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Prime Minister Mario Draghi went to Algeria in a bid to speed up gas supplies to Italy, which will increase in the coming years, the leaders of the two countries announced. The fourth summit between Italy and Algeria “confirmed our...

Le Premier ministre italien Mario Draghi s’est rendu en Algérie dans le but d’accélérer les livraisons de gaz à l’Italie, qui augmenteront dans les années à venir. C’est ce qu’ont annoncé les dirigeants des deux pays.

Investigations are continuing to find the causes of the crash of the Antonov cargo aircraft on Saturday evening near the town of Kavala in northern Greece, while a team of US experts arrived in the area to join the investigation...

The newly formed Estonian government, led by Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, was sworn in during the parliament session on Monday, starting an eight-month term. The new government is formed from the centre-right Reform Party, led by Kallas, conservative Isamaa and...

The end of travel restrictions on the Finnish-Russian border has increased traffic between the countries, but the numbers are far lower than pre-pandemic levels. Finland removed travel restrictions from the start of July, and Russia followed suit on the 15th....

Health services want more urgency for monkeypox vaccinations for at-risk groups as it has been over a week since Health Minister Ernst Kuipers announced vaccinations for these groups, yet there has been no update on the matter, NL Times reported....

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Jul 19 2022 (IPS)

Joining or ratifying dubious trade deals is supposed to offer miraculous solutions to recent lacklustre economic progress. Such naïve advocacy is misleading at best, and downright irresponsible, even reckless, at worst.

TPP ‘pivot to Asia’
US President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ after his 2012 re-election sought to check China’s sustained economic growth and technological progress. Its economic centrepiece was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

But the US International Trade Commission (ITC) doubted the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) and other exaggerated claims of significant TPP economic benefits in mid-2016, well before US President Donald Trump’s election.

The ITC report found projected TPP growth gains to be paltry over the long-term. Its finding was in line with the earlier 2014 findings of the Economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, many US manufacturing jobs have been lost to corporations automating and relocating abroad. Worse, Trump’s rhetoric has greatly transformed US public discourse. Many Americans now blame globalization, immigration, foreigners and, increasingly, China for the problems they face.

Trump U-turn
The TPP was believed to be dead and buried after Trump withdrew the US from it immediately after his inauguration in January 2017. After all, most aspirants in the November 2016 election – including Hillary Clinton, once a TPP cheerleader – had opposed it in the presidential campaign.

Trump National Economic Council director Gary Cohn has accused presidential confidantes of ‘dirty tactics’ to escalate the trade war with China.

Cohn acknowledged “he didn’t quit over the tariffs, per se, but rather because of the totally shady, ratfucking way Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and economic adviser Peter Navarro went about convincing the president to implement them.”

Cohn, previously Goldman Sachs president, insisted it “was a terrible idea that would only hurt the US, and not extract the concessions from Beijing Trump wanted, or do anything to shrink the trade deficit.”

Anis Chowdhury

But US allies against China, the Japanese, Australian and Singapore governments have tried to keep the TPP alive. First, they mooted ‘TPP11’ – without the USA.

This was later rebranded the Comprehensive and Progressive TPP (CPTPP), with no new features to justify its ‘progressive’ pretensions. Following its earlier support for the TPP, the PIIE has been the principal cheerleader for the CPTPP in the West.

Although US President Joe Biden was loyal as Vice-President, he did not make any effort to revive Obama’s TPP initiative during his campaign, or since entering the White House. Apparently, re-joining the TPP is politically impossible in the US today.

Panning the Trump approach, Biden’s US Trade Representative has stressed, “Addressing the China challenge will require a comprehensive strategy and more systematic approach than the piecemeal approach of the recent past.” Now, instead of backing off from Trump’s belligerent approach, the US will go all out.

Favouring foreign investors
Rather than promote trade, the TPP prioritized transnational corporation (TNC)-friendly rules. The CPTPP did not even eliminate the most onerous TPP provisions demanded by US TNCs, but only suspended some, e.g., on intellectual property (IP). Suspension was favoured to induce a future US regime to re-join.

Onerous TPP provisions – e.g., for investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) – remain. This extrajudicial system supersedes national laws and judiciaries, with secret rulings by private tribunals not bound by precedent or subject to appeal.

Lawyers have been advising TNCs on how to sue host governments for resorting to extraordinary COVID-19 measures since 2020. Most countries can rarely afford to incur huge legal costs fighting powerful TNCs, even if they win.

The Trump administration cited vulnerability to onerous ISDS provisions to justify US withdrawal from the TPP. Now, citizens of smaller, weaker and poorer nations are being told to believe ISDS does not pose any real threat to them!

After ratifying the CPTPP, TNCs can sue governments for supposed loss of profits due to policy changes – even if in the national or public interest, e.g., to contain COVID-19 contagion, or ensure food security.

Thus, supposed CPTPP gains mainly come from expected additional foreign direct investment (FDI) due to enhanced investor benefits – not more trade. This implies more host economy concessions, and hence, less net benefits for them.

