Politieke ontwikkelingen in het Midden-Oosten

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Op zondag 10 december 2017 13:20 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Het is een verfrissing dat Trump zich helemaal niets aantrekt van middeleeuwse praktijken en hysterische linkse moslim vriendjes.

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Op zondag 10 december 2017 13:22 schreef Tem het volgende:

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Hier ben ik het wel mee eens. Het is voornamelijk voor de bühne dit allemaal.

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Egyptian entrepreneurs, such as Ibrahim Soudan, were forced to scour the black market for dollars for most of last year to pay for imports as they battled a crippling foreign currency shortage. Now, though, the country’s banks are flush with greenbacks and the black market for dollars has been wiped out — the result of Cairo’s decision to float the pound in November 2016 to clinch a $12bn International Monetary Fund loan. The devaluation was one of several politically sensitive measures the government took that has earned it plaudits from the IMF and helped lure foreign investors back to the local debt market. Yet for Egyptian business people, the resolution of one problem has triggered a new set of challenges: soaring inflation and rising borrowing costs. The problems are causing some companies to put expansion plans on hold, including Riyada, Mr Soudan’s cheese manufacturer. His business has postponed plans to open a juice factory with a foreign partner, “until we know where we are heading,” he says, citing interest rate rises and the increasing costs of energy, transport and packaging material. “Everything has gone up in a frightening way,” Mr Soudan says. His is not the only business suffering. Companies that have foreign currency debt have been left exposed after the pound lost half its value following its flotation. Manufacturers who rely on imported inputs have seen their working capital fall by as much as half. Inflation running at about 30 per cent has also hit the buying power of companies’ customers.

"Who could have a healthy business with these rates?” says Omar al-Shenety, managing director of Multiples Group, a private equity firm and investment bank. “People are borrowing for working capital, but the risk does not justify long-term capital investment. You have to be making sustainable profits in the order of 30 to 35 per cent in order to take loans at 22 to 24 per cent.” The central bank raised its overnight lending rate in July to 19.75 per cent — its second increase this year. The IMF insists the rate rises and the reforms, which included the introduction of a value added tax and cuts to energy subsidies, were necessary. In November, the fund reached a staff-level agreement to disburse a third tranche, worth $2bn, of the $12bn loan.As part of a second review, the IMF said broad reforms, which included the flotation of the pound, were beginning to pay off in terms of“macroeconomic stabilisation and return of confidence.” The IMF believes the interest rate increases were needed to dampen expectations of inflation which the government predicts will fall to 13 per cent by next year. As foreign inflows have increased and remittances have picked up, foreign reserves have swelled from $19bn to $36.7bn at the end of October. Bankers also say they are noticing renewed interest from foreign firms to invest in the Arab world’s most populous nation. Those positives offer little comfort to Mr Soudan and others in the private sector. He says that with more than 60 per cent of his business’s inputs imported, the company’s production costs have spiralled. But it has not been able to pass on the increases to consumers, who are also being hit by rising living costs. “We have increased prices on average by 15 per cent because consumers’ purchasing power cannot take more, whereas the increase should have been more like 30 per cent,” Mr Soudan says.

His company has been unable to take advantage of the weak pound to boost exports because traditional markets for the Egyptian food industry — Libya, Syria and Yemen — have been plagued by conflict. Business people say they want more supportive policies from the government, including measures to slash bureaucracy and tackle monopolies distorting the market. Sahar Nasr, Egypt’s minister of investment, says these problems are being addressed under a new investment law that provides tax incentives and is intended to reduce red tape. “Investors can expect reduced bureaucracy and red tape, a clear investment policy and easier access to investment opportunities,” she says. “[The law offers] greater transparency and accountability and compelling incentives to invest in lagging regions and high potential sectors.” But Angus Blair, chief operating officer of Pharos Holdings, an investment bank, says it is “imperative for interest rates to go down as quickly as possible”. “Without private sector investment, economic growth will remain below par and there won’t be an improvement in employment figures,” he says.

SPOILER

Om spoilers te kunnen lezen moet je zijn ingelogd. Je moet je daarvoor eerst gratis Registreren. Ook kun je spoilers niet lezen als je een ban hebt.

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A Turkish prosecutor this week demanded parliament strip opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu of immunity from prosecution for comments he made about a controversial constitutional referendum, raising the specter that the government’s broad crackdown could now extend to its main political challenger.

It is not the first prosecutor complaint against Kilicdaroglu, chairman of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), parliament’s second-biggest grouping. This one, however, coincides with heightened political tensions in recent weeks, sparked by Kilicdaroglu’s dogged allegations of financial impropriety against the government.

