Middle-East's regional fault lines

While the Yemeni civil war is still widely seen as a proxy war between the two regional powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, an intensive attack  has been launched by Israel on Iranian positions in neighbouring Syria.  

Meanwhile, at least 55 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army in the protests along the Gaza-Israel border over the past weeks, and UAE forces have occupied sea gateways and airport on the Yemeni island of Socotra. Yemeni policy makers say UAE army has occupied the island without informing the government. They have also raised the UEA's flag over buildings across the Yemeni territory, in the aim to expand their presence in the Middle East and Horn of Africa.

In addition to this, as mentioned in my previous post, another proxy war between superpowers is now heating up in Syria: on the one hand we can see Russia, Iran and Turkey, on the other hand, the U.S. are followed by Britain and France in support of Israeli and Saudi Arabia interests in ensuring  to stop Iran's regional expansion. 

In this perspective, since June 2017 Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and Baharin have broken diplomatic ties with Qatar, which has improved its relationship with Turkey in economic and military matters. Consequently, the Turkish government is using its ties with Qatar to weaken Saudi influence in the Gulf.

Unfortunately, it seems that regional chaos in the Middle East is set to continue with no solution. 

"Land bridge" through Syrian desert

As mentioned in my previous post, after the U.S. had launched 105 missiles on 12 April, a Pentagon spokeperson said that two chemical weapon facilities in Syria were destroyed. But that wasn't exactly the case. 

According to a Lebanese source, the U.S. pretended to target chemical weapon facilities in South Syria. Actually, they destroyed a weapon convoy headed to Hezbollah group in South Lebanon. The trucks were probably accompanied by Iranian military forces. As it known, Iran has recently succeeded in securing one land corridor that goes through the Syrian desert and then continues to the Lebanese border through Shiite populations centers.

Unfortunately, in the current regional cold war, Syria is the principal conduit for Iranian military and financial assistance to the Lebanese Hezbollah.  

In this picture it's easy to see two important alliances. On the one hand, We can see  Russia, Iran, Turkey and Syria. On the other hand,  the U.S. are followed by France, and Britain in support of Israeli and Saudi Arabian interest in ensuring to stop Iran's regional expansion. 

Action needed to be taken on Syria's future

It isn't easy to understand why the U.S. launched 105 missiles overnight in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack on Douma, 10 km North from the centre of Damascus. According to the Pentagon, on Saturday 12 April two chemical weapons facilities were targeted.

As it is known, chemical weapons are considered hazardous-waste, and they have to be sent to a specific treatment, storage and disposal. As a consequence, the distruction of chemical weapons facilities is not considered a hazardous-waste management, and it may be really dangerous for the environment and the human health. In December 2001 an American agency  prepared a report, "State hazardous-waste regulatory programs to waste chemical weapons", for the eight U.S. States with chemical weapon storage facilities managed by the U.S. Army.    

In this perspective,  how can the U.S. destroy Syrian chemical weapon sites by a missiles attack? Someone blames the Syrian Government for a suspected gas attack, and one week later creates a polluted environment on the same territory!  

With regards to the suspected chemical attack in Syria, President Trump recently made a question: "what kind of nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women and children?". Maybe the U.S. President forgets that Saudi Arabia doesn't stop killing civilians in Yemen, and Israel makes Palestinian-Arabs protest executions along the Gaza's border ... Saudi Arabia and Israel are both America's allies, and they don't fit the agenda of most of the media.

In my opinion, the U.S. missiles attack on Syria is a way to join the diplomatic activity of Russia, Iran and Turkey on Syria's future, but the three remain united in their desire not to provide advantage to the United States.

Cold war is going on

The attempted assassination of two people on the British soil, on 4th March, may be considered a watershed in terms of global confrontation. According to the British PM it is an infringement of international law and chemical weapons convention, and investigators don't need other evidence. 

Although Russian President said his country hasn't any connection with this case, it seems that the chemical weapon involved was specifically developed by Russia. In this perspective, the attack was a punishment for defection of a man who is a former Russia Intelligence officer. It might be also considered a message to others. 

We are seeing that the most important Western countries are going to prevent Russia from doing that in the future. That's why Britain is acting, and U.S., France and Germany  will likely do the same. 

Actually, cold war is going on, and in some places, such as Syria and Yemen, it is really hot. In the Middle East, for istance, America is supporting Kurdish forces and Russia is supporting governmental forces. At the same time, with regards to Yemen conflict, where we can see a challenge between two regional powers, Saudi Arabia is buying weapons from the U.K. and Iran is allied with Russia.