Who benefits?
Those who have seriously studied the CPTPP agree it offers even fewer benefits than the TPP. After all, the main TPP attraction was access to the US market, now no longer a CPTPP member. Thus, the CPTPP will mainly benefit Japanese TNC exports subject to lower tariffs.

Unsurprisingly, South Korea and Taiwan want to join so that their TNCs do not lose out. China too wants to join, but presumably also to ensure the CPTPP is not used against it. However, the closest US allies are expected to block China.

The Soviet Union sought to join NATO in the 1950s before convening the Warsaw Pact to counter it. Russian President Vladimir Putin also tried to join NATO years after Vaclav Havel ended the Warsaw Pact and Boris Yeltsin dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991.

Unlike Northeast Asian countries, Southeast Asian economies seek FDI. But when foreign investors are favoured, domestic investors may relocate abroad, e.g., to ‘tax havens’ within the CPTPP, often benefiting from special incentives for foreign investment, even if ‘roundtrip’.

Stay non-aligned
The ‘pivot to Asia’ has become more explicitly military. As the new Cold War unfolds, foreign policy considerations – rather than serious expectations of significant economic benefits from the CPTPP – have become more important.

Trade protectionism in the North has grown since the 2008 global financial crisis. More recently, the pandemic has disrupted supply chains. With the new Cold War, the US, Japan and others are demanding their TNCs ‘onshore’, i.e., stop investing in and outsourcing to China, also hurting transborder suppliers.

Hence, net gains from joining the CPTPP – or from ratifying it for those who signed up in 2018 – are dubious for most, especially with its paltry benefits. After all, trade liberalization only benefits everyone when ‘winners’ compensate ‘losers’ – which neither the CPTPP nor its requirements do.

With big powers clashing in the new Cold War, developing countries should remain ‘non-aligned’ – albeit as appropriate for these new times. They should not take sides between the dominant West and its adversaries – led by China, the major trading partner, by far, for more and more countries.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Austrian Health Minister Johannes Rauch has called on citizens to take the heatwave seriously as the country faces temperatures consistently above 30°C. While less hard-hit by the current heatwave rolling across Europe than countries like the United Kingdom, Austria will...

German chancellor Olaf Scholz warned of a return to fossil energy and urged policymakers across the globe not to forget the looming climate crisis as more and more countries switch back to coal due to rising energy prices. “What must...

The European Commission will soon propose a legal framework allowing companies to buy offsetting carbon removals from farmers. Despite good intentions, lessons from similar projects in the US suggest that such schemes could end up doing more harm than good

The sidelining of Ukraine's domestic spy chief on Sunday (17 July) laid bare Kyiv's battle far from the frontlines to purge its powerful security agencies of collaborators and Russian agents.

Le gouvernement polonais devrait étudier d’autres solutions pour remplacer le charbon russe faisant l’objet d’un embargo et s’attaquer aux prix élevés de ce dernier.

An €8 billion investment project touted as Europe’s largest coastal park is expected to create a “smart” city within Greece’s capital and offer a much-needed green push, the mayor of Ellinikon, the site of the project, told EURACTIV Greece in an interview.

La fin des restrictions de voyage à la frontière entre la Finlande et la Russie a entraîné une augmentation du trafic entre les deux pays, mais les chiffres sont bien inférieurs à ceux d’avant la pandémie.

Nagy mennyiségű fegyvert, lőszert és szúróeszközöket foglalt le a szerb rendőrség a migránsoktól a csütörtöki nagyszabású akciójának keretében több szerbiai városban, az illegális bevándorlókat elszállították – közölte a belügyminisztérium.

Aleksandar Vulin illetékes miniszter utasítására július 4-én állt fel a szerb belügyminisztérium keretein belül egy operatív csoport, amelynek a feladata a migránsok megakadályozása különböző bűncselekmények elkövetésében. A csoport munkájában a bűnügyi rendőrség, a rohamrendőrség, a terrorelhárítási egység, a határvédelem, a rendőrség belső ellenőrzési osztálya, a biztonsági és hírszerző ügynökség, valamint az érintett települések helyi parancsnokságainak illetékesei vesznek részt.

A belügyi közlemény szerint az operatív csoport csütörtökön a hajnali órákban csapott le, és számos bűncselekményre, valamint szabálysértésre fényt derített. Szabadkán, Zomborban, Nagykikindán és Belgrádban összesen 85 migránst fogtak el, közülük hatot azonnal letartóztattak, kettő ellen eljárás indult, mert a gyanú szerint bűncselekményt követett el, negyven ellen szabálysértési eljárás indult, további negyvenet pedig a Belgrádhoz közeli Padinska Skela befogadóközpontjába szállítottak.

A rendőrség három gépfegyvert, egy puskát, négy pisztolyt, 12 különböző kést, valamint macsétákat, bárdokat, bokszereket, illetve182 darab, különböző kaliberű töltényt foglalt le. Ezen felül a rendőrök kisebb mennyiségű marihuánát, pszichoaktív szereket tartalmazó tablettákat, 12 mobiltelefont, három hamis személyi igazolványt és három hamis útlevelet is lefoglaltak.