According to media reports, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement released Wednesday that it had submitted a legal file to parliament concerning Kilicdaroglu's criticism of the state election board’s decision to count non-validated ballots during an April referendum that expanded presidential powers. The prosecutor also submitted complaints on unrelated matters against two other CHP lawmakers, including the outspoken Sezgin Tanrikulu, and two members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

“These motions are an attempt to engineer politics with the hand of the judiciary, which the government controls,” said Tanrikulu, who faces at least six separate prosecutor complaints. “The files are not based on a crime or an insult, but solely on our political criticism.” The latest complaint is for comments he made about civilian deaths caused by unmanned aerial vehicles.

“Investigations have been opened against almost all members of our party caucus,” Tanrikulu told Al-Monitor. “Things we thought could never happen have happened under this government, so it is very hard for me to predict what will occur now.”

Parliament scrapped prosecutorial immunity for its members in 2016, allowing the assembly to vote to give a prosecutor the authority to pursue a case against a member. The measure, which some CHP lawmakers backed, had initially targeted the pro-Kurdish HDP, which has seen its two joint leaders and seven other lawmakers jailed on terrorism-related charges.

Prosecuting the head of a party established nearly a century ago by the founder of the modern secular republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, would be unprecedented. Some observers believe it unlikely, in part because it could backfire on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“I don't think that there's any question that jailing Kilicdaroglu would be a bad move for Erdogan,” said Howard Eissenstat, a Turkey researcher at St. Lawrence University and a senior nonresident fellow at the Washington-based Project on Middle East Democracy.

He told Al-Monitor, “The CHP serves a useful function for the AKP. It gives the party a clear domestic foil, and it preserves the appearance of a competitive democracy. In that sense, the CHP leadership would be much more dangerous to the AKP in prison than it is in parliament.”

Still, a litany of graft charges that have emerged in recent weeks appears to have unsettled members of the AKP, who may worry that the charges could deter voters if a general election is moved forward to next year. Tensions between the CHP and AKP boiled over in the legislature this week, with fistfights erupting between lawmakers.

The 68-year-old Kilicdaorglu, who rose to national prominence a decade ago as an anti-corruption campaigner, late last month revealed documents that he claimed proved Erdogan’s family had sent millions of dollars to an offshore company. He did not accuse Erdogan or his family members of criminal wrongdoing, but implied tax avoidance.

Erdogan said Kilicdaroglu would “pay a price” for what he described as lies and filed a lawsuit demanding 1.5 million Turkish lira ($386,000) in damages. Prosecutors cast doubt on the authenticity of the documents Kilicdaroglu presented. When parliament dismissed a CHP motion to probe the allegations, the party, in a curious twist, filed another motion, requesting that Kilicdaroglu and his family’s finances be investigated “to serve as an example for all political party leaders.”

Pressure on the CHP has also taken other forms. The Interior Ministry forced out a CHP mayor on corruption charges, which Kilicdaroglu described as an act of intimidation. Then, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu himself took aim at Kilicdaroglu, accusing him of threatening a pro-government television channel.

“Kilicdaroglu, your mind is rotten and your rope is about to break. I’m saying this very clearly, you are finished,” Soylu said at a provincial AKP meeting Dec. 10.

Undeterred, Kilicdaroglu this week called on the government to reopen an older corruption case against public officials after an Iranian-Turkish gold trader, Reza Zarrab, testified in a New York court that he had bribed AKP ministers and state bank officials to bypass US sanctions imposed on Iran for its nuclear program.

The opposition’s claims of corruption and authoritarianism have done little to dent support for Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for almost 15 years and last year thwarted a military coup. The CHP, which draws its support from secular-minded and progressive Turks, has been unable to increase its share of the vote above 30%.

Kilicdaroglu did briefly galvanize a fractured opposition over the summer, when he undertook a 260-mile “Justice March,” from Ankara to Istanbul, to protest the jailing of tens of thousands of Turks, including journalists, politicians and academics, in the post-coup clampdown.

Kilicdaroglu has failed to sustain that momentum, however, and other opposition factions, including those disappointed with the lack of a more robust response from him over the imprisonment of HDP lawmakers, may not now rally to his defense.

“The CHP is clearly at risk of being hanged on scaffolding that it helped build,” Eissenstat said, referring to the party’s partial backing of the immunity measure last year. “I think Kilicdaroglu knew at the time that his party might be targeted eventually, but feared the opposition was already dying by 10,000 cuts.”

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Politico investigation reveals previous American administration undermined an ambitious law enforcement campaign and allowed the Lebanese terror organization to engage in drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations—including inside the US— to ensure nuclear deal would remain on track. 'This was a policy decision,' says finance analyst.

