DUBAI: Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist who famously forecast the “end of history,” told the World Government Summit in Dubai that Iran was heading toward a crisis caused by social tensions between generations within the country.
“In Iran. there has been a social revolution going on beneath the surface. There is a young population, well-educated women in particular, who do not correspond to the rural, conservative power structure that runs the country. It’s headed toward some kind of explosion and I’m not sure of the outcome, but it is not a stable situation.”
His warning came during a sobering speech that highlighted many of the challenges facing government and policy-makers, from the weakness of international institutions to the threat of cyber and biological warfare, and the rise of “strongman” leaders in many parts of the world.
Fukuyama said that recent disturbances in Iran were partly because of climate change factors such as drought and water shortage, which often caused violence and cut across all the other risk factors.
“A lot of the recent unrest in Iran had environmental causes. Ground water sources were being overused, leading to drought. A lot of violence in the world is due to climate change,” he said.
There were some positives in an otherwise gloomy analysis of global affairs. In conversation with Anwar Gargash, the UAE minister of foreign affairs, he said that the Gulf states had shown that it was possible to establish credible economic and political models without the influence of Western liberal democratic institutions.
“The Gulf has got the ‘liberal’ part well. It has security and the rule of law and property rights. Maybe the democratic aspect has been shown to be not that necessary.
“The Gulf is showing the rest of the Arab world how to do it. The problem with the Arab world has been not being able to establish stable states. Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen are all failed states to some degree or other,” he said.
Fukuyama said that Tunisia, where he has traveled recently, was the only democracy to come out of the Arab Spring upheavals of 2011. “But they are not delivering economic growth. The country will not collapse but it is hanging by a thread.”
He agreed that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the precursor to American disentanglement from the region, and that there was now a serious risk of “big power” confrontation in Syria. The dominance of the US from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the global financial crisis was an anomaly. There has never been a period when one state had so much power. Now the US is not reacting well because it’s used to being in charge.
Fukuyama said that the US was being “displaced” by China, which already has a bigger economy by some measurements. “The global financial crisis discredited the economic systems of the USA and the European Union. The ‘one belt, one road’ policy of China is hugely ambitious, shifting the entire global center of gravity to central Asia with the aim of moving China to a new stage of their national development.”
He said that financial markets were underrating the risk of serious military conflict in Korea. “It could be a replay of the Korean War of the 1950s,” he said.
But he said that the most serious threat to the global liberal order came from within Western countries, where populism, anti-globalization and anti-migration sentiment had led to the rise of a class of “strongman” leaders who were undermining the institutions of their countries.
He said that the “old poles” of capitalism versus communism were dead, but were giving way to “identity politics” — clashes between ethnicities and religions, where compromise was harder to achieve. He said that Islamic terrorism was an example of identity politics.
Iran is heading toward a social explosion, says ‘end of history’ man Fukuyama
Iran is heading toward a social explosion, says ‘end of history’ man Fukuyama
Lebanon army accuses Israel of ‘procrastination’ in ceasefire withdrawal
BEIRUT: The Lebanese army on Saturday said it was ready to deploy its forces in the country’s south, accusing Israel of “procrastination” in its withdrawal under a 60-day ceasefire deal with a Sunday deadline.
“There has been a delay at a number of stages as a result of the procrastination in the withdrawal from the Israeli enemy’s side,” the army said in a statement, confirming it was “ready to continue its deployment as soon as the Israeli enemy withdraws.”
Yemen’s Houthi rebels unilaterally release 153 war detainees, Red Cross says
- However, the release follows the Houthis detaining another seven Yemeni workers from the United Nations
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi rebels unilaterally released 153 war detainees Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
The Houthis had signaled Friday night they planned a release of prisoners, part of their efforts to ease tensions after the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
However, the release follows the Houthis detaining another seven Yemeni workers from the United Nations, sparking anger from the world body.
The Red Cross said it “welcomes this unilateral release as another positive step toward reviving negotiations” over ending the country’s long-running war.
