The Man Who Wanted to Change Europe E

September EUR PE 2019 Diplomatic magazine

“Galileo”: The second Galileo satellite EDRS-C successfully launched

Russia's contaminated oil crisis: Troubled Waters over Oil

ALEXIS TSIPRAS The man who wanted to change Europe E

3 BRUSSELS - PARIS - GENEVA - MONACO

EUROPEDIPLOMATIC IN THIS ISSUE

n Alexis Tsipras The man who wanted to change Europe...... p. 7

n Balkan Cartel Trafficking Busted Operation Familia, coordinated by the US DEA and Europol...... p. 12

n 7 Troubled Waters over Oil Russia's contaminated oil crisis...... p. 14

n Slovak Republic Greco urges the Slovak Republic to prevent corruption...... p. 19

n Welcome (but leave your money by the door) European passports for sale ...... p. 21

14 n Sweden’s economy More green bonds issued...... p. 26

n Britain and France Joint action against small boats crossing in the Channel...... p. 27

n From Greenland Icy Mountains The real estate bid that’s all too real ...... p. 28

28 n Extra Large Telescope Schott delivers world’s largest convex mirror...... p. 33

n Galileo Technology French railways embrace Galileo...... p. 36

n Controling Epidemies European region loses ground in effort to eliminate measles...... p. 40

36 n Wadi Rum The Valley of the Moon...... p. 42

n A Place To Visit Villa et Jardins Ephrussi de Rothschild Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.... p. 45

n Timeless chic Fashion and Beauty trends ...... p. 48

45 n Books Our selection...... p. 50

EUR PE “EUROPE DIPLOMATIC MAGAZINE” is characterized by a very open editorial line that allows it to capture all the themes that affect directly or indirectly the European political, economic, social and security issues. Whether piracy in the Gulf of Aden Diplomatic and its threats to the global economy, articles about political leaders, geostrategic situations or technological developments magazine affecting our civilization, Europe Diplomatic Magazine strives to work in comparing opinions and providing an objective analysis based on extensive research. For a wide audience composed of both members of the diplomatic corps, lobbyists, international officials or academics, the magazine gives everyone the necessary and useful information about all topics that make up our daily lives. Covering sensitive issues such as nuclear, the rise of Islamism and energy dependence, the magazine opens its pages to recognized specialists who would like to express first order and exclusive information. But Europe Diplomatic Magazine is not only a source of information on recent topics. It is also addressing older facts with deep thought fur further analysis. Whether it’s news, security, diplomacy, technology, energy, terrorism, European affairs, no subject is treated superficially. Europe Diplomatic Magazine is an independent media, conveying balanced ideas of openness and analysis based on almost 30 years of experience in the journalistic world. Visit our site and please give us your comments: https://europe-diplomatic.eu/ [email protected]

3 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC

Nikola Hendrickx

4 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC EDITORIAL

BREXIT : THE IMPACT ON THE EUROPEAN UNION

n July 2019, Boris Johnson who replaced Theresa May rebuilding solidarity among the remaining 27 member as the U.K.'s Prime Minister, promised to execute states. Brexit by October 31 with or without a deal. In the weeks following the UK referendum, it was argued IBritain’s split from the EU is not only the first time a that EU member states should ensure the UK doesn’t get member state will leave the Union, but is also the most ‘too good a deal’ so as to discourage Eurosceptic factions in severe constitutional crisis the UK has known since other member states. In some quarters, the argument still 1973, when it joined the six-nation European Economic carries some weight. Community. Of course, there has been a lack of solidarity among EU Initially, Britain’s departure date had been set to March member states in recent years. 29, 2019, but the government was twice forced to request But this has not prevented the advent of new initiatives. an extension. The new date has been set to October The eurozone crisis has already led to new institutional 31. However, there may yet be further extensions or reforms, new legislation, a new treaty, and even new unexpected twists and turns. institutional mechanisms to deal with the sovereign debt Due to factors such as austerity and frustration with crisis and to prevent further financial melt-down. traditional politics, Brexit has often been described as a It can therefore be argued that one of the consequences of nationalist project on the part of the English electorate. the eurozone crisis has been to open the door to further But there is no doubt that wider questions regarding the European integration. role of the nation state, especially in an age of globalization Brexit may make further steps in this direction even more also came into play. likely. Nevertheless, there are concerns that it has caused a shift Brexit is one of several crises to have hit the EU in recent of focus away from major global challenges, including the years. The implications of Brexit on European integration growing phenomenon of climate change. are, therefore, also the consequences of those other crises. For many Europeans, the prospect of the UK’s split from the EU will come at a bad time...a time when the United THE UNCERTAINTIES States, Russia and China are increasingly asserting their Crises, in general, can provide opportunities and act as powers. sources of motivation for those who plan to use instability and uncertainty to their advantage in furthering particular THE DIVERGENT TRAJECTORY agendas. Arguably, the EU has never been more fragmented Those agendas may not be necessarily pro-integration, in than it is today. Divisions over policy preferences have the sense of unconditional transfer of national powers to become bitter. European solidarity has been undermined supranational institutions, but they are associated with as a consequence of both long-term problems and more EU-level reform. recent crises. Alternatively, in times of political crisis, other agendas may Nationalist parties have exploited the ever-growing distrust seek to promote disintegration. of European elites, as well as anti-immigration sentiment, Political factions seeking the collapse of the EU and a to propose populist solutions to Europe’s problems. return to exclusively national, or even nationalist politics The same arguments used to justify a ‘Yes’ vote in the UK will also see crises as an opportunity for them to push their referendum could also exert greater influence in other own vision of the future. European states. Only the future will tell which of these competing plans Anti-immigration and anti-globalisation political will be successful. There are no clear indicators as to which positions are hardly exclusive to the UK. agenda will win, as there is no mechanism that will at all While there was no evidence of short-term contagion times push forward the pro-cooperation agenda. effects, in the sense of other member states planning on But the political winds that are blowing through the EU27 holding referendums, the British vote nonetheless poses seem to have produced favourable conditions for another a serious challenge to the political establishment across attempt at closer integration. Europe, and that such effects might begin to be felt in the Provided that the EU ruling parties remain committed to months and years ahead. European integration, Brexit may very well become the catalyst for another spell of intense activity, consolidating THE CONVERGENT TRAJECTORY and bringing the remaining EU member states closer together. However, without the UK, the EU might be better equipped to move into crisis resolution mode. The Brexit The Editor-in-Chief negotiations, if handled well, could help the process of Trajan Dereville

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Following the 2008 financial crisis, public debt in Greece entered a path of uncontrollable growth, far steeper than the rise experienced in other developed economies. The main culprit here was the scale of fiscal deficits. International markets rapidly branded Greek debt as unsustainable. But a country default was technically avoided by allowing the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - commonly known as The Troika - to step in and finance debt repayments in exchange for a harsh adjustment programme. The bailout agreement or the so-called ‘Memorandum’, aimed at restoring public finances, promoting reforms and stabilizing public debt which, at that time, stood at a staggering 127% of GDP. However, and contrary to official expectations, public debt continued to rise, while the economy was experiencing a deep and unprecedented recession. It was at around this time that a young civil engineer first made his mark not only in the turbulent world of Greek politics but all across Europe.

lexis Tsipras was born in Athens on 28 July 1974, When the government proposed a new privatisation bill just after the fall of the Greek military junta that for the education sector in 1990, the 16-year-old Tsip- had ruled the country for seven years. ras organised an occupation of his school to oppose the A reforms, locking teachers and other pupils out. His father was a civil engineer, who provided enough for the family to live comfortably . He was interviewed on television, and he immediately showed his aptitude for challenging authority. He declared: Young Alexis lived near the Apostolos Nikolaidis stadium “We want the right to judge for ourselves whether to skip class”. of his beloved Panathinaikos football club, and he initially He remained active in student politics while training as a seemed more interested in sport than in politics. civil engineer at the National Technical University of Athens. But then everything changed at school when he joined the In 1999, he became the secretary of the youth branch of the Young Communists Society; that’s where he developed his leftist Synaspismos Party, which would later become part talent for rhetoric. of SYRIZA.

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Minister also departed, going on to create a new party called Democratic Left. Within those few months Tsipras had managed to remove both conceivable internal opponents and consolidate his power within his small organization. This would turn out to be key. Because in the meantime, the Greek economy and the entire Greek political system was about to implode.

THE WOMAN BEHIND THE MAN

© Kremlin Part of Tsipras’ appeal was is his infor- mality – he said he spoke for working SYRIZA is a Greek acronym for Coa- year old managed to get an amazing Greeks, frustrated by a corrupt estab- lition of the Radical Left, comprising 10,5% of the vote that was only good lishment that has bled the country dry. socialists, Maoists, Trotskyists and for third place, but was considered a He was also seen as both approachable Greens. triumph for his tiny party. and rebellious, as his penchant for Now everybody knew his name, and motorbikes and open-necked shirts LEARNING THE RULES everyone recognized his face. suggested at the time. Two years later, Alavanos decided to He once said that he would wear a tie Synaspismos - the word means ‘coali- step down as party leader, and pro- when Greece got its debts written off. tion’ - commonly abbreviated to SYN, moted him as his successor. had always been a minor force in Tsipras is a self-avowed atheist. He Greek politics. It was founded in 1991 Tsipras proceeded to dominate the broke with tradition and took a sec- and dissolved in 2013. internal election, obtaining 70% of the ular oath of office when he became votes and thus becoming the young- Prime Minister. He lives with his A Marxist-socialist party that was est party leader in the history of the long-time partner, computer engineer pro-Europe, it usually barely managed Greek republic. Peristera ‘Betty’ Batziana, but remains to scrape up enough votes to over- unmarried. come the 3% barrier and elect a hand- At 34, he was in control of a small left- ful of MPs in parliament. ist party in a small country in Europe. Apparently, she is even more radical than Tsipras, and he has hinted Promoting a platform that included For people within his political spec- that she might have left him if he had environmental and welfare issues, trum, this was as far as one could con- yielded to Greece’s creditors. as well as immigration reform, it ceivably get. was always considered a benign, Even though Alexis Tsipras has been However, it became evident at the non-threatening political entity. described as the ‘Greek Che Guevara’ it time that Tsipras was not above polit- is believed that the strong-willed Peris- This was the time of monolithic uni- ical machinations. SYN was by then tera Batziana, who has been by his side lateral governments led by either the the largest member of a broader coa- for 30 years, is in fact the true radical Social Democrats of PASOK or the lition of about a dozen different leftist and the power behind the throne. conservatives of New Democracy, parties, SYRIZA. giant parties that usually swept a com- Forty-four-year-old Peristera who This coalition participated in elections bined 80% of the popular vote. comes from Thessaly, in central as a unit, led by SYN’s leader. Greece and is the mother of his two Smaller parties like SYN or the Com- By the time of the 2009 general elec- children, encouraged Tsipras to enter munists never had real power and were politics rather than embark on a tion, Alekos Alavanos, Tsipras’ prede- all but inconsequential compared to career in sports. cessor, was cast aside and would not the behemoths that ruled Greece. even be a candidate for a seat in par- They first met in 1987 when they both Alexis Tsipras rose quickly in those liament. attended secondary school. close ranks. He would later leave the party alto- Later, it was Miss Batziana, already Then, in 2006, party leader Alekos gether. a member herself, who convinced Alavanos surprised many by selecting Tsipras to join the Communist Youth Immediately after the election, which Tsipras to be SYN’s candidate for the of Greece in 1990, despite his mid- gave SYRIZA a slightly disappointing mayorship of Athens. dle-class background. 4.6% and 13 seats in parliament, Fotis Coming up against a cadre of sea- Kouvelis, a founding member of the In 1991, when students in Athens soned politicians, this fresh-faced 32 Greek Left Party and former Justice revolted against unpopular education