More than thirty years ago Samuel Hungtington forecasted a clash of civilizations. Unfortunately,  we can say that once again he was really right. 

Cryptocurrencies' free fall

Since the start of 2018 Bitcoin has lost more than 60% of its value, and other cryptocurrencies have done almost the same during last the five weeks. Meanwhile, some Governments in East Asia, such as China and South Korea, have introduced tougher regulation, and India's policy makers want to ban all use of  cryptocurrencies. With regard to the latter announcement, Bitcoin fell by 12.7 % on Friday, 2nd February. 

We mainly know that Bitcoins is a particular implementation of the blockchain technology, the world's leading software for digital assets, which allows market participants to keep track of digital currency transactions without central record keeping. Each computer connected to the network is considered a node that gets a copy of the blockchain, which is downloaded automatically. Consequently, Blockchain's participants can transfer funds and setting trades without the need for a central authority. The network of nodes validates the user's status and the transaction using known algorithms, and combine the latter with other transactions to create a new block of data, which will be added to the existing blockchain.The major innovation is that the technology allows market participants to transfer assets through the internet without the need  for a centralized third party.
Within the context above mentioned, some experts are talking about similarities between cryptocurrencies and other coins. This is not correct, because when we are speaking about the Euro, the Yen or the Dollar, we are referring them to strong economies, efficient taxation systems and central banks, which allow them to create a particolar value. On the contrary, with regards to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies we have no idea who bake them, and who is behind the their value.

As mentioned by Matin Baccardax, from TheStreet.com, when we own a share of a public company, which is freely traded on a stock exchange, just we have a piece of paper which gives us a small portion of the profit going forward. Neverthless  when we own Bitcoin we don't have anything in terms of dividends or profit. Bitcoin's value only increases when more people participate, and when fewer people  participate the value decreases. This is a structure which create a great deal of risk.

World richest people's economic agenda

It seems that one of the most important topic at World Economic Forum, last week in Davos, was the trend of increasing disparity on the job front, and the need to provide a fair work environment for women and minorities. The political leaders, who gathered at World Economic Forum in Davos, also focused on  jobs in danger of being displaced by technology, but they didn't mention the very big disparities in global wealth and global income. 

In a report published last week, an international confederation of twenty NGO  working to end the injustices that cause poverty, Oxfam International (www.oxfam.org), said that the 82% of the global wealth generated in 2017 went in the most wealthy 1% of the population. Although the World Economic Forum participants announced a target of one million workers over the next three years, we have no choice but to raise tax on richest people in the aim to finance job transition opportunities, new tech-reskilling, education, healthcare, transport services, and so on. What we need to be done, first of all, is to ensure that the richest 1% of world population stop using the global political establishment to further advance its own economic agenda.
A few years ago a French economist, Thomas Piketty, said in his book that as long as the return on capital is bigger than the economy's growth, we will continue to claim that wealth disparity is on the rise. In this prerspective,  an apparently small gap between the return on capital and rate of growth can on the long run have powerful and destabilizing effects on the structure and dynamics of social inequality.

So, if global political leaders  shared the need to reform the financial system, the new wealth wouldn't continue to go to the pockets of the richest 1% of world population. Actually, a progressive tax on capital and income would be a good response to the problem of private capital and its return. A progressive levy on individual wealth would reassert control over capitalism in the name of the general interest while relying on the forces of private property and competition.
Unfortunately, with election of President Trump we have heard very clearly that the US will go backwards on all regulations, all rules, and all tax policies: if richest people become richer, the middle class will disappear. And When super-riches grow unchecked, no one wins, not even the super-rich themselves, in the long run. 

P.S.: according to global inequality report, Jeff Besoz is the world's richest man with a fortune of $ 100 Billion, and only one out of ten of the world's billionaires are women. 

Iran's 2015 nuclear agreement under threat

With regard to the Iran nuclear deal, signed by six global powers and Theran in 2015, US Administration has recently demanded  more sanctions and changes. During a meeting held in Brussels one week ago, the EU Countries reaffirmed their support for the Iranian deal that President Trump has rejected. 

So European States have shown they want to preserve Iran's 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, which is seen under  threat from the United States. 

But, according to Iran, this is not enough: if US permanent restrictions on Iran were implemented, Theran would be ready to see how the EU would protect their companies dealing in transactions with Iran. It they take actions, Iran will go long with Europeans.