Hamas set to release four Israeli soldier hostages in second swap
- Exchange would be the second since the ceasefire began on Sunday
- Red Cross to receive them from Hamas and hand them over to Israeli forces
JERUSALEM/CAIRO: The Palestinian militant movement Hamas is expected to release four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday in exchange for a group of Palestinian prisoners under a ceasefire agreement aimed at ending the 15-month-old war in Gaza.
The four soldiers — Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag — were all stationed at an observation post on the edge of Gaza and abducted by Hamas fighters who overran their base during the attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Hamas released the list of 200 Palestinian prisoners set to be released by Israel on Saturday in exchange for the four female Israeli soldiers. The prisoners include long-serving inmates and others with lengthy sentences.
Their identities have not yet been published but they are likely to include members of militant groups convicted for deadly attacks that killed dozens of people.
Saturday’s exchange would be the second since the ceasefire began on Sunday and Hamas handed over three Israeli civilians in exchange for 90 Palestinian prisoners. Live video showed armed Hamas men arriving at a Gaza City square ahead of the release.
Hamas identified on Friday the four hostages to be released in the second swap. But Israel has not commented officially and may not do so until it actually receives them.
The Red Cross will receive them from Hamas in Gaza and hand them over to Israeli forces who will transport them into Israel, where they will be reunited with family, undergo initial medical treatment and taken to hospital. Another female soldier abducted with them is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Video of the four’s abduction aired in May showed the five conscripts, pyjama-clad and stunned and some bloodied, being bound and bundled into a jeep. The footage was recovered from bodycams worn by gunmen who attacked the Nahal Oz base in southern Israel where the women served as surveillance spotters.
PHASED CEASEFIRE
The ceasefire agreement, worked out after months of on-off negotiations brokered by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States, has halted the fighting for the first time since a truce that lasted just a week in November 2023.
In the first six-week phase of the deal, Hamas has agreed to release 33 hostages, including children, women, older men and the sick and injured, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, while Israeli troops pull back from some of their positions in the Gaza Strip.
In a subsequent phase, the two sides would negotiate the exchange of the remaining hostages, including men of military age, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, which lies largely in ruins after 15 months of fighting and Israeli bombardment.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, when militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, more than 47,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to health authorities there.
After the release on Sunday of hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari and Doron Steinbrecher and the recovery of the body of an Israeli soldier missing for a decade, Israel says 94 Israelis and foreigners remain held in Gaza. Around a third have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.
Gaza aid surge having an impact but challenges remain
- In final months before ceasefire, aid convoys were routinely looted by gangs, residents
- In central Gaza, residents say flow of aid has begun to take effect as prices normalize
JERUSALEM: Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began last weekend, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains an enormous challenge.
The destruction of the infrastructure that previously processed deliveries and the collapse of the structures that used to maintain law and order make the safe delivery of aid to the territory’s 2.4 million people a logistical and security nightmare.
In the final months before the ceasefire, the few aid convoys that managed to reach central and northern Gaza were routinely looted, either by desperate civilians or by criminal gangs.
Over the past week, UN officials have reported “minor incidents of looting” but they say they are hopeful that these will cease once the aid surge has worked its way through.
In Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, an AFP cameraman filmed two aid trucks passing down a dirt road lined with bombed out buildings.
At the first sight of the dust cloud kicked up by the convoy, residents began running after it.
Some jumped onto the truck’s rear platforms and cut through the packaging to reach the food parcels inside.
UN humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East Muhannad Hadi said: “It’s not organized crime. Some kids jump on some trucks trying to take food baskets.
“Hopefully, within a few days, this will all disappear, once the people of Gaza realize that we will have aid enough for everybody.”
central Gaza, residents said the aid surge was beginning to have an effect.
“Prices are affordable now,” said Hani Abu Al-Qambaz, a shopkeeper in Deir el-Balah. For 10 shekels ($2.80), “I can buy a bag of food for my son and I’m happy.”
The Gaza spokesperson of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that while the humanitarian situation remained “alarming,” some food items had become available again.
The needs are enormous, though, particularly in the north, and it may take longer for the aid surge to have an impact in all parts of the territory.
In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect themselves from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.
In northern Gaza, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the ceasefire, tens of thousands had had no access to deliveries of food or drinking water for weeks before the ceasefire.