8 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC reforms, they both led protests at the It plunged Europe into a four-month Ampelokipoi Branch High School, as confrontation over Greece’s €320 bil- leaders of the student movement. lion debt. Later, they both went on to university But what is SYRIZA and where did it and graduated as engineers. come from ? Peristera Batziana graduated from The far left in Greece has deep roots. the University of Patras in electrical The communist-led resistance beat engineering, and according to her the Wehrmacht, only to clash with the friends, she is ‘strong-willed, militant British army in 1944. and dynamic’. Then came a two-year civil war in She once took one of her professors to which the Left was crushed. court when he tried to undermine her Many of SYRIZA’s leaders have grand- work on a doctoral thesis, according fathers who were jailed, killed or tor- to the Greek Reporter, a leading inter- tured at that time. national Greek news network. And many of SYRIZA’s older activists She reportedly also hates spending were here in the 1970s when students hours shopping and doesn’t like going overthrew a military junta. It was out for regular trips to the hairdresser. of the so-called New Left – commu- Unlike the first ladies that have come nists who rejected Moscow – that before her, Miss Batziana has stayed SYRIZA emerged. away from the glamour that comes But for seventy years, Greece was ruled with the Maximos Mansion, the offi- by political dynasties. One conserva- cial seat of the Greek prime minister tive, one socialist and both enmeshed and has avoided the media spotlight. in a system where the rich payed little tax and where corruption was rife. The couple have in fact, made very few © Kremlin public appearances. In 2002, Greece joined the Eurozone. At this point SYRIZA, still a loose In his youth, Alexis Tsipras was a coalition of the radical left had less motorbike-riding Communist activist When the fascist Golden Dawn party than 4% support. and rather than getting married in a began terrorizing immigrants, many civil or religious ceremony, preferred As the Lehman Brothers crisis saw the conservative-led government to take advantage of the cohabitation plunged Europe into recession, Greek as colluding with them and the police law that has been in effect since 2009. debt spiralled out of control. In 2010, as their allies. the socialist government of George While the ‘Troika’ imposed harsh aus- Tsipras and Peristera Batziana are the Papandreou went cap-in-hand to terity, it seemed unmoved by the ram- first unmarried couple to occupy the Europe for a bail-out...and so, auster- pant corruption in the main Greek Maximos Mansion. Before them, it ity began. was French president François Hol- parties. By now of course, SYRIZA had a new lande and the German president, Joa- So, by January 2015, Greeks who leader : Alexis Tsipras. chim Gauck who had done the same. wanted an end to austerity, an end to These arrangements are signs of how And soon, it had a whole new demo- corruption and a firm line against far- European attitudes about families graphic from which to draw support. right violence swung towards SYR- IZA. Many Greeks had high hopes. have changed over the years. The occupation of the squares in Ath- Alexis Tsipras, the unconventional ens in 2011 brought tens of thousands Alexis Tsipras’ first symbolic act was political leader who is regarded as a of young Greeks into political activ- to visit the monument to resistance true man of the people, used to take ism, and many joined SYRIZA. fighters murdered by the Germans. He has in fact, called for Germany to out the rubbish, is an avid football Meanwhile, the socialist government pay war reparations. fan and put their boys, Phoebus and fell, to be replaced by a conserva- Orpheus, to bed. He also added the tive-led coalition and the harshest aus- In the rest of Europe, such overt refer- name Ernesto to his youngest son’s terity programme in modern history. ences to Germany’s past are often seen middle name... a tribute to Che Gue- as taboo. vara, one of his idols. Unemployment soared to 25%...family incomes fell by 40%... But bold gestures like these go down well in Greece, where Berlin is regularly In the 2012 election, SYRIZA lost by A STEP BACK IN TIME demonised for its austerity demands. just 2 percentage points. Support for As we shall see shortly, in January the old socialists collapsed and SYR- Such defiance helped Tsipras’s ratings IZA led the fight against austerity. soar. 2015, SYRIZA became the first radical left party to form a government in What tipped the balance ? Fascism And while SYRIZA ruled in coalition Europe since WWII. and corruption. with a small nationalist party, SYR-

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where his appeal was needed most, it He demanded a number of sum- fell flat; other European leaders dis- mits with his counterparts in Brus- tanced themselves from what they sels, and actually obtained them. He saw as a liability mainly because of came within reach of an agreement his aggressive style, which was at odds on extending the bailout, but instead, with their methods. Tsipras walked out and announced a referendum to decide whether Greece Tsipras did not get much help either should accept the bailout conditions from his preening and flamboyant proposed by the EC, the IMF and the Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, ECB. who proved so antagonistic that he had to be left out of the Euro negotiations. However, there was still hope, even in the hours before Greece defaulted, There came a point when it looked that he would show up in Brussels to as if the deadlock could have been accept a deal and cancel the referen- © Government of Greece of © Government resolved; the mood in the eurozone Alexis Tsipras with EU Commissioner for dum. Regional Policy, Corina Crețu had turned against severe austerity. But this wasn’t to be. For quite some time, it had been tac- IZA’s own willingness to combine itly accepted that Greece’s debts were Tsipras recommended a "No" vote and left-wing politics with the defence of so high that most would have to be on 3 July, during an address to some Greece’s national interest attracted written off. The IMF itself had said so 25,000 people gathered in Syntagma many voters from the right and centre. at one point. square, in front of parliament, he rejected some leaders' warnings that So, SYRIZA is a hybrid... an old, dis- And it appeared that Tsipras could a "No" result in the referendum could ciplined Marxist party combined with have come to some agreement with his force Greece to leave the eurozone. a young generation from the Occupy creditors on reforms aimed at more Movement, the Greens and Feminists effective tax collection, especially on He declared "On Sunday, we are not and later, thousands of ex-socialists. Greece’s super-rich. simply deciding to remain in Europe we are deciding to live with dignity in But the key word was coalition. There followed a number of one- Europe". The result of the referendum on-one meetings with other leaders, was 61.3% for the "No" vote. As it struggled with debt, austerity and including ECB head Mario Draghi severe economic downturn, the ques- and Pope Francis. But instead of reas- Tsipras received a letter from Fidel tion was : would it all hang together or suring them, Tsipras lost allies. Castro, congratulating him for the split apart ? victory of the "No" vote. At that particular moment, Greece Castro also added that the peoples IN THE THICK OF BATTLE had potential friends in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, who also suffered of Latin America and the Caribbean during the euro crisis, but launched were in admiration for the courage of SYRIZA swept forward like an incred- much-needed reforms to turn their the Greek people. ible wave when Tsipras became its economies around. But due to his leader. Much of Tsipras’s strategy had been aggressive rhetoric, which did him based on the assumption that his In the 2004 elections, it won just 3.3 few favours throughout his time in creditors would do all they could to per cent of the vote but later, the party office, Tsipras alienated them instead. keep Greece in the euro. dominated Greek politics, coming And in June 2015, a time which may first in the January 2015 elections, But patience was running out across with 36.3 per cent. turn out to be one of the most critical Europe. German Chancellor Angela periods in the EU’s history, his impul- Merkel was ready to call his bluff, and In fact, that came on the back of a siveness was on display again. together with almost all other euro- close second place in the 2012 elections, as well as a high-profile run to become president of the European Commission in 2014. The 2015 election sent a wave of fear across Europe, as countries began preparing themselves for the EU’s first radical left government. Tsipras he fell short of an outright majority by just two seats, but he reached an agreement to form a coalition with the right-wing populist Independent Greeks. He had an electrifying impact on

Greek politics, but across Europe, © Wikicommons

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The pugnacious prime minister delivered his main pre-election address in proved to be an unusually low-key campaign for the snap election in July 2019. But for Tsipras, it was showtime, and as usual, he didn’t disappoint. He put forth as much effort as he could muster : “They think they’ve got rid of SYRIZA, they think they’ve got rid of the left,” he roared from the podium which was also encircled by gay supporters waving rainbow flags. © Media Gallery SNFCC

© Government of Greece of © Government “Well, the battle is only beginning. We Ms Betty Baziana and Ms Brigitte Macron can do it! We can pull off the greatest at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural reversal in history.” Center zone leaders, she was prepared to cast aside Greece, if no solution was found. So, four years after his brilliant victory his promise to eradicate austerity. But in 2015, the charismatic tribune who is very unlikely he will go down with- held high the hopes of progressive out a fight. DECLINE AND FALL factions in Greece and elsewhere had The threat of an exit from the euro- a real battle on his hands. It was in Athens’ Syntagma Square that zone may have caused him to U-turn, Alexis Tsipras and his finance min- SYRIZA is today in a rather desperate and to adopt the neoliberal reforms ister, Yanis Varoufakis urged Greeks position. The defeat it suffered in Euro- he had once so forcefully denounced, to reject ultimatums and blackmail, pean parliamentary elections in May but he is still in the ring and defending when the extremely severe terms of a was seen as a precursor for a defeat himself. third EC-IMF-ECB bail-out package likely to be comparable, if not bigger. Many former SYRIZA ministers are were put to the electorate in a referen- The party emerged 9.5 points behind dismayed that voters today seem dum in July 2015. the centre-right opposition in its first determined to punish Greece’s first And it was also here that thousands contest at the ballot box since 2015. leftist government that they insist, later came to dance and rejoice when Polls in Greece have clearly shown went out of its way to help the more the result - an overwhelming 61.3% SYRIZA’s waning popularity and the vulnerable and poor. ‘no’ vote was announced. party that stormed to power at the But they also agree that a number It is interesting to note that this great height of the country’s financial crisis of mistakes were made and can also populist experiment that began in is now a shadow of its former self. understand the reasons why there is Athens, reappeared years later in Surveys showed its rival, New Democ- disappointment over the way the left- other EU capitals. racy, was between eight and 13 points ists behaved while in power. But it only took one week for the ahead. For instance, Tsipras developed a taste relentless leader to do a complete On the Monday following the voting, for cigars and caused some embar- about turn. He approved a €100bn the Maximos Mansion - the ornate rassment when he was seen enjoying EU-funded bailout programme that neoclassical building housing the his holidays with his family on a yacht demanded some of the deepest cuts prime minister’s office and official res- belonging to a wealthy shipowner. any government had been asked to idence - changed tenants and Kyria- apply since the scale of Greece’s insol- Charges were made that SYRIZA, kos Mitzotakis, a former banker and vency first emerged in late 2009. while in power was opportunistic, leader of New Democracy moved in. acted with high-handedness, and Varoufakis categorically refused to buy The 51-year-old could not be more ultimately, not any better than other into this agreement and resigned. He different from his leftist opponent. parties. The reason of course is that it went on to contest the July 2019 elec- joined forces with the far-right Inde- tions at the head of his MeRA25 party. Mitzotakis is the son of a past prime pendent Greeks party. minister, whose family has been com- And again, thousands gathered in pared to the Kennedys by the Greek Alexis Tsipras is now 45 years old and Syntagma Square for these elections. press. He is himself Harvard-edu- still quite young. He says : “Whether we Many waved the red, white and purple cated, his sister Dora was foreign are in power, or not, we are here to stay”. flags of SYRIZA, the once-radical left- minister, and his nephew Kostas is Only the future will tell whether this Athens’s mayor-elect. The 51-year-old ist party whose leader they had come will be the case. But whatever happens, to hear. could not be more different to his left- for the young man who, 24 years earlier ist opponent. And when Alexis Tsipras appeared on began to fight for his rights at school, the platform in front of the parliament For Tsipras this is probably his fare- this has been quite an achievement. building, a great roar of approval went well appearance – the result of his fail- up…the countdown had begun. ure to challenge the EU and deliver on Hossein Sadre

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Operation Familia coordinated by the US DEA and Europol has seen a total of 16 arrests, 11 in Europe and 5 in Asia, and the seizure of more than one tonne of cocaine and €2 million in cash.

aw enforcement agencies n Europe: the Croatian Police were from Uruguay and the Paraguayan from across the globe teamed joined by the National Drug Head- National Police, SIU and the up against a Balkan organ- quarters and Criminal Police and National Anti-Drug Secretariat; Lised criminal network suspected of Investigation Service from Cze- n US: US Drug Enforcement Admin- large-scale cocaine trafficking from chia (Policie České republiky), the Criminal Police from Serbia, Slove- istration (DEA) (country offices in South America to Europe using pri- Europe, Asia and South America); vate planes. The investigation was nian National Police (Policija), the launched and led by the Croatian French Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie n EU agencies: Europol and Frontex. Police (Policijski nacionalni ured za Nationale) the Swiss Federal Police, suzbijanje korupcije i organiziranog Federal Police from Belgium (Fed- erale Politie/Police Fédérale) and How the operation needed kriminala) and the Croatian Special the Italian Finance Corps (Guardia global cooperation Prosecutors’ Office for Suppression of di Finanza); Corruption and Organised Crime in The investigation revealed that the n early 2018. It also involved authorities Asia: customs authorities from Balkan traffickers were not only oper- from Czechia, Serbia and Slovenia. Hong Kong, Judicial Police from ating in Europe and South Amer- Macao and the Malaysian Judicial The operation was carried out simul- ica, where they prepared several Police; taneously by agencies from three dif- flights from one continent to another ferent continents – Asia, Europe and n South America: the Department between 2018 and 2019 but also in South America. for the Suppression of Illegal Drugs Asia, where they facilitated and coor-