The Obama administration allowed Hezbollah members to engage in drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations—including activities carried out within the United States—in a bid to secure a nuclear agreement with Iran, an extensive investigation conducted by Politico magazine reveals. The first part of the investigation was published Monday.

Project Cassandra was an ambitious law enforcement campaign launched in 2008 by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), aimed at targeting the Lebanese terror organization's criminal activity. According to Fox News, however, "by tossing a string of roadblocks holding back the project, Obama administration officials helped allow the 35-year-old anti-Israel criminal enterprise to evolve into a major global security threat bankrolling terrorist and military operations."

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” David Asher, who helped establish and oversee Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst, told Politico. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

According to the report, for eight years agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 US and foreign security agencies. They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.

But when Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.

Project Cassandra members told Politico that administration officials also blocked or undermined their efforts to go after other top Hezbollah operatives, including one nicknamed 'The Ghost'— one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers, including to the US, as well as a major supplier of conventional and chemical weapons for use by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his people.

Former Obama administration officials, however, denied that they had derailed any actions against Hezbollah or its Iranian allies for political reasons.

“There has been a consistent pattern of actions taken against Hezbollah, both through tough sanctions and law enforcement actions before and after the Iran deal,” Kevin Lewis, an Obama spokesman who worked at both the White House and Justice Department in the administration, told Politico.

But according to Asher, “The closer we got to the (Iran deal), the more these activities went away. So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was (Treasury) designations—even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission—it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.”

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Op dinsdag 19 december 2017 16:44 schreef Aloulu het volgende:

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Gefaald voor wie? De Amerikanen zelf?

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Op vrijdag 22 december 2017 13:32 schreef Iwanius het volgende:
Je raaskalt en je leest alleen maar wat je wilt lezen van de media.

Obama toen die aan de macht kwam erfde 2 oorlogen,een economische crisis en nog wat zaken die hij binnen no time tot een goed einde wist te brengen. Wat zou jij doen als jouw huis op instorten staat, je huis laten voor wat het is en je bezig houden of je buurt er nog steeds netjes bijligt? Of de buurman een goede bui heeft elke dag?

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 16:05 schreef RM-rf het volgende:

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Op zaterdag 30 december 2017 22:36 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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SaeedKD twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 18:14:24 Quite surreal chants in Bandar-Abbas, south Iran. "Reza Shah, may your soul rests in peace"... quite confusing, unp… https://t.co/FKcWc2VUxf reageer retweet

Inmiddels willen ze in Iran de Shah terug.

De endgame voor de Ayatollah's is begonnen. Geen Obama cash meer om ze in het zadel te houden.

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Op zaterdag 30 december 2017 22:39 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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borzou twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 22:04:38 Tehran-based social scientist: "I don't know what to think. This time it's very radical. It's very different from 2… https://t.co/5RJJ3YSaul reageer retweet

De eerste doden zijn al gevallen. morgen weer grote protesten.

De politie kan in sommige gebieden de boel nog maar moeilijk onder controle houden

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borzou twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 22:38:53 Protesters confronting and chasing cops in Kermanshah. These are just kids. This is a palpable anger that few have… https://t.co/4egIbKEYgV reageer retweet

CNN onder vuur, ze gebruiken Iraanse propaganda in hun berichtgeving

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tedcruz twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 20:18:18 Guys, when you're being accused of being fake-news propaganda, maybe try not to write stories that read like Irania... https://t.co/SBAjt0g0EF reageer retweet

Mensen demonstreren nu openlijk tegen de geheime diensten.

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farnazfassihi twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 22:02:51 A first in #IranianProtests #Rasht crowds chant: "Death to Revolutionary Guards."#Iran #IRGC #??????? https://t.co/QXo1tVfoqd reageer retweet

Overheidsgebouwen gaan de fik in als wraak voor slachtoffers

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Raman_Ghavami twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 20:13:09 #Update72- In response to the death of four protesters-shot at by the #IRGC forces- protesters in #KhorramAbad bur... https://t.co/7pmw5ATpsp reageer retweet

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farnazfassihi twitterde op zaterdag 30-12-2017 om 22:39:02 #Bandarabbas tonight: "War war until victory."#IranProtests #Iran #???????_????? https://t.co/gQcZMPDPKg reageer retweet

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Op zaterdag 30 december 2017 23:28 schreef skysherrif het volgende:
Echt beschamend hoe de media (met name CNN) omgaat met de protesten in Iran.

Gelukkig dat een Jake Tapper op persoonlijke titel nog wat erover zegt.