With Hamas’s leadership largely eliminated by Israel during the war, Gaza also lacks any political authority for aid agencies to work with.
In recent days, Hamas fighters have begun to resurface on Gaza’s streets. But the authority of the Islamist group which ruled the territory for nearly two decades has been severely dented, and no alternative administration is waiting in the wings.
That problem is likely to get worse over the coming week, as Israeli legislation targeting the lead UN aid agency in Gaza takes effect.
Despite repeated pleas from the international community for a rethink, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza for decades, will be effectively barred from operating from Tuesday.
UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler warned the effect would be “catastrophic” as other UN agencies lacked the staff and experience on the ground to replace it.
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned last week that the Israeli legislation risked undermining the fledgling ceasefire.
Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group said the Israeli legislation amounted to “robbing Gaza’s residents of their most capable aid provider, with no clear alternative.”
Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the October 2023 attack by Hamas gunmen, which started the Gaza war.
A series of probes, including one led by France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.
Fighting in Sudan’s war sets ablaze the country’s largest oil refinery, satellite photos show
DUBAI: Fighting around Sudan ‘s largest oil refinery set the sprawling complex ablaze, satellite data analyzed by The Associated Press on Saturday shows, sending thick, black polluted smoke over the country’s capital.
The attacks around the refinery, owned by Sudan’s government and the state-run China National Petroleum Corp., represent the latest woe in a war between the rebel Rapid Support Force and Sudan’s military, who blamed each other for the blaze.
International mediation attempts and pressure tactics, including a US assessment that the RSF and its proxies are committing genocide, have not halted the fighting.
The Al-Jaili refinery sits some 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Khartoum, the capital. The refinery has been subject to previous attacks as the RSF has claimed control of the facility since April 2023, as their forces had been guarding it. Local Sudanese media report the RSF also surrounded the refinery with fields of land mines to slow any advance.
But the facility, capable of handling 100,000 barrels of oil a day, remained broadly intact until Thursday.
An attack on Thursday at the oil field set fires across the complex, according to satellite data from NASA satellites that track wildfires worldwide.
Satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC on Friday for the AP showed vast areas of the refinery ablaze. The images, shot just after 1200 GMT, showed flames shooting up into the sky in several spots. Oil tanks at the facility stood burned, covered in soot.
Thick plumes of black smoke towered over the site, carried south toward Khartoum by the wind. Exposure to that smoke can exacerbate respiratory problems and raise cancer risks.
In a statement released Thursday, the Sudanese military alleged the RSF was responsible for the fire at the refinery.
The RSF “deliberately set fire to the Khartoum refinery in Al-Jaili this morning in a desperate attempt to destroy the infrastructures of this country,” the statement read.
“This hateful behavior reveals the extent of the criminality and decadence of this militia ... (and) increases our determination to pursue it everywhere until we liberate every inch from their filth.”
The RSF for its part alleged Thursday night that Sudanese military aircraft dropped “barrel bombs” on the facility, “completely destroying it.” The RSF has claimed the Sudanese military uses old commercial cargo aircraft to drop barrel bombs, such as one that crashed under mysterious circumstances in October.
Neither the Sudanese military nor the RSF offered evidence to support their dueling allegations.
China, Sudan’s largest trading partner before the war, has not acknowledged the blaze at the refinery. The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
China moved into Sudan’s oil industry after Chevron Corp. left in 1992 amid violence targeting oil workers in another civil war. South Sudan broke away to become its own country in 2011, taking 75 percent of what had been Sudan’s oil reserves with it.
Sudan has been unstable since a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime dictator Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. A short-lived transition to democracy was derailed when army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the RSF joined forces to lead a military coup in October 2021.
Al-Bashir faces charges at the International Criminal Court over carrying out a genocidal campaign in the early 2000s in the western Darfur region with the Janjaweed, the precursor to the RSF. Rights groups and the UN say the RSF and allied Arab militias are again attacking ethnic African groups in this war.
The RSF and Sudan’s military began fighting each other in April 2023. Their conflict has killed more than 28,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.
Other estimates suggest a far higher death toll in the civil war.