12 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC dinated the maritime trafficking of multi-kilogram cocaine seizure car- multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine, ried out by Hong Kong Customs and mostly in Hong Kong and Macao. Macanese Judicial Police. Law enforcement agencies imple- mented taskforces to identify and Final results: €2 million target suspects based in Europe, in cash and more than a Asia and South America involved in tonne of cocaine seized cocaine trafficking. Parallel investiga- tions carried out under the umbrella Operation Familia resulted in the of operation Familia revealed that arrest of a total of 16 individuals, 11 the organised criminal network had in Europe (Croatia, Czechia, Serbia close ties to many criminal associates and Switzerland) and 5 in Hong Kong. and contacts operating out of various One of the ringleaders, considered as EU and non-EU countries (primarily a high-value target, was arrested in Australia, Belgium, Costa Rica, Croa- Switzerland, in close cooperation with (Europol’s analysis project involved in tia, Czechia, France, Hong Kong, Italy, France, while coordinating a 600 kg cases related to organised crime net- Macao, Malaysia, Paraguay, Serbia, cocaine shipment importation using works involved in money laundering) Slovenia and Uruguay). a private plane. The suspect has an and Europol’s EU Internet Referral Real-time cooperation of the agencies international criminal background in Unit (EU IRU) developed intelligence mentioned led to identifying crim- Europe and beyond. Another high- for the field investigative teams. Sup- inal activities in Europe, where the value target was arrested in Croatia port was primarily given by setting-up authorities from Croatia, Czechia and which was the final hit to the core of several European and multi-continen- Serbia took the first steps to dismantle the targeted criminal group. tal coordination meetings, financial this network and the source in South support of the deployment of three America. The joint collaboration of all Officers seized more than one tonne investigators during the action day agencies resulted in seizing cocaine in of cocaine: 600 kg in Switzerland and in Switzerland and France, continu- 421 kg in Hong Kong. In Croatia, May 2019 in Switzerland, after obser- ous analysis, cross-checks and other Czechia, Serbia, Slovenia and Swit- vation operations led by France. intelligence development provided in zerland, €2 million in cash was seized real-time. In parallel with the activities in Europe and more than €1 million in luxury and South America and thanks to the goods, such as high-quality watches Frontex, the European Border and investigation carried out by the Ser- and vehicles were confiscated. Coast Guard Agency, provided tech- bian authorities, another line of crim- nical and operational assistance. inal activity of the targeted Balkan organised crime group was identified Action coordinated by the This operation was a part of a broader in Asia. The coordination of several Europol’s Drugs Unit European strategy against the West- US DEA country offices in Asia and ern Balkan organised crime network Europe led the investigator to identify Under the coordination and lead of known as the Balkan Cartel and its the Balkan criminal cell that operated Europol’s Drugs Unit, several other top targets, which was coordinated by out of Asia. The cell received cocaine Europol teams were involved in pro- Croatia and supported by many EU shipments trafficked by sea. The viding the support of this interna- and Western Balkan law enforcement investigation ultimately resulted in a tional investigation. AP Sustrans authorities, the US DEA and Europol.

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TROUBLED WATERS OVER OIL

ou may never have given much equipment and also, in a worst case, MOPPING UP THE MESS thought to organic chlorides cause explosions. It also gives off the - unless you’re interested in poisonous gas, chlorine. The task has fallen to Transneft, the Ychemistry, of course - but you have The presence of organic chlorides in massive Russian conglomerate that almost certainly owned or used items Russian crude oil bound for export is runs a network of pipelines to Europe in whose manufacture organic chlo- currently causing something of a dip- and China totalling some 69,000 kilo- rides played a vital part. There are lomatic explosion for Russia, President metres in length. For them, it could many uses, you will discover, to which Vladimir Putin admitting it caused have been worse: there are few signs so organic chlorides can be put. They are “very serious damage” economically far of many European buyers rejecting essential in the manufacture of PVC, and in public image terms. Moscow future deals and looking elsewhere to for instance, and in some pesticides. eased the regulations on just how buy their crude, although one Polish They are used in the manufacture of much organic chloride could exist in refiner, Grupa Lotos SA, is known to Teflon and in insulators. They used to crude oil in 2018 and the Eurasian Eco- have been looking into ways to diver- be used to make chloroform, the anaes- nomic Union set the new upper limit sify its sources. That should ease the thetic of choice for moustache-twirling in July this year at six parts per million. worries a little, despite the fact that villains in old black-and-white mov- However, since the 2018 relaxation of Transneft must be anticipating some ies, and from chloroform they have the rules, organic chloride levels in oil hefty claims for compensation. Cer- been turned into solvents until it was coming from the Druzhba pipeline tainly, the company was severely found that they were carcinogenic. (somewhat ironically, Druzhba means rattled as the Druzhba pipeline was Where you most definitely do not friendship in Russian) have been shown forced to close (it has reopened since). want organic chlorides is in crude oil, to contain levels of organic chlorides Transneft spokesperson Igor Dyomin although very low levels of little more that are well above accepted limits: told Bloomberg: “It’s the first time we than one part per million is virtually up to one hundred times higher than are facing such a situation,” adding unnoticeable and therefore tolerable. permitted. The effect has been to shake that “it’s still too early to make any There are several ways of detecting the faith in Russia’s oil industry while vast wrap-up analysis but we’ll definitely presence of organic chlorides, and oil quantities of contaminated oil ended do it.” The out-turn cost of compen- producers really need to. Because one up lying fairly uselessly in storage facil- sation is likely to be astronomical. of the processes used in converting ities following a long journey to which- Russia paid Kazakhstan $15 per bar- crude oil into its various valuable prod- ever country may have been obliged to rel and Transneft estimates that it ucts, such as petroleum (gasoline), die- store them. Russia has been engaged pumped more than 22-million barrels sel and jet fuel, is called hydroheating, in a damage limitation exercise which of contaminated oil overall. The com- and if organic chlorides are present it includes trying to normalise the oil and pany’s initial response when the alarm can cause the formation of hydrochlo- make it useable. Russia is also offering was raised, however, left much to be ric acid which can eat through pipe- to compensate financially any damage desired. Oil companies in Poland, lines and containers, seriously corrode to plant and equipment caused by the Germany, Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and degrade valuable oil processing polluted crude. and the Czech Republic received the

14 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC warning from Belarus refinery com- pump their own output into the pipe. How did the pollution occur? That has pany Belneftekhim but found they That arrangement may change in the not yet been established, but Trans- were unable to contact Transneft for light of what happened, with Trans- neft and the Russian government several days, despite the company neft probably taking over operational say they suspect sabotage. Transneft transporting some ten million barrels responsibility. claims the deliberate contamination a day through Russia, four million of was intended to “conceal multiple oil them for export. thefts” along the Samara-Unecha sec- CRIME AND tion. At a news briefing, Igor Dyomin, While Moscow tries diplomatic means a spokesperson for Nikolay Tokarev, to mend its commercial ties with its PUNISHMENT President of Transneft, told the media unfortunate customers, the existence Things have been getting back to nor- “the contamination was intentional.” of organic chlorides in crude oil is not mal. Ust-Luga, in the oblast of Lenin- Four people suspected of involvement new or even entirely surprising, even grad, has the largest and deepest port in the pollution have been jailed by if the quantity was. A number of car- in the Baltic Sea and is used for the the Samara District Court in Samara goes from Texas have been rejected export by sea of Russian oil. In fact, City, including the general directors by European and Asian buyers over it handles almost 90-million tonnes of the companies PetroNeft Aktiv and the last year because of poor quality. Nefteperevalka. “Currently, in respect Although crude oil is mainly made up of cargo through its twelve terminals. of four suspects by the court at the of hydrocarbons, there is also water It, too, was affected when it became request of the investigation, a preven- present, along with chloride salts and known that the crude oil arriving tive measure in the form of detention other impurities. It normally under- along the Druzhba pipeline was con- for two months was chosen,” according goes a desalting process to get rid of taminated. Several tankers sailed from to a representative of the Investigation the impurities, using more water to Ust-Luga carrying oil that was sold to Committee in the Samara region, but dissolve the salts before the cleaned traders and major oil companies before adding that “two suspects are wanted.” petroleum is separated and piped off the contamination was spotted. By Clearly, the investigation continues but to the next part of the refinement pro- August, however, Russia’s Energy Min- the court named the four convicted cess. The cleaning removes most chlo- istry put out a statement to the effect so far. They are Svetlana Balabay, gen- ride salts but not organic chlorides, that organic chloride content there had eral director of Nefteperevalka LLC, which form what’s called a covalent been reduced to 2.6 parts-per-million, Rustam Khusnutdinov, her deputy, bond with carbon, meaning that the with the additional claim that it will Vladimir Zhogolev, general director atoms share some of their electrons not exceed 3.5 parts-per-million. The of Petroneft Active, and Sergei Bal- and are therefore very tightly bound Energy Ministry’s statement then went andin, deputy head of Magistral LLC. and much, much harder to get rid of. on t say: “The expected oil quality in The pollution was found at the private- Unlike other chloride salts, they do the port of Ust-Luga will be within the ly-owned Samara Transneft-terminal, not come from sea or ground water. range of 1.6 to 3.5 parts-per-million where several small-scale producers They are more likely to have origi- for this indicator in the period from pump oil into the Transneft network, nated through cleaning products used August 20 to 26, 2019. The Energy according to Dyomin. The first deputy Ministry will continue oil quality mon- on pipelines and in storage facilities, director at the Samara Transneft-ter- itoring in the port of Ust-Luga with normally to clean oil wells to speed minal told reporters that his company the weekly update on the official web- up the flow of crude. The pollution had sold the terminal in 2017 and he site.” Oil being transported along the is thought to have entered the pipe- didn’t know who the current owners southern leg of the pipeline, through line somewhere in central Russia are. In a meeting with Putin, Tokarev where a number of private oil com- Ukraine to the Czech Republic, Slova- reportedly said the oil had been delib- panies have access so that they can kia and Hungary was not affected. erately contaminated by a private company, which he claimed “has deliber- ately injected oil that was not properly prepared.” It’s hard to see what the motive could have been. Belarus’s Belneftekhim refinery company issued its warning about the quality of Russian oil on 19 April, saying that according to their research, the content of organic chloride com- pounds in the Druzhba oil pipeline exceeded the agreed limits by a factor of ten. The Russian Ministry of Energy later confirmed that Russian oil was contaminated with dichloroethane (C2H4Cl2). Used in the production of vinyl chloride, dichloroethane can cause severe renal failure if ingested by humans and other animals. Apart from

