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Ed Webb

UK provided £3m to Turkish border forces to stop migrants: report - Turkish M... - 0 views

www.turkishminute.com/...-force-to-stop-migrants-report

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Jun 23 - No Cached
  • strategically crucial to border securitisation
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 08 Jun 23
       
      Securitization (or securitisation in the British spelling) doesn't mean what this "source" thinks it does. Words mean things. It is a specific concept in IR theory associated with critical security studies and the Copenhagen School.
  • Home Office staff now outnumber diplomats working in Turkey
  • “The Home Office is seen by international partners as quite hostile, quite adversarial,” said a senior government source with knowledge of the department’s operations in Turkey. “The FCDO, on the other hand, is viewed as relatively collegiate and collaborative. In this context, there are obvious tensions in the approach and the culture among staff.”
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  • “Whether on the border between Turkey and Iran, or those of France or Belgium, this government is covertly funding others to do its dirty work, while at the same time ramping up its xenophobic rhetoric against the few that do finally make it here.”
Ed Webb

Climate migration in Iraq's south brings cities to crisis - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...q-climate-crisis-drought-basra

Iraq water energy urbanization urban migration economy unemployment politics climate

shared by Ed Webb on 10 Sep 22 - No Cached
  • Iraq as the fifth-most-vulnerable country to climate change. Temperatures have increased by 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in three decades, according to Berkeley Earth, well above the global average, and in the summers, the mercury now regularly hits 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit)
  • burning crops and desiccating marshes
  • As upstream dams in Turkey and Iran weaken the flows of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a salty tide is creeping north from the Persian Gulf, poisoning the land
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  • changing climate is forcing families to sell off their livestock and pack up for urban centers such as the region’s largest city, Basra, in search of jobs and better services
  • As hotter, more-crowded cities become the future of a warming world, a lack of preparedness will only exacerbate the discontent already fraying the social fabric
  • decades of U.S.-backed sanctions and war, combined with the weight of corruption and neglect, have left Basra’s infrastructure unable to adequately support the 2 million people the city already houses — let alone the rising tide of newcomers.
  • According to official figures, Basra province has a population of over 3 million — an increase of at least 20 percent in 10 years. And most of that growth has been in its urban areas
  • nearly 40 percent of farmers across the country reported an almost total loss of their wheat crop.
  • Social media has been awash with photos showing water buffaloes lying dead on the cracked mudflats of southern Iraq’s dried-out marshlands
  • 12 percent of residents were newcomers who had settled in Basra over the past decade, mostly because of water scarcity and a lack of economic opportunities. The number is even higher in other southern Iraqi cities, such as Shatrah and Amarah.
  • water degradation in the province cost Iraq $400 million in lost animals, palm trees and crops in 2018 alone
  • As he saw it, migration was only making the situation worse, and he felt that the slow tide of arrivals was changing his city. “Their mind-set is different; we don’t know how to deal with them,” he said. “They don’t respect the laws here.”
  • Decades of government neglect in rural areas, particularly in the education sector, have left many of the migrants illiterate.
  • often struggle to access the city’s formal labor market and instead rely on temporary employment as construction workers or truck drivers, or hawking goods from carts in the street. And their habits and attitudes clash with those of their urban cousins.
  • political leaders in southern Iraq have started blaming the city’s crime rate — as well as other problems — on its migrants.
  • A few years ago, huge demonstrations decrying corruption and unemployment were crushed with deadly force. Since then, every summer has brought scattered daily protests over authorities’ failure to provide basic services.
  • “This is how you drive these people into criminality, by discriminating,” she said. “They move to irregular neighborhoods where there’s no proper public services and no employment. And then social issues will emerge.”
  • When a heat wave forced the shutdown of Basra’s power grid in August, the homes of newcomers and longtime residents alike were plunged into darkness as millions spent sleepless nights drenched in sweat
  • “My dreams in this country are being lived by a dog in Europe,”
Ed Webb

Are the Abraham accords over? - 0 views

www.economist.com/...are-the-abraham-accords-over

Israel Palestine israelpalestine war conflict Gaza Hamas GCC KSA Saudi Qatar UAE analysis economy

shared by Ed Webb on 22 Oct 23 - No Cached
  • Gulf states had hoped this would be a year of de-escalation in the region. They wanted calm to focus on ambitious plans to diversify their economies. Now the region’s oldest conflict has roared back to life. For one Gulf monarchy, Qatar, which has supported Hamas, the immediate goal is self-preservation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, however, want to weaken Hamas, forestall a wider confrontation with Iran and somehow keep alive their vision of an autocratic but more peaceful and prosperous region. It is a delicate and dangerous balancing act.
  • Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned news channel, aired a tough interview with Khaled Meshaal, the former head of Hamas. Rasha Nabil, the presenter, asked him repeatedly how Hamas could expect support from other Arab countries after it made a unilateral decision to go to war, pressed him to condemn the murder of Israeli civilians and needled him on whether Iran’s help had “lived up to your expectations”. It was an interview the likes of which Hamas officials are almost never subjected to on Arabic-language channels. Mr Meshaal seemed rattled. Clips of the interview were widely shared on social media and even on Israeli television.
  • Muhammad bin Salman (pictured), the Saudi crown prince and the country’s de facto ruler has called for the creation of a Palestinian state along the region’s pre-1967 borders. Talks with Israel will continue, albeit more quietly than before, but the price for Israel will now be higher
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  • as the civilian death toll rises the Gulf states will come under growing pressure at home and across the Arab world to condemn Israel and sever ties. Still one thing the Gulf leaders can all agree on: they want the war to end. The financiers gathering in Riyadh this week want to talk about billion-dollar ideas for travel, trade and tourism. None of them is likely to come to fruition if there is a risk of missiles flying overhead
Ed Webb

Russia breathes down Middle Eastern necks over Ukraine - 0 views

jamesmdorsey.substack.com/...a-breathes-down-middle-eastern

Russia Ukraine Turkey Israel Syria BlackSea Iran Kurds analysis opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 22 Feb 22 - Cached
  • for NATO-member Turkey, the stakes could not be higher. Its 2,000 kilometre-long Black Sea coastline stretching from the Bulgarian border in the West to Georgia in the East is the longest of any of the Sea's littoral states,  including Russia and Ukraine.
  • Turkey’s stakes are magnified by last year’s discovery of a natural gas field in its Black Sea littoral waters that, according to Energy Minister Fatih Donmez, could by 2027 provide nearly a third of Turkey’s domestic needs.
  • “Syria remains Turkey’s soft spot. For that matter, Russia is likely to put pressure on Turkey through Syria,” said Turkey scholar Galip Dalay. “At a broader level, Russia and Turkey have cooperated and competed with each other through the conflict spots in the Middle East and North Africa. However, Moscow has been less open to repeating this experience with Turkey in the ex-Soviet area."
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  • Turkey accuses Russia of failing to fulfill its pledge to disarm Kurdish fighters in a 30-kilometre area along the Syrian-Turkish border.
  • In contrast to Turkey that may feel it has greater maneuverability in its relations with Russia, China, and the United States, Israel feels that its options, like in the case of China, are more limited when it comes to Russia. It cannot afford to put its relations with Washington at risk.
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