“Unemployment is accompanied by poverty, because those who don’t have jobs are inevitably poor. The gap between the rich, on the one hand, and the poor or extremely poor, on the other hand, has widened.” On the positive side, Al-Zubeidy said, businesses producing sanitizers, masks and disposable protective suits for health workers have flourished in recent months.

To bridge the rich-poor gap, the government must rationalize its expenses, especially those on non-essential goods and services. “In Jordan the annual budget is very large compared to the GDP, which is really odd,” Al-Zubeidy said.

“It is like someone who buys a shirt for 20 dinars and wears it with a suit that costs 2 dinars. One should not forget that Jordan’s foreign debt has reached $43 billion, which is equivalent to nearly 103 percent of its GDP.”

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Twitter: @jumanaaltamimi

DUBAI: Dubai’s Expo 2020 two-day digital event “Space Week” that featured the latest on space travel and exploration came to a close on Tuesday.

The event held on Oct. 5-6 brought together Expo 2020 international participants, official partners and the general public to highlight the latest innovations in space research and travel.

It discussed topics such as the participation of women in the space sector and the UAE space landscape.

“Science is the most international profession, the one truly global culture. Protons and proteins are the same everywhere in the world so science can straddle every nationality and faith more easily than most professions can, so we find it easier to collaborate.

It’s clear that more and more of the issues that the world cares about – anything to do with the environment or the climate – require collaboration,” Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal; Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, said. 

Space week was the first of Expo-led ten thematic weeks offering a preview of a wide range of exhibitions and initiatives that will be brought to life when Expo 2020 takes place, from Oct. 1 2021 to March 31, 2022.

Omran Sharaf, Project Director of the Emirates Mars Mission (Hope Probe) from the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre said: “The nice thing about space is that we don’t have one identity, we are citizens of this planet. So through this mission, the UAE wants to send that message to the Arab youth and inspire them – if the UAE, a young nation is able to reach Mars in less than 50 years, then we can do much more.”

Themes such as new perspectives about life on Earth and combatting misinformation were addressed in the World Majlis, the event’s thematic dialogue programme that engaged thought leaders and students.

Brian C. Odom, NASA’s acting chief historian (Acting), added: “I’m excited, and I know a lot of people at NASA are, about Expo 2020 and NASA’s participation. I think it’s a great opportunity to talk about our past. It’s a great opportunity to talk about where we are in space flight today. I think that’s what opportunities like this Expo do for us. It allows us to think about what we can accomplish collectively as a species and what might be ahead of us in exploration.”

Meanwhile, on Monday, Saudi Arabia organized its first-of-a-kind meeting of space agency leaders. The Saudi Space Commission met with its counterparts from other G20 countries in a forum to address present and future space enterprise.

CAIRO: The UAE’ foreign minister said on Tuesday, in a joint statement with Israeli and German counterparts, that the most important thing that must be emphasized today is the return of hope to Palestinians and Israelis to work for a two-state solution, UAE state news agency (WAM) reported.
Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan said he also discussed with Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi in Berlin cooperation in the energy field, WAM said.
The foreign ministers met in Germany on Tuesday to discuss further steps in normalizing relations after signing an agreement last month in Washington to normalize diplomatic ties and forge a broad new relationship.

Developing…

ANKARA: The visit of NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg coinciding with the emergence of footage showing the transit the Russian-made S-400 missile defense system through the Black Sea city of Samsun on Tuesday points to the tension between Turkey’s defense priorities and the security of the transatlantic alliance.

A notice was released the same day to close northern airspace for 10 days due to the S-400 and drone exercises in Sinop, the final destination of the Russian system, right across Russian territories.

The footage came a day after Stoltenberg warned that Ankara’s controversial purchase of the S-400 surface-to air-missile system posed a real risk to allied aircraft and can result in US sanctions.

The US has not yet commented on Turkey’s plan, but excluded it last year from its fifth generation F-35 joint strike fighter program after the country received the first batch of the Russian defense system.

“Turkey’s decision to test the S-400 missile system immediately after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit was, of course, very displeasing to its NATO allies,” Turkey expert Matthew Goldman, from the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul, told Arab News.

“Stoltenberg was in Turkey to try to calm Turkish-Greek tensions, but also to urge Turkey to refrain from activating the S-400 system, warning that this could trigger American sanctions on Turkey. Proceeding with a test of the system today, when Stoltenberg was in Athens, sent a strong signal that Turkey is doubling down and in no mood to succumb to pressure from its NATO allies.”

According to a Bloomberg report, Turkey plans to test the S-400 next week at a site on the Black Sea coast. While the move does not mean that Turkey is immediately activating the Russian system, reports in Ankara suggest that the activation card may be used as leverage.

The exercises, where 10 British-made Banshee target drones will also be used to test the S-400s, are set to last until Oct. 16. The engagement capability of the S-400 weapons, as well as the detection and tracking ability of the system’s radars and communications system potential, will be tested.

“The timing of the testing simply pushes us to the conclusion that this may be an instrument of messaging toward Russia and Armenia,” Karol Wasilewski, an analyst at the Warsaw-based Polish Institute of International Affairs, told Arab News.

According to Wasilewski, Turkey may want to show its resolve on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and talk Russia into negotiations about the conflict.

“This is not the first test. The first one happened in November 2019. Turkey tried it once and endured no consequences, so I think now decision-makers are also sure there will be no consequences,” he said.

However Aaron Stein, a Turkey expert and director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that the timing of the S-400 testing was more geared around the US political calendar and the upcoming elections.

“As we enter that lame duck period from November to January, where there is the possibility of a delay in reporting electoral results because of the large number of mail-in ballots, now would seem to be a good time to test the S-400 and delay the imposition of sanctions,” he told Arab News.

As NATO does not have a mandate to discuss the S-400 issue, Stein regards the subject first and foremost as a bilateral dispute between Washington and Ankara.

Ankara’s potential activation of the $2.5 billion Russian system is believed to be a game-changer in the region with all the major risks that its connection to other NATO radar systems could bring in terms of cyberthreats.

“This is just going to harden anti-Turkey sentiment. Ankara is already under a de facto arms embargo and it may soon face sanctions under Section 231 of the 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). It has also lost the F-35. Things are already bad and they may get worse,” Stein said.

Washington considers countries having “significant” financial transactions with Russia’s military sector as eligible for CAATSA sanctions.

Goldman said that the recent US move to station a ship in Crete, in response to Turkey using its S-400 system to lock onto Greek F-16 fighter planes, was fuel added to the fire.

“Turkey, rather than seeking to douse the flames, is taking the dispute up a notch,” he added.

Goldman said the testing move was destined to aggravate tensions with its Western partners just when Turkey needed them the most – for balancing against Russia, for diplomacy with Greece, and most importantly, for financial help amid Turkey’s worst economic crisis in a generation.

“This move is in line with Ankara’s increasing tendency to escalate when confronted with a challenge,” he said.

He agreed that the timing of the S-400 test was also a response to recent events in the US, as Turkey may be trying to take advantage of the Washington power vacuum.

“As Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said back in September 2019, Turkey did not buy the S-400 missiles just as a prop, and it makes sense for them to want to deploy the system given the recent saber rattling with Greece, France, and other countries. Perhaps Ankara thinks that once the S-400 system is in place, it will then still be able to get Western financial help, like a swap line from the US Fed, once these tensions pass,” he said.