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has started pricing in a risk premium, the scale of the blaze. The attack was which helps to iron out the bumps a claimed by Houthi rebels as retalia- little, but it inevitably reacts to interna- tion for Saudi attacks on the parts of tional events. Prices rose sharply after Yemen they hold and for the continu- a drone attack this August by Yemen’s ing blockade, although many experts Houthi rebels on an oilfield in east- believe the drones were launched from ern Saudi Arabia, which caused a fire Iran, which supports the Houthis and at a gas plant. There was also inevi- is geographically closer. Whoever is to table market reaction to the seizing blame, though, there will be a price to of an Iranian oil tanker suspected of be paid around the world, with mar- carrying fuel to Syria in the waters off ket experts predicting oil price rises of Gibraltar and to Iran’s unsurprising between $5 and $10 (€4.48 and €8.96) a retaliation in seizing a British-regis- barrel, which would mean a substantial © Belarus Foreign Affairs tered ship in the Gulf of Hormuz. More price hike when you next fill up your Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Vladimir Makei and Boris Johnson recently, as part of the on-going trade car at the pumps. It would mean higher spat between Washington and Beijing, prices, too, for goods that make part China has placed a tariff on American of their journey to the shops by road. dichloroethane is also used in solvents oil, while within the United States the More expensive diesel will be reflected and for cleaning purposes, such as in Plains All American Pipeline (PAA) is in a great many things - including food refineries and storage facilities, which imposing a surcharge on oil producers - costing more. may rather explain its purely acciden- using the new Cactus II pipeline to off- Concern over the pollution of oil in tal presence in the Druzhba oil pipe- set the increased cost of steel resulting Russia makes a change from the more line. Russia is also seeking to extradite from tariffs imposed by the US. The usual concern over pollution OF Rus- Roman Ruzhechko, Chief Executive surcharge is being challenged but it sia BY oil. In Soviet times, Russia dis- of a small oil transportation company, all makes oil more expensive. But oil regarded the environmental impact of Samartransneft-Terminal, from Lithu- prices overall tend to follow stock per- its oil and gas extraction industries, but ania, where he has asked for political formances around the world, so prices the inaccessibility of the regions where asylum but is being held on an Inter- recovered in the belief that govern- much of it was to be found tended to pol warrant. Russia believes 40-year- ments globally would take action to dissuade foreign investment following old Ruzhechko was involved in the counteract slow growth. However, the the collapse of Communism. However, deliberate contamination of the Dru- prospects for the oil market generally with some 32% of the world’s natu- zhba pipeline. A warrant has also been are beginning to look a little gloomy ral gas deposits being in Russia, that issued for the arrest of Roman Trushev, in the medium to long term, with the is changing. Large deposits of oil and founder of the oil company Petroneft. Organisation of the Petroleum Export- gas have recently been discovered in Trushev told Deutsche Welle in April ing Countries (OPEC) cutting its fore- Sakhalin, an island off the Pacific coast that Russia is “looking for scapegoats” cast for 2019 by 40,000 barrels per day, of Siberia, and now some of the most and that the amount of oil delivered down to 1.1-million barrels per day, ambitious projects in the history of the by his company was too small to cause as well as predicting there would be a oil industry are under way there, with so much damage. “I don’t understand slight surplus in the market in 2020. a consortium headed by Royal Dutch what this has to do with me,” he said, This isn’t helped by China’s plan to Shell building platforms, pipelines whilst carefully withholding his loca- increase its own output by ten-mil- and processing plants in the area. It is tion. Despite attempts to restore con- lion tonnes of paraxylene capacity by already allegedly damaging the qual- fidence after the April contamination March 2020, which could oblige oil ity of water in Sakhalin’s rivers, a rich scandal, Poland’s biggest refinery, PKN producers in Japan and South Korea to breeding ground for salmon and a vital Orlen, told Reuters that the quality of cut their production. Russian crude has been steadily declin- food source for local people. The rapid ing for several years and continues to Acts of war can affect oil prices dramat- development could be dangerous in do so. ically, too. They are certain to rise fol- other ways: according to Worldwatch lowing the recent attack on the world’s Institute, the island lies in an area of largest oil processing plant at Abqaiq strong seismic activity and nobody HARD TO IGNORE in Saudi Arabia. Ten explosive drones can be sure the platforms and pipe- caused massive damage to the plant and lines could withstand a major erup- The crisis certainly had an impact, to the oil field at Hijra Khurais, forcing tion. That fear is unlikely to discourage although oil prices are subject to vol- the kingdom to cut output by five mil- Transneft from its intention to build atility, largely because of oil’s geopo- lion barrels a day, almost half its over- what will be the world’s longest pipe- litical importance and the places in all output. Abqaiq, owned by the state line to transport oil from western and which it is mainly found. The spot oil company Aramco, is responsible central Siberia to the Pacific coast. The price for Brent crude, the interna- for some 5% of global oil production. pipeline will run through untouched tional benchmark for oil prices, was The Saudis have promised to make up taiga forests, severely endangering the at $59.41 (€52.04) in January 2019 but some of any shortfall from reserves and extremely rare Amur leopard (only 35 in May, after news of Russia’s pipeline engineers soon started repairs, but the are known to survive), as well as pass- contamination broke, it had soared to work is unlikely to be quick: smoke ing close to the Unesco World Heritage $71.13 (€63.38), peaking up more than from the fires raging there was seen on Site of Lake Baikal, which would be in 1.2% at $75.47 (€66.50). The oil market NASA satellite images, demonstrating breach of international law.

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THERE’S POLLUTION lem will be fixed quickly, the impact on consumers will last longer.” Ger- AND POLLUTION… man refineries that rely on crude from All of this may well be of little interest the Druzhba pipeline had adequate to the handful of state-run monopo- stocks to cope in the short to medium lies that profit from Russia’s oil wealth. term, meaning there was no need to tap into Germany’s strategic reserves. And it’s true to say that the world still The same sang-froid is notable by its needs oil and looks likely to do so far absence in Belarus. Belarusian refin- into the future. However green you eries have been complaining for sev- are, you need oil. You will continue eral years about the declining quality to need oil. “There is little reason to of Russian crude, although the sudden believe that once it does peak, that oil deterioration resulting from organic demand will fall sharply,” wrote Spen- chloride pollution is something new. cer Dale, BP’s Group chief economist, It was the Belarussian State Concern and Bassam Fattouh, Director of The © Lithuanian Police for Oil and Chemistry, Belneftekhim, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, in that raised the alarm this time, but a report published on-line by BP, “The only after accusing Moscow for some oil products by 2025, when the Eur- world is likely to demand large quan- time of dragging its feet over a wors- asian single energy market comes into tities of oil for many decades to come.” ening situation that it had pledged effect, meaning boundary-free move- The report suggests a gradual change to rectify. About 25% of Russia’s oil ment of oil. in oil markets to a state of over-abun- output passes through Belarus and The problem for Belarus is that it dance which is likely to affect prices Belneftekhim claims the dirty oil has is a debtor nation and it is to Russia over the next two to three decades. already cost it $100-million (€90-mil- that it owes the money. According to “More generally, it seems unlikely that lion) in losses. It deepens an ongoing the Ministry of Finance, as of June oil prices will stabilise around a level dispute between Moscow and Minsk 1, Belarus’s foreign debt amounted in which many of the world’s major over Russian oil. Belarus has accused to $7.82-billion (€7.06-billion), most oil producing economies are running Russia of a high-handed attitude to its of it - $7.55-billion (€6.82-billion) large and persistent fiscal deficits. As neighbour and of poor maintenance - to Russia, which means Russia is such, the average level of oil prices of its facilities. "If you need to repair Belarus’s main creditor and Belarus over the next few decades is likely to the oil pipelines and oil pipelines that is Russia’s biggest debtor. Minsk owes depend more on developments in the go through Belarus, suspend [the Moscow twice as much as Ukraine social cost of production across the flows] and repair it," Belarus Presi- ($3.7-billion or €3.49-billion), Vene- major oil producing economies than dent Alexander Lukashenko said of zuela ($3.5-billion or € 3.16-billion) on the physical cost of extraction.” Russia during a government meeting, or Cuba ($3.2-billion or € 2.89-bil- The change in demand will depend according to Belarus' BelTa new ser- lion). It means in effect that every on geographical and economic fac- vice. "They have become arrogant to individual citizen of Belarus owes tors, with demand falling in advanced such an extent that they begin to twist Moscow $794 (€717). This summer, economies but still rising in devel- our arms." Belarus has said it will start for the first time in recent years, Mos- oping countries. “Demand for oil in to look for alternative sources of crude cow refused a request from Minsk for developed countries will revert to oil by the end of this year, although a loan of $630-million (€569-million) structural decline by 2020, wiping out that is unlikely to happen. intended to refinance its current debt about four million barrels per day by unless Belarus takes steps towards 2035,” according to Wood Mackenzie, It’s been claimed that the polluted oil economic integration with Russia. the global energy, chemicals, renew- has damaged processing plant and Minsk has since borrowed $500-mil- ables, metals and mining research equipment in Belarus. Flynn warned lion (€451-million) from China. and consultancy group, “In contrast, Deutsche Welle that the dispute could Belarus and Russia are already united developing economies will increase be a sign of things to come: “We know in what’s called the Union State, but their demand for oil by nearly 16 mil- that Russia in the past has had many each of them retains its own sover- lion barrels per day by 2035.” But as issues with former satellite states,” he eignty and international existence. most analysts are quick to point out, said, “and they may use an incident They are both still fully responsible for the oil industry, being such a vital part like this to perhaps exploit the issue their own internal affairs and external of the global economy, has ridden out for larger political gain.” It’s well docu- relations. Attitudes towards each other plenty of crises in the past. mented that Lukashenko and Putin do not like each other but both men inev- remain unsurprisingly prickly. Russia Even so, a crisis such as the contam- itably try to wrest some benefit from seems determined to regain control ination of Russia’s principal oil pipe- any unexpected eventuality. As it is, over as much of the territory of the line, has inevitable consequences. “It Russia exports around 360,000 barrels old Soviet Union as it can, and Belar- will leave refiners like PKN Orlen, of crude a day to Belarus and is eas- us’s Lukashenko is painfully aware of Total, Shell, BP and Rosneft scram- ily the country’s largest supplier. Fur- what happened to Crimea. The lead- bling for supply,” Phil Flynn, senior thermore, it has been supplying the oil ers of the Baltic states, Estonia, Lith- market analyst at the PRICE Futures tax free at a cost of $5-billion to the uania and Latvia share his concern. Group in Chicago, told Deutsche Russian economy. Russia now plans For Putin, it looks like a sound move, Welle, “While Russia says the prob- to cancel its export duty for crude and arguably extending his power beyond