Az akciót követően a magyar határhoz közeli szabadkai erdőben Aleksandar Vulin belügyminiszter leszögezte: “Szerbia nem fogja megengedni, hogy létezzen egyetlen felfegyverzett csempészbanda sem az országban”. Mint mondta: “Szerbia egy szervezett és humánus ország, de a törvényeket tiszteletben kell tartani”.

“Egyetlen csempészbanda sem fogja megúszni, hogy felderítsék és felszámolják, a tagjait pedig a törvényekkel összhangban megbüntessék. Szerbiában senki nem hordhat fegyvert, és nem folytathat emberkereskedelmet. Szerbia nem fogja megengedni, hogy területén különféle, Ázsiából származó bűnözők tevékenykedjenek. Szerbia nem a migránsok parkolója, és nem fogja megengedni azt, hogy az életünket bármilyen módon veszélyeztessék azok a bűnözők, akik az emberek nyomorával kereskednek” – húzta alá a szerb belügyminiszter.

Szabadkán és a szerb-magyar határ közelében egyre több illegális bevándorló tartózkodik, és megnőtt az incidensek száma. A legnagyobb összecsapás két héttel ezelőtt történt, amikor migránsok két csoportja lőfegyverekkel támadt egymásra a határ melletti makkhetesi erdőben. A leszámolásnak több súlyos sérültje és egy halálos áldozata is volt.

Szerbiában a hivatalos adatok szerint körülbelül hatezer illegális bevándorló tartózkodik. Az Afrikából és a Közel-Keletről érkező migránsok célja nem a nyugat-balkáni ország, hanem az Európai Unió, főként Németország, ám a magyar határzár miatt sokan hosszabb időre Szerbiában rekednek.

 

The post Menekültválság: Nagy mennyiségű fegyvert foglalt le az illegális bevándorlóktól a szerb rendőrség appeared first on .

The liberal-leaning Russian independent TV station Dozhd (TV Rain) resumed broadcasting on Monday evening (18 July) from abroad after being forced to shut its Moscow studio following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

After Skopje resolved a long-running dispute with its neighbour Bulgaria, Albania and North Macedonia on Monday (18 July) received the green light to start accession talks that could ultimately lead to EU membership. EURACTIV looks at the next steps both...

Americas

DARPA’s Operational Fires (OpFires) ground-launched hypersonic missile system has successfully executed its first flight test at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Lockheed Martin built the system, which includes a Northrop Grumman rocket motor, and conducted the test.

Lockheed Martin won a $23.4 million contract modification to exercise options for the engineering, design, and technical services in support of the MK 41 Vertical Launching System electronic systems and computer programs. The deal combines purchases by the US and the governments of Japan, Spain, Canada, and Chile under the Foreign Military Sales program. Work will take place in Maryland, New Jersey, Washington and California. Estimated completion will be by July 2023.

Middle East & Africa

US President Joe Biden wants a Middle East Air Defense. This has been discussed in the recent weeks, leading up to US President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Biden administration is urging Arab nations to team up with Israel to counter Iranian missiles. The “MEAD,” as Israels Defense Minister Benny Gantz calls it, has already been operational and has successfully intercepted aerial threats. The alliance has reportedly brought together Israel and Arab states in the Middle East around a shared table in order to defend their countries from Iran and its proxies, which have increased their attacks, some of them deadly, in recent years.

Europe

The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has notified Congress of a potential foreign military sale (FMS) of AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAMs) to Norway. The estimated $950m FMS has been approved by the US State Department and includes associated equipment and support. As part of this deal, the Norwegian Government has requested up to 205 AIM-120 D-series AMRAAMs, 60 AIM-120C-8 or D-series AMRAAMs, and four AIM-120D AMRAAM guidance sections.

Asia-Pacific

The US State Department approved a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) of Blanket Order Contractor Technical Assistance Support and related equipment for an estimated cost of $108 million. The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) has requested to buy Blanket Order Contractor Technical Assistance support consisting of unclassified spare and repair parts and assembly for tanks and combat vehicles; logistical technical assistance; US Government and contractor representative technical and logistical support; and other related elements of logistical and program support.

The US Defence Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) has notified Congress of a potential foreign military sale (FMS) of MK 54 lightweight torpedoes to South Korea. The FMS has an estimated value of $130m, which includes delivery of related equipment. Approved by the US State Department, the proposed sale includes 31 MK 54 all up round lightweight torpedoes along with recoverable exercise torpedo, storage and issue facility, torpedo containers, air launch accessories for rotary wing along with classified and unclassified torpedo spare parts.

Today’s Video

WATCH: AIM-120 AMRAAM Air-To-Air Missile Live Launch

Outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now set to see out seven more weeks in office after winning a confidence vote on Monday during which he vigorously defended his government’s record and hinted that the so-called ‘deep state’ might try to reverse Brexit. 

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.