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In diplomatic terms, the stakes have MARRIAGE OF been raised by Russia’s appointment CONVENIENCE OR of Mikhail Babich as its ambassador in Minsk. The Belarusian Ministry of For- SHOTGUN WEDDING? eign Affairs has accused Babich of mak- Despite the angry exchanges, it seems ing up false figures in his media inter- inevitable that Belarus will merge views and of confusing an independent state with a federal district of Russia. with Russia, sooner rather than later; Unsurprisingly, the Russian Ministry Lukashenko said as much in February of Foreign Affairs has reacted furiously after a long meeting with Putin. “The to the claim. Minsk was immediately two of us could unite tomorrow, no problem,” Lukashenko said in a video Mikhail Babich was appointed the head of the wary when Babich, a former mem- diplomatic mission in Minsk in August 2018 ber of Russia’s security services, was shared by a Komsomolskaya Pravda appointed. He had been a presidential tabloid Kremlin reporter on Twitter. “But are you – Russians and Belarus- the end of his presidency in 2024. It plenipotentiary to Russia’s Volga fed- would also lock Belarus into Russia’s eral district before being appointed sians – ready for it?” Lukashenko was sphere of influence far into the future ambassador to Belarus last year, and quoted by Interfax as saying, “We’re and prevent a possible escape. had been Chechnya’s head of govern- ready to unite and consolidate our ment during the second Chechen war. efforts, states and peoples as far as we’re He was previously appointed as Russia’s ready.” Citing the interdependence of SOUND ECONOMICS OR ambassador to Ukraine in 2016, but European Union member states as an A LAND GRAB? Kiev rejected his appointment. Putin example, Putin said that “fully inde- has also named the ambassador as his pendent states simply do not exist in It all fits together with changes to Rus- plenipotentiary, while there are those the world,” according to The Moscow sia’s oil tax regime that would benefit in Belarus who see Babich as a gov- Times. Read the words of Babich or the Russian economy but cause exten- ernor-general and part of the Russian Lukashenko and it would seem that sive economic damage elsewhere, espe- threat. He certainly seems to be delib- Belarus and Russia are on the brink of cially for Belarus. In order to boost its erately stirring up tensions between war. They are not, of course, as Putin’s revenue, over the period 2019–24 Rus- Minsk and Moscow, the very opposite more conciliatory statements confirm. sia will cut the export tax on oil (from of what most people would expect a “For us Belarus is the closest ally and which Belarus has been exempt) from diplomat to do. According to the Car- a strategic partner,” he told a plenary 30% to zero and while raising the tax on negie Moscow Centre, Babich made session of the Forum of Regions of oil production. Up until now, Belarus several fairly undiplomatic statements Belarus and Russia on 18 July, accord- had been able to import Russian oil at during a recent interview with Russia’s ing to the Belarus news agency, BelTA below-market prices, either to refine it state-run news outlet RIA Novosti. His (eng.belta.by). He went on to claim that or else to sell it on, mainly to the Euro- comments were what prompted the relations are built on good neighbour- pean Union. In this way, Belarus has Belarusian Foreign Ministry’s com- liness and with regard to each other’s been able to undercut Russia in sell- plaints. Babich allegedly found six dif- interests. “Our countries step up polit- ing Russia’s own oil, all at the expense ferent ways to say that Russia was prop- ical and economic interaction within of the Russian taxpayer. The problem ping up Belarus economically (which, the framework of the Union State of for Belarus is that ‘mineral products’, given its indebtedness may be at least Belarus and Russia, whose 20th anni- like crude oil and its refined products, partially true), and even accused Pres- versary is marked this year.” account for around one-quarter of its ident Lukashenko of using what he exports. The Belarusian government dismissed as “laughable examples” The row over polluted oil has high- says the cost to the country’s economy when making his own points. He also lighted and drawn to the world’s atten- of the tax reform could be as high as accused Lukashenko of attempting to tion the fractious friendship depicted $2-billion (€1.8-billion) by 2024, equiv- whip up the support of his electorate by so differently by the parties involved. alent to 4% of the country’s GDP. demonising Russia. The war of words But the problems of dealing with the Altogether, seventeen countries owe has been heating up, with Moscow contamination and the costs involved Russia a total of $27-billion (€24.34-bil- apparently determined to reduce its in solving the problem could point the lion), with most of the country’s lending spending on Belarus, as well as replac- way towards a merger that would suit made through arms deals or unreported ing Belarusian imports with Russian Putin admirably. He has to stand down political loans, according to Russia’s products, from food items to trucks definitively as President of Russia in RBC news website. It was reported in and ballistic missile transporters. Bab- 2024, allowing him, some say, to stand the Moscow Times that 25 countries ich is not concerned about upsetting as a candidate to become President of and other legal entities owe Russia a Minsk (which presumably reflects the the Russian-Belarusian Union State. If total of $39.4-billion (€35.52-billion), views of Putin) because Lukashenko the path towards that goal seems tricky, including through government bonds. has nowhere else to go. His autocratic a little oil should lubricate it nicely. As The estimate, which is for this year style of government would exclude long as it’s clean, of course. And he alone, comes from Russia’s Finance him from any prospect of joining the could always try silencing Lukashenko Ministry, although Russia classifies European Union, and his country des- with chloroform (CHCl3). data from its export finance and loans perately needs the economic support of programme as a state secret. Moscow. Jim Gibbons

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SLOVAK REPUBLIC “Determined action needed to fight corruption in executive government posts and in the police force” says GRECO

n its evaluation report published tative step would be the adoption of In order to address effectively highly last August, GRECO urges the an action plan targeting corruption latent corruption problems within Slovak Republic to strengthen the risks specific to government work. the police, GRECO stresses that pre- Ieffectiveness of its legal framework This should go hand in hand with vention efforts must truly be stepped and policies to prevent corruption laying down clear integrity standards up, starting with the drafting of an amongst persons with top executive and rules for ministers, state secretar- operational action plan, identifying functions (ministers and other senior ies, political advisers and senior offi- risk-prone areas and emerging trends. government officials) and the police cials, in the form of an enforceable, Another key aspect is the revision of force. well-publicised code of conduct. the existing Code of Ethics for the Police Force, to go beyond a catalogue The report was prepared against the GRECO also puts strong emphasis on of principles and to supplement it with backdrop of repeated mass demon- the crying need for increased trans- a practical manual providing real-life strations demanding stronger integ- parency concerning top persons in examples, forming the foundation of rity of politicians and the police in government in order to significantly police training. Decisive steps must the wake of the murder of a journal- improve accountability to the peo- also be taken to ensure that the pro- ist who was investigating corruption ple. That is particularly true in sev- tection of whistleblowers from within links between the political world and eral respects: contacts with lobbyists the police becomes really effective in criminal networks. should be put on record and pub- practice so as encourage the report- According to GRECO, there are cur- lished; all gifts should be duly reg- ing of corrupt misconduct, currently rently a number of systemic weak- istered and made public; and more inexistent. nesses that need urgent attention detailed information should be made to bolster corruption prevention in available to the public concerning GRECO also considers that a number Government. An important quali- asset and interest declarations. of areas require more stringent rules to

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boost prevention within the police. This includes stronger security vetting of police members not only upon recruitment but also crucially throughout their career. Further safeguards should also be in place to guarantee that police misconduct is properly investigated, with a sufficient level of transparency so as to gain public trust. The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) was One excerpt of the August 19th evaluation : established in 1999 by the Council of Europe to monitor States’ compliance with the organisation’s anti- « Slovakia has reportedly the highest irregularity and corruption standards. fraud detection rates of EU Member Statesregarding the use of EU funds.12By way of example, two former minis- GRECO’s objective is to improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by monitoring their ters were convicted in a final judgment for having wilfully compliance with Council of Europe anti-corruption disrespected rules on calls for tenders for the attribution standards through a dynamic process of mutual of EU funds (see para.146).13In another case dating back evaluation and peer pressure. It helps to identify to 2017, the then Minister of Education resigned owing deficiencies in national anti-corruption policies, to suspicionsof bribery at the ministry in connection with prompting the necessary legislative, institutional and the allocation of EU funds for research and development, practical reforms. GRECO also provides a platform owing to non-transparent procedures resulting in funds for the sharing of best practice in the prevention and being attributed to companies with no records in the field detection of corruption. of research or education. This led to the minister having to step down and the allocations of funds being nullified. » Membership in GRECO, which is an enlarged agreement, is not limited to Council of Europe member States. Any State which took part in the elaboration of the enlarged partial agreement, may join by notifying the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Moreover, any State which becomes Party to the Criminal or Civil EU BECOMES OBSERVER Law Conventions on Corruption automatically accedes to GRECO and its evaluation procedures. Currently, TO ANTI-CORRUPTION GRECO comprises 49 member States (48 European BODY GRECO States and the United States of America). The functioning of GRECO is governed by its Statute he Committee of Ministers representing the and Rules of Procedure. Each member State appoints 47 member states of the Council of Europe has up to two representatives who participate in GRECO adopted a decision accepting a request by the TEuropean Union to become an observer with the Group plenary meetings with a right to vote; each member also provides GRECO with a list of experts available for of States against Corruption (GRECO). taking part in GRECO’s evaluations. Other Council of Welcoming this decision, the Secretary General of the Europe bodies may also appoint representatives (e.g. Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, said: “This is the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe). another example of good co-operation between the GRECO has granted observer status to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) European Union and the Council of Europe. Working and the United Nations – represented by the United together to protect the rule of law and to prevent corrup- Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). GRECO tion, our actions will be more effective and we will have elects its President, Vice-President and members of a greater impact.” its Bureau who play an important role in designing The First Vice-President of the European Commis- GRECO’s work programme and supervising the sion, Frans Timmermans, said: “The European Union’s evaluation procedures. participation in the GRECO as an observer brings the GRECO’s Statutory Committee is composed of European Union and the Council of Europe closer and representatives on the Committee of Ministers of reinforces our joint efforts to strengthen the rule of law member States which have joined GRECO and of and fight against corruption across Europe. It is very representatives specifically designated by other fitting for this to happen in the year in which GRECO members of GRECO. It is competent for adopting celebrates its 20th anniversary”. GRECO’s budget. It is also empowered to issue a public statement if it considers that a member takes The Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) is insufficient action in respect of the recommendations the Council of Europe anti-corruption body. It aims to addressed to it. improve the capacity of its members to fight corruption by monitoring their compliance with anti-corruption GRECO’s Statute defines a master-type procedure, standards. GRECO helps states to identify deficiencies which can be adapted to the different legal instruments in national anti-corruption policies, prompting the nec- under review (see “How does GRECO work”). essary legislative, institutional and practical reforms. GRECO, which has its seat in Strasbourg, is assisted It comprises the 47 Council of Europe member states, by a Secretariat, headed by an Executive Secretary, Belarus and the United States of America. provided by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. Source: GRECO

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WELCOME! (but leave your money by the door) According to an old British nursery rhyme: “There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile, He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked style. He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse And they all lived together in a crooked little house.”

hese days many crooked men tection as well as it is the best to protect at discouraging money laundering - and women (and some who your life.” This assumes that for many then you can sit back for the five years may be merely more astute, I of those seeking such an outcome, their needed to acquire “leave to remain” Tsuppose, rather than entirely crooked) lives are or will be threatened in some status, and then cream off any profits have found it necessary to go quite a lot way, either through arrest by the local your investments have made in order further than a mile to find a crooked financial authority or termination by a to transfer them to a jurisdiction with little (luxury) house in a far-flung rival with a somewhat direct approach lower tax rates, or maybe none at all. country (possibly also crooked) that to competition. Welcome to the won- The scheme was introduced in 2008, is willing to give them citizenship and derful world of citizenship for sale. since when, according to Money Week, a passport in return for money. But it Prices vary hugely, but nowhere are more than 11,000 people have decided will cost them much more than six- they cheap. To become a citizen of to become expensively British. The pence. Much, much more. However, Greece or Hungary, for instance, you’ll irony is that it comes at a time when there is a growing demand for citizen- have to fork out just €250,000. How the government of Boris Johnson and ship in a foreign land and a passport about Latvia? That’ll set you back a his Home Secretary, Priti Patel, have that permits visa-free travel. In fact, the measly €35,000. But if you want to be announced that freedom of movement world’s super-rich spent some $2-bil- welcomed into the United Kingdom as for Britain’s three million resident EU lion (€1.8-billion) a year on acquiring a non-European, be prepared to invest citizens - promised the right to remain an alternative nationality. Look on £2-million (€2.19-million) in British by Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May any Internet search engine and you companies under the UK’s “Tier 1” - will cease on 31st October, 2019. Those will find options by the score. One I scheme. It sounds a bit steep but as still living and working in the United found on Google suggests temptingly: long as you can prove it’s been your Kingdom are being urged to apply for “a second passport can be your key to money for two years - a UK require- “settled status” before Britain leaves reduced taxes and increased asset pro- ment aimed, albeit somewhat limply, the EU, assuming the paperwork can

21 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC

ment is nothing short of shameful. The ond passports as a way to “escape and so-called Windrush affair suggests the enjoy the proceeds of their corruption paper-processing capabilities needed should they find themselves out of to deal with three million EU nationals favour”. is unlikely to be adequate and that further scandals await. Not that these are matters of concern to RIVER DEEP, those seeking an alternative citizenship MOUNTAIN HIGH, COST and the right to live in another country OF STAYING HIGHER as one of its natives, or at least among its natives. One of the many, many com- The Transparency International report panies offering their services in this states that within the European Union,

© Frank Vincentz © Frank regard offers a choice: “citizenship by Spain, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal and investment, residency by investment, the UK have granted the highest num- immigration by investment”. In today’s ber of golden visas to investors and be processed in time. Businesses are world money not only talks; it shouts, it their families, followed by Greece, worried about losing vital workers and wheedles and it demands, whilst order- Cyprus and Malta. The UK is not even nobody is talking about what happens ing the construction of impregnable the most expensive once you start to to the million or more British citizens walls around those who own it, regard- look at the figures (and the small print). resident and settled in other EU coun- less of how it was acquired. To get an Austrian passport might tries, as Johnson was himself during his require you to invest up to €10-million time as a lobby journalist in Brussels. And it’s not just the United Kingdom, before you’ve finished. There must be a However, doubts have been expressed of course; far from it. According to by experts over the viability of the plan Transparency International, the EU has few people, I suppose, who are incredi- because there is currently no way for “welcomed more than 6,000 new citi- bly keen to run up a mountain wearing an employer in Britain to know if an zens and nearly 100,000 new residents” a dirndl and singing about goatherds. EU citizen working for them has the over the last ten years. It has been good The hills may not be alive but they’re required status or not. for the economies of the countries certainly expensive. involved, generating around €25-bil- The Organisation for Economic lion in direct foreign investment. It’s Co-operation and Development a very lucrative business for countries (OECD) has produced a number of WE LIKE YOU, that see the prospect of welcoming in reports expressing concern about the more people from foreign shores as WE LOVE YOUR MONEY ease with which dubious individuals a way to make money and, of course, have been able to buy residency and/ for the companies helping these global The difference, of course, in terms of or citizenship in supposedly “respect- “golden visas” and “residency rights” travellers to acquire a right to live, work able” countries as long as they have is that ordinary EU citizens living and and even to become a citizen of a coun- the money. The organisation, set up in working in Britain are unlikely to have try other than their own, whilst never- 1961 to encourage economic growth the necessary €2.19-million required theless retaining the citizenship of their and global trade, is especially con- to obtain that “leave to remain” that is country of origin. cerned that identity cards, residency reserved for the super-rich. It’s not the So, who are these international permits and other such documenta- sort of sum you would find you’d for- nomads? They certainly need - and cer- tion obtained under various global visa gotten in the pocket of an old suit or tainly have - more than a string of cam- schemes can be abused in order to mis- down the back of the sofa. “Unbidden els and a tent or two. “Golden visas”, as represent someone’s tax jurisdiction, guests are often welcomest when they they are called, live up to their name. so as to sidestep the OECD’s Common are gone,” wrote William Shakespeare You may be surprised to discover that Reporting Standard (CRS) procedures in Henry VI Part 1, and such seems the nationality most commonly repre- of “due diligence”. Tax dodging, in to be the sentiment of the British gov- sented among those granted Tier 1 sta- other words, and possibly worse. There ernment, promising a much tougher tus in the UK is the Chinese. The Brit- is no requirement for the authorities in new immigration regime for those ish Home Office says that nearly 4,000 a country of which someone is legally a arriving in the UK. The British Home Chinese nationals have entered the UK citizen, or at least a resident, automat- Office’s recent record in dealing with on Tier 1 visas since 2008. ically to exchange information with people who have travelled from over- another country where that person seas to settle and to work is far from Money Week reports that Paul Wil- enjoys a similar status. In these cases, impressive. West Indians who arrived liams, of La Vida Golden Visas, told due diligence doesn’t happen. in the post-war years aboard the HMT Worklife programme’s reporter, Katie Empire Windrush to rebuild Brit- Beck, in a BBC interview that people The organisation points out that Citi- ain and to replace the men lost in the living in countries where the rule of law zenship by Investment (CBI) and Res- fighting, were faced decades later with is weak see overseas investments as “an idency by Investment (RBI) represent arrests, loss of social security benefits insurance policy”. Or, as Ben Cowdock a high level of risk if they give access and deportations. They were not made of Transparency International puts it, to a low personal tax rate on income welcome by many at the time and well-connected people in countries from foreign investment assets, and their treatment by the British govern- with unstable regimes often regard sec- which do not require beneficiaries to

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© Wikicommons Security camera photo of Finish Police raiding one of Pavel Melnikov's property spend a significant amount of time within the jurisdiction offering the SECURITY CONCERNS singin Sanomat, quoted a military scheme. According to the OECD such source as saying that Airiston Helmi’s advantages are readily available to the The report by Transparency Inter- operations had long been of interest to extremly wealthy in far too many places. national and Global Witness also Finland’s defence forces. The paper also They can be obtained, for instance, in highlights Malta’s record, in which reported that the company had applied Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, passports have been granted to three for a helicopter landing site for Russian Bahrain, Barbados, Colombia, Cyprus, Russian investors whose names appear nationals whilst also buying properties Dominica, Grenada, Malaysia, Malta, on the “Kremlin List”, drawn up by on major marine traffic routes. Mauritius, Monaco, Montserrat, Pan- the United States, of businesspeople Maltese citizenship has long been ama, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, close to Vladimir Putin and who may attractive to Russians, to the point that Saint Lucia, the Seychelles, the Turks have become rich by corrupt means. Věra Jourová, EU Commissioner for and Caicos Islands, the United Arab Transparency International in Rus- Justice, Consumers and Gender Equal- Emirates and Vanuatu. The spread is sia has published the names of other ity, said to the Financial Times in an worldwide and a clear temptation to Russians who are now also Maltese cit- interview that she cannot understand those wishing to avoid not only tax, but izens, despite very questionable back- how so many low-and middle-rank- easy identification. Or arrest. Which is grounds, and a real estate company ing Russian managers could afford why the OECD advises financial insti- chaired by a Russian citizen, who also the €650,000 contribution required, tutions around the world to check very holds a Maltese passport, was raided plus the necessary property purchase carefully the tax residence status of CBI last year in Finland after suspicions of and further investments in stocks and or RBI users. Not all of them do. In fact, financial irregularity were raised. The bonds. As the famous Russian Fedor the OECD itself has been accused by company concerned, Airiston Helmi, Dostoevsky wrote in The Brothers the Tax Justice Network of “sitting on is chaired by Pavel Melnikov, a Rus- Karamazov: “Too high a price is asked its hands” over the sale of passports. In sian who has held a Maltese passport for harmony; it’s beyond our means to Cyprus, two Ukrainian business people since 2015. Finland’s National Bureau pay so much to enter.” Or so one would were able to obtain citizenship shortly of Investigation told Swedish language think. Apart from trying to work out before allegations surfaced that they broadcaster YLE that it had raided sev- where the money comes from, one has had embezzled €4.8-billion from the eral properties suspected of involve- to wonder why so many non-wealthy bank they had founded in their home ment with financial crime and YLE Russian workers need easy and unob- country. talked to a number of witnesses who trusive access to vessels plying the Bal- reported that Airiston Helmi had been tic Sea, too. With so much money entering the involved in various multi-million-euro countries that grant golden visas, one property deals. However, when YLE Affairs in Cyprus have also raised eye- might imagine that the checks to present a drone to take aerial pictures of brows. When Cypriot banks found vent money laundering would need to one of the company’s premises, it was themselves in trouble in 2012-2013, be especially rigorous, but according to brought down and the built-in camera it took a €10-billion bail-out by the Transparency International and Global removed, although YLE got back the Eurogroup, the European Commis- Witness they are not. In the case of drone. Three people were arrested fol- sion, the European Central Bank the United Kingdom, for instance, lowing the raid by Finnish investigators (ECB) and the International Mone- between 2008 and 2015 there was a and four others were questioned. Airis- tary Fund (IMF). The bailout came in period of “blind faith” during which ton Helmi reportedly acquired a num- return for Cyprus agreeing to close its some 3,000 very wealthy individuals ber of properties on the Turku archi- second-largest bank, the Laiki Bank brought £3.15-billion (€3.6-billion) in pelago, an important shipping corridor and imposing a one-off bank deposit investment money of rather question- with maritime connections to Årland, levy on all uninsured deposits there, able legitimacy into Britain. Since then a Norwegian island by the north-east- as well as almost half of the uninsured the scheme has been revised and some ern shore of Samnangerfjorden and deposits in the island’s largest commer- of the CBI and RBI acceptances are important in the management of the cial bank, the Bank of Cyprus. Cypriot being re-examined. Baltic Sea. A Finnish daily paper, Hel- banks were popular with overseas

23 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC

investors because of their high interest shady, and that was shortened to 17 national and London-based Global rates, relatively low corporate tax, and just a few days later following suc- Witness described EU citizenship and easy access to the rest of the European cessful appeals. The European Union residency as “just like a luxury good” banking network. A minority of the is now tackling the golden visa issue, which “can be bought”, adding that “By money held there belonged to citizens some would say somewhat belatedly. their very nature, golden visa schemes of other countries, many of them Rus- The Commission made clear that it are an attractive prospect for the crimi- sian. The EU’s bank deposit guarantee is deeply suspicious of member states nal and the corrupt.” The countries that was applied, however, and funds below that offer third-country nationals the have benefited most financially from €100,000 were left untouched, much to right to live in an EU state with pass- the practice are Spain, Cyprus, Portu- the relief of locals, although that didn’t port-free access to any country in the gal and Britain, which gives them little help the overseas investors who had Schengen area. A new report promises incentive to clean up their acts. been stashing large sums there. tougher action. The countries doing so are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, NEVER MIND NOMADIC DREAMS - Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithu- THE QUALITY, AT A PRICE ania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Neth- FEEL THE WIDTH erlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, People seek citizenship or residency in Slovakia and, for the moment, at least, Indeed, an investigation by Finance other countries for a number of rea- the United Kingdom. “We speak about Uncovered and The Independent sons, not all of them dishonest. For opening (a) golden gate to Europe for revealed that Britain’s Home Office has example, they may want to migrate to some privileged people who have the contracted out its visa service to a com- the other country or merely work or pany originally incorporated in Mauri- study there for a time, setting down a tius, a known tax haven, but now regis- marker, so to speak, in case they opt for tered in the United Arab Emirates. VF permanent migration, perhaps for the Global began as a subsidiary of the Swiss sake of their children’s futures. It may travel group, Kuomi, but is now worth be that their chosen country allows some $2.5-billion (€2.26-billion) and better visa-free travel to other coun- is owned by a Swedish private equity tries. But it can also be a way of evad- fund. Despite this insecure-sounding ing prosecution or to avoid international sanctions or - and this is perhaps existence, it handles some of the most the commonest - to avoid the OECD’s sensitive personal information held by common reporting standards (CRS), a lot of governments around the world the automatic exchange of informa- about their citizens. And from the UK tion between the country of choice and Home Office’s point of view, this was the country of origin. The problem is not just a labour-saving move: it has that to obtain citizenship or residency europa.eu © European Commission pocketed $1.6-billion (€1.45-billion) Věra Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice, in profits from the deal. VFS, as its involves paying more money than most Consumers and Gender Equality people can afford, making the innocent known, stands accused of pressurising applicants into paying extra, unnec- purposes I’ve listed relatively unlikely, money to pay for citizenship or resi- essary money they can scarcely afford or at least restricted to the champagne- dence,” EU justice commissioner Věra for so-called “luxury services”. Even so, and-yacht brigade. And before you ask, Jourová said, launching the report at a applications from known investigative the United States does not take part news conference in Brussels, “We are journalists for visas are often refused. in the CRS scheme and it offers green looking at it with concern.” The Com- Don’t look too closely. The company is cards - the right to reside and work mission warned that issuing golden doing very well but as its headquarters there - in return for $500,000. In fact, visas and passports - often to Chinese, are in Dubai, it is impossible to obtain anyone holding a green card would be Russian and American investors - can copies of its accounts or to look into its subject to reporting under the Foreign bring corruption and money laun- financial affairs. Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA, dering in its wake. “When it comes which is a US version of CRS, but for to the golden passport schemes we Finance Uncovered investigator Mar- new green card holders it can be cir- have identified risks related to secu- got Gibbs says the company has offices cumvented by the simple expedient of rity, money-laundering, corruption in 147 countries and that last year alone putting their money in US banks, thus and tax evasion,” Jourová said, “and it processed more than 25 million visa avoiding CRS altogether, especially if it we have concerns regarding the gov- applications, often containing pass- is in the name of an entity and not in ernance and lack of transparency in port details and financial histories, on their own name. The United States will these schemes.” Bulgaria immediately behalf of the British Home Office and not exchange information with other promised to abandon the scheme but 61 other governments. But although countries under the CRS scheme. is itself gripped by a scandal involving clearly profitable for Britain and for Interestingly, the Tax Justice Net- state officials issuing passports to tens VFS, and although many of the appli- work lists 56 tax jurisdictions offering of thousands of foreigners in return for cants may have ended up paying for passports and residency in exchange simple bribes. The issue is not new and premium-price extras they didn’t want, for money. The OECD’s list contains neither is it going away. In October last these are the small fry. The real money just 21 jurisdictions it considers too year, Berlin-based Transparency Inter- is to be made from those with enough

24 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC

plier of financial secrecy to 29 countries and among the top 10 suppliers of financial secrecy to 83 countries, does not have any sufficiently reciprocal automatic information exchange treaties in place with most countries.” The rapid growth in the sale and purchase of golden visas has been flagged up by the International Monetary Fund. In most cases, even the massive investment required doesn’t entitle the inves- tor to instant citizenship; they have to wait for periods ranging from one year, cash to persuade those in power to for 2.3 per cent.” Some of the findings in the case of Malta, to twelve years for open their arms and turn a blind eye. may come as a surprise, but unscrupu- Switzerland. But instant citizenship is lous firms of high-fee accountants and According to the Tax Justice Network, there for the asking (and the paying) in lawyers are always looking for ways bought citizenship and residency Antigua and Barbuda, Cyprus, Domi- to help the super-rich (and the super- schemes can be employed as a way nica, Granada and St. Kitts and Nevis. crooked) to avoid paying their taxes. of tricking banks into believing that In only one of those - Antigua and Bar- someone lives in a tax haven far away, As the report shows, mutual buda - is there any requirement to live although they may not have ever left back-scratching and blind-eye-turn- in the country for a minimum length of their native country. The bank would ing is extremely profitable: “Germany time. Antigua and Barbuda demands then - if it bothered to report banking supplies more than twice as much that its new citizens or resident spend information about that person at all financial secrecy services to the Neth- just 5 days there within a 5-year period. - report it to whichever country sold erlands as the infamous Panama does. Cyprus is reviewing its rules on instant them their residency or citizenship. Meanwhile, the Netherlands supplies citizenship. And, of course, some such tax havens more than three times as much finan- According to Business Insider, the choose not to receive information cial secrecy services to Germany as under the OECD’s Common Reporting does Panama. Just over 4 percent of super-rich want more than the tradi- Standard for the automatic exchange of financial secrecy facing Sweden is sup- tional private jets, yachts, and luxury information, so the money, however plied by the Cayman Islands, where hotels; they're also splashing out on obtained, simply slips under the radar Swedish residents have stored $11- bil- second passports. A survey carried out undetected. lion (€9.95-billion) in assets. In com- by GS Global Partners in 2017 found parison, nearly 6 per cent of financial that 89% of people would like to own Those in government and authority secrecy facing Sweden is supplied by a second passport, and over 34% said seem willing to ignore the dangers the US, where Swedish residents have they had looked into investing in a sec- posed by the notion of citizenship or stored a whopping $144-billion (over ond citizenship. residency for sale. The EU’s record in €130-billion) in assets.” this respect is hardly spotless: it has 80% of them also said they would be blacklisted just 1% of the tax havens EU member states have managed to willing to invest or donate 5% of their available to dishonest EU citizens. block some of the illegal financial annual salary for a second citizenship, The Tax Justice Network believes the activity through the use of the OECD’s more than they spend on monthly rent, OECD is sitting on its hands over Common Reporting Standards, requir- in many cases. Of course, quite a lot of golden visas but that the EU’s approach ing an automatic exchange of banking countries are prepared to offer Citizen- is far worse and much too lax. To information. But neither the EU itself ship by Investment or Residency by quote from a recent report: “The larg- nor any of its member states has suc- Investment programmes under which est supplier of financial secrecy to EU ceeded in getting a CRS-type of deal money - a lot of money - invested in member states is the US (4.7 per cent). with the United States. The Tax Jus- real estate and probably also in stocks This is five times the financial secrecy tice Network again: “The US alone is and bonds gets the rich person a sec- supplied altogether by the seven tax responsible for 22 per cent of the finan- ond passport and possibly exemption havens blacklisted by the EU – Amer- cial secrecy targeting the EU that is from paying their taxes or possibly ican Samoa, Guam, Namibia, Palau, not covered by an automatic exchange from prosecution, whilst facilitating Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, and the of information treaty, making the US further criminal activities far from US Virgin Islands. Four of the top 10 the EU’s greatest enabler of financial home. But anyone engaging in this sort suppliers of financial secrecy services secrecy, which in turn enables tax of activity, becoming in legal terms two to the EU are EU member states: the abuse, corruption, money-laundering separate people, should perhaps recall Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and the financing of terrorism.” It’s the words of Oscar Wilde in The Ballad and France. The Netherlands is the not the sort of behaviour one might of Reading Jail: second largest supplier (4 per cent); imagine Washington would wish to Luxembourg is third (3.8 per cent); encourage, but the report shows that “For he who lives more lives than one Germany, the sixth largest supplier, is the United States seems unconcerned More deaths than one must die.” responsible for 3.3 per cent; France, the about the dangers, even to itself. “The eighth largest supplier, is responsible US, which is the largest individual sup- Robin Crow

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MORE GREEN BONDS ISSUED BY SWEDEN

he Government has decided The Swedish National Debt Office has ment between the Swedish Social to task the Swedish National also been instructed to work with the Democratic Party, the Centre Party, Debt Office with issuing green Government Offices to develop the the Liberal Party and the Swedish Tbonds by 2020. These are bonds that ‘green framework’, which will distin- Green Party. are used to fund budget expenditure guish green bonds from conventional on sustainable investments and proj- ones. The expenditure items in the BACKGROUND ects. This bond issue will promote the central government budget that will Swedish market for green bonds and be funded by the green bonds will be The Riksdag has decided that the is part of the Government’s action to defined and selected in the framework. financial system must contribute to transition to sustainable development. They will subsequently be monitored sustainable development. The Gov- through a reporting requirement. ernment is working to make it easier Green bonds have previously been for investors and private individuals According to the assignment, the issued in Sweden by both private and to take well-informed and sustainable selection of appropriate green expen- public entities. By 2020, the State will investment decisions, and to improve ditures should be based on the cli- also issue green bonds. The Swedish information concerning risks associ- mate policy framework and the Gov- National Debt Office, responsible for ated with climate change and sustain- ernment’s climate and environmental government debt management, has ability. therefore been instructed to analyse policy, which is monitored through how the issue should be carried out. national work on the environmen- Efforts to promote the development tal objectives that is reported to the of a sustainable financial market “The decision that the State will now Riksdag. included instructing an Inquiry Chair issue green bonds is an important part to analyse the market for green bonds “This assignment marks the start of the transition to sustainable devel- and present proposals on how it could of the preparations needed for the opment. The financial market plays be developed. The report ‘Promoting bond issue, such as the selection of a key role in this transition, and the the market for green bonds’ was pre- which budget expenditures should be Government wants to improve the sented on 10 January 2018. The Inqui- included and appropriate maturity,” opportunities for sustainable invest- ry’s assessment was that the single says Mr Bolund. ments by promoting the market for most important promotion measure green bonds,” says Minister for Finan- The assignment is part of the January would be the issuance of green bonds cial Markets Per Bolund. Agreement, which is a policy agree- by the Swedish State.

26 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC BRITAIN AND FRANCE TO STRENGTHEN JOINT ACTION AGAINST SMALL BOATS Home Secretary Priti Patel met French Interior Minister to discuss illegal Channel crossings

Home Secretary Priti Patel and French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner in Paris

he Home Secretary and her ings along the French coast were the use of small boats but we both French counterpart have agreed crucial – and agreed to immediately agreed more needs to be done. to intensify joint action to tackle draw-up an enhanced action plan to It’s vital we ensure our collective exper- Tsmall boat crossings in the Channel. deliver this. tise is used to stop the boats from leav- Priti Patel met French Interior Minister The ministers also agreed that UK ing French shores and dismantle the Christophe Castaner in Paris yesterday teams will work with their French col- criminal networks driving this activity. evening to discuss what more can be leagues to increase intelligence gather- Today’s meeting follows the introduc- done to deter migrants making the ing in the fight against the organised tion of the joint action plan agreed by perilous journey across one of the bus- people-smuggling gangs responsible the UK and France in January. The plan iest shipping lanes in the world. for driving illegal crossings. included over £6 million (£7 million) The pair acknowledged the extensive The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, said: investment in new security equipment, joint cooperation already taken to I will not let the ruthless gangs of increased CCTV coverage of beaches tackle the issue of small boats cross- criminal people smugglers continue and ports and a mutual commitment ing the Channel – but agreed tougher to put lives in danger – which is why to conduct returns of migrants under action was needed following the con- I’m doing everything in my power as international and domestic laws. cerning rise in incidents over the sum- Home Secretary to put a stop to these Since January, the UK has returned mer months. illegal crossings. over 65 migrants who arrived ille- They also discussed how more We’ve been working extremely closely gally in small boats to countries across resources to intercept and stop cross- with our French colleagues to tackle Europe.

27 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC

FROM GREELAND’S

hen I was small, my mother reaction to his doomed attempt to buy used to play the piano and Greenland from the islanders them- sing an old song to me that selves and from Denmark. WI never liked. She wasn’t being cruel; Most of the world’s media were she genuinely liked it herself. (Some amused, possibly even bemused, by of the others she sang to me I found President Donald Trump’s announce- scary, like The Erl King, or "Erlkönig" ment that he wants to buy the world’s by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, set largest island. It was a bit like hearing to music by Franz Schubert and utterly that someone with a lot of cash had terrifying to a small child). At least this

walked up to Buckingham Palace and © EDM one, “I don’t want to play in your yard” told the Queen he wanted to buy it, is merely miserable. First published in complete with its occupants. Green- not to mention valuable minerals like Chicago in 1894, it told of a dispute land clearly isn’t for sale, any more than rare earth metals, zinc, copper, ura- between two children who had fallen is Buckingham Palace. Trump’s tetchi- nium and iron. Large deposits of oil out with one another and were no ness at the reaction is, perhaps, just par and gas have recently been discovered longer on speaking terms. It upset me for the course. But while we were all in the Siberian island of Sakhalin, and now some massive extraction projects because as a small boy I knew only too sniggering about this cack-handed bid are under way there, with Royal Dutch well what it was like to be out of friend- to enlarge his country, we should take Shell heading a consortium that is ship with someone I had liked and with notice of the story’s more sinister side. building platforms, pipelines and pro- whom I had played. One chorus (there Everyone wants a bit of the Arctic at cessing plants in the area. The Arctic were several) went like this: the moment and we have global warm- holds another potential advantage, too: ing to blame for it. “You can't holler down our rain barrel, it is becoming increasingly possible to You can't climb our apple tree, The fact is that the retreat of the ice sail from Eastern Siberia to the North I don't want to play in your yard, has exposed to potential exploitation Atlantic along what’s called the North If you won't be good to me.” some of the world’s richest sources Sea Route (NSR). For a cargo vessel of oil, gas and valuable minerals. It’s from China, for instance, that would (composer: H.W.Petri; lyricist: Philip Win- been estimated that the hitherto inac- mean cutting ten days off the sailing gate. National Museum of American History) cessible Arctic holds around 13% of time to northern Europe, compared I was reminded of this old song by the the world’s yet-to-be-discovered oil with going via the Indian Ocean and huffy response of Donald Trump to the reserves and 30% of its natural gas, the Suez Canal.

28 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC

FROZEN CONFLICTS

Before global warming started to shrink the ice, the eight so-called Arc- tic nations, Canada, Denmark, Fin- land, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Rus- sia and the United States, followed a policy of co-operation. There was no real reason not to co-operate; small disputes like that between the US and Canada over the Northwest Passage got nowhere and were largely ignored, as was Russia’s claim to the underwater Lomonosov Ridge that extends to the North Pole. If it served little purpose © EDM there was no point in arguing about it. But that has now changed. Seeing the commercial and strategic implications 225-million for the period 2021-2027. of the retreating ice, Russia has started GOOD NEIGHBOURS to build military bases and power Greenland’s relationship with what plants along its stretch of the Arctic Earlier in 2018, the European Com- was the EEC and is now the EU and Trump’s clumsy bid to buy Green- missioner for International Co-opera- sounds something like that popu- land was undoubtedly a response to tion and Development, Neven Mimica, lar dance, the hokey-cokey: you take that. Certainly, it’s a cause of concern held talks with Greenland’s Minister one step in, one step out, one step in in Washington. And more and more of Education, Culture, Church and and you shake it all about. So how did countries are trying to get in on the Foreign Affairs, Vivian Motzfeldt, to that happen? Greenland is part of the Arctic act. examine the state of relations in the Kingdom of Denmark but it is auton- light of the next long-term EU bud- omous. It has a population of roughly Greenland is an interesting case study. get. Under the proposed Multi-annual 56,700 inhabitants of whom around As part of the Kingdom of Denmark, it Financial Framework, a new Overseas 88% are of Inuit origin. Its capital city joined the European Economic Com- Association Decision will be applied is Nuuk. Denmark has two such inde- munity (EEC) in 1973 and remained a to the EU’s relations with its overseas pendent territories, Greenland and the part of it until 1985. It left following a countries and territories, of which Faroe Islands, but the Faroe Islands referendum in 1982 and three years of Greenland is one. “Greenland highly opted for home rule in 1948 and used often difficult negotiations. It remains, values the special partnership with their independence to remain outside however, associated with the EU under the EU,” Minister Motzfeldt said, “It the EEC when Denmark joined. They an Overseas Association Decision. is a political priority for the new gov- have since established their own fish- One of the negotiators for the Euro- ernment to further our relations. We eries agreements with what is now the pean Parliament over Greenland’s look forward to working together to EU. Greenland was granted home rule withdrawal was presented with a dried confirm and strengthen this import- status in 1979, six years after Denmark whale’s penis afterwards as a thank-you ant partnership.” It’s the sort of thing signed up, and in a referendum in gift. An odd present, indeed, although ministers say in such circumstances, 1982 its people voted by 53% to 47% to some of us tapped our noses know- of course, and the sentiment was leave the Community, mainly because ingly. Greenland is eligible for funding echoed by Commissioner Mimica: of its fisheries and their vital rôle in from the EU’s general budget through “The European Union remains fully Greenland’s economy. The process the EU-Greenland Partnership. For the committed to continuing and fur- took three years, despite Greenland period 2014-2020, an overall amount ther enhancing our close partnership never having been fully integrated, a of €217.8-million is foreseen for coop- with Greenland, as defined by our fact that the United Kingdom’s Brex- eration projects with Greenland. The long-lasting historical, political and iters failed to take into account. Programming Document defining the cultural ties. Our relations remain cooperation priorities for this period very strong. Greenland is our key Greenland is not the only overseas was signed on 28th October 2014. The partner in the Arctic, and supporting country or territory associated with education, vocational training and its sustainable development remains the European Union. In fact, there are post-elementary school system have a high priority, as demonstrated twenty-five OCTs, as they’re called, been chosen as the main priorities through the increase in funding that spread around the globe from the for cooperation between the EU and we recently proposed for the period Poles to the Tropics. All of them are Greenland for the period 2014-2020. A 2021-2027." Perhaps the most import- islands and three of them are unin- Financing Agreement for €32.11-mil- ant phrase there is: “Greenland is our habited, at least on a permanent basis. lion for 2018-2019 to support the edu- key partner in the Arctic”. In a warmer Their historic (and colonial) ties are cation sector in Greenland was signed world, everyone needs a partner in the with Denmark, France, The Neth- in Brussels between the European Arctic. The Commissioner also spoke erlands and the United Kingdom. Commission and the Government of of an increased financial allocation for They’re all important to the poli- Greenland in November, 2018. Greenland from €217.8-million to € tics and economics of the European

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IS HE JOKING? the days of empire and colonialism and have no part to play in modern politics. As for Trump’s intended purchase The United States exercises its consid- of Greenland, the idea was at first erable global power by other means. It regarded as a joke; but it wasn’t. Den- gains access to the commodities it needs mark's prime minister Mette Frederik- by the more normal method of trade. sen quickly called his idea of buying the As the New York Times points out, “It island "absurd". A reasonable enough does so with confidence, because many response, one might think - most of the of its trading partners are connected to media believed he wasn’t serious - but it via an intricate system of trade pacts Trump promptly cancelled a state visit and military alliances. Those alliances to Denmark planned for 2 Septem- are backstopped by hundreds of Amer- © EDM ber, accusing Ms Frederiksen of being ican military bases around the world. "nasty". But he was serious about the The Pentagon lists 514 overseas bases, proposed purchase, and with reason. though there are surely more.” So why Union without being a part of it, nor on earth does Trump feel he needs to part of the EU’s Single Market. Their The United States has retained a mili- buy Greenland? And why does he get association with the EU is, according tary presence in Greenland since World shirty when he’s told he can’t have it? War 2, with a number of military bases to the Treaties, “to promote the eco- To that latter question, I have no sensi- scattered across the island, including a nomic and social development of the ble answer. We’re back with the “I don’t secret Cold War-era nuclear base called countries and territories and to estab- want to play in your yard,” scenario of Camp Century. This presence has not hurt feelings and playground grouses. lish close economic relations between been without controversy; almost all them and the Union as a whole”. the old bases are abandoned in remote In case you’re interested, the OCT locations and, in the case of Camp GOING ‘BANG’ Century, there are fears that the rap- countries are: Anguilla (UK), Aruba FAR FROM HOME (NL), Bermuda (UK), Bonaire (NL), idly melting ice on which it was built British Antarctic Territory (UK)*, will expose the environment to nuclear According to the New York Times British Indian Ocean Territory (UK)*, waste within decades, although it may again, as far as Greenland is con- British Virgin Islands (UK), Cayman not, of course. cerned, Trump shares the widespread Islands (UK), Curação (NL), Falk- The only remaining operational base lack of knowledge about the scope and land Islands (UK), French Polynesia is Thule, sited at a location of strategic nature of American influence. “The (FR), French Southern-and Antarctic importance. But for Greenlanders, it is result is that most American citizens Territories (FR)*, Greenland (DK), remembered for the displacement of have only the vaguest sense of the Montserrat (UK), New Caledonia and the indigenous Inughuit community extent and character of the security Dependencies (FR), Pitcairn (UK), who, in 1953, were given just four days system that makes their country so Saba (NL), Saint Barthelemy (FR), to move away in order to facilitate the powerful. It seems Mr. Trump can be Sint Eustatius (NL), Sint Maarten expansion of the US military facilities. counted among them,” the paper says. (NL), South Georgia and South Sand- Danish Prime Minister Prime Minis- It reports Trump as saying ‘Strategi- wich Islands (UK)*, Saint Helena, ter Mette Frederiksen refuses to con- cally, it’s interesting,’ concluding that Ascension Island, Tristan da Cunha sider selling Greenland to the United the United States should therefore buy (UK), St. Pierre and Miquelon (FR), States and it was when she used the it. The newspaper feels that Trump Turks and Caicos Islands (UK) and word “absurd” that he took umbrage knows too little about his country’s Wallis and Futuna Islands (FR). (* = and decided to scrap his acceptance of existing relationship with Greenland. no permanent population). These are an invitation from Denmark’s Queen “What he misses is the fact that, stra- Margrethe II to go on an official visit. not to be confused with France’s Terri- tegically, the United States already He considered the word to be an insult, toires Outre Mer (TOMs). Unlike the has use of Greenland. After failing to while apparently stating an intention British Overseas Territories, which are acquire the territory in 1946, Wash- to buy a large part of another country’s not constitutionally part of the United ington cut a deal with Denmark that territory (which is not, incidentally, for allowed it to operate bases in Green- Kingdom or its national territory, the sale) is perfectly acceptable, in his view. TOMs are integral parts of the French land, the most important of which Republic. In a slightly disturbing way, as noted by was Thule Air Base on the northwest the New York Times, the episode dis- coast,” says the New York Times, Anyone who has ever visited, say, plays a very weak grasp of world affairs “Over the objection of the Danish gov- Guadeloupe or Martinique, will know by the current occupant of the White ernment, the United States military that an item of mail trusted to La Poste House. In the last century-but-one, stored nuclear weapons in Greenland there will arrive at its destination in purchasing land was considered nor- and flew nuclear-armed B-52’s over Europe as quickly as if it had been mal, whatever the indigenous people the country — part of a secret airborne posted in Lyon or Bordeaux, unlike living there might think. There was the alert program targeting the Soviet mail posted anywhere in the United Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and later Union. Stanley Kubrick’s 1963 film ‘Dr. States, which can take weeks to arrive. the Philippine annexation in 1899. But Strangelove,’ filmed partly over Green- Very efficient people, the French. these sorts of acquisitions date back to land, depicts this program.”

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In 1968, a US B-52 bomber carrying “Nordic said 69% of this week's visits to four nuclear weapons crashed near its Greenland site have been from the Thule, hitting the ice at some 500 US, which is a 31% increase from the miles per hour. The bombs didn’t 2018 equivalent weekly share of 38%. detonate but they did spread nuclear And when the President tweeted an debris over a wide area. The Green- image of Trump Tower on Greenland, landers, not surprisingly, saw this as traffic spiked again. This time, it was a terrifying near-disaster, and a very more than 1,200% compared with serious and worrying incident. Not last year.” Trump did put out a Tweet so Washington, which sees it as proof stating that the composite image had that distant foreign bases are invalu- been a joke but with Trump no-one is able. The US military can fly poten- ever quite sure. Another tour operator, tially hazardous loads without any risk Intrepid Travel, has also seen a dramatic House © White to American citizens or property. change in interest from visitors eyeing Denmark is, of course, a member of its Greenland offerings, according to NATO and in 2013, Greenland lifted CNN, seeing a 237% spike in traffic April, Norwegian fisherman appre- its ban on mining radioactive materi- to its Greenland pages over the week- hended a mysterious beluga whale off als there. The United States can sim- end, after the frenzy around Trump's the arctic coast — and it was equipped ply purchase whatever it needs. As the comments. Intrepid told CNN it did with Russian surveillance equipment, New York Times reported, Greenland’s not have any firm bookings yet, but according to the Times. China, too, foreign affairs ministry reassured Mr. it had only just begun to offer Green- says the New York Post, has designs on Trump “We’re open for business,” in land trips in the last few weeks. Trump Greenland, having purchased a fleet response to his talk of annexing the ter- may not like this, being sceptical about of commercial ice-breakers to help ritory. In fact, Greenland and Denmark climate change, but any of his citizens carve out new routes for its silk trade, are so closely tied to the United States vacationing there may be able to see according to the BBC. The New York in both trade and defence terms that for themselves that it’s true. Green- Post believes it understands the interest the bond makes them virtually insep- land's ice sheet recently lost 11-billion of China, despite it not being an Arctic arable anyway. It’s the cost of securing tonnes of ice in a single day. According power. “They’re looking for alternate trade and maintaining bases, however, to CNN, that's equivalent to 4.4 million routes of shipping in case they face that Trump dislikes. He has threatened Olympic swimming pools. Maybe a bit future problems in the South China to pull the United States out of many too cold to swim in, though. Sea or the Malacca Strait,” John Dot- existing treaties and trade agreements son, who edits the Jamestown Founda- on the basis of their cost to the US tax tion’s China Brief, told The Post. “The payer. Though Mr. Trump celebrates COLD WAR GETTING Chinese are certainly showing greater American military might with parades CHILLIER interest in the potential shipping lanes and tanks, his 2017 budget proposed through the arctic region, particularly closing bases, and he has called for But this is only peripherally about as the climate warms and the ice is troops to be brought home from host climate change; primarily - however melting and those northern sea lanes countries that, he feels, pay too lit- clumsily Trump addressed the issue are becoming more open.” Indeed, for tle towards their upkeep. Mr. Trump - it’s about global power and security. China, as we noted earlier, the melting wants power over the world, but not The New York Post pulls no punches. ice offers a faster freight route for its presence in it, says the NYT. “Trump’s approach may be wacky but huge container ships. it does send a serious message to Rus- The New York Post says not all Green- sia and China — don’t mess with us on landers are appalled by Trump’s bid LET’S SEE FOR Greenland,” Rear Admiral Nils Wang, to buy their country out from under OURSELVES a former head of the Danish navy, told them. “Hopefully this whole Trump London’s Sunday Times. “This is a thing makes the Danes wake up and Like it or not, Trump is likely to see a complete game-changer.” As Britain’s show Greenland some respect,” Hanna significant increase in US presence, Guardian newspaper pointed out, this Jensen, a 52-year-old English teacher however, especially in Greenland. The is a kind of rerun of the dash for Africa in Nuuk, told the Times. “A lot of tourism company Nordic Travel says by the imperial nations in the 19th cen- Danes think everyone here is just a a lot of Americans have been looking tury. They could see the rich resources drunk Inuit. But now that America at holidays there since Trump said - a young Winston Churchill described wants to buy us, maybe they can see he wants to buy it. “"[T]raffic to our Uganda, for instance, as “the pearl of there is much of value here”. And as Africa” (and it is still a stunningly beau- Greenland site increased by more than to any lingering bad feelings over the tiful and fertile country) - so today the 2,800%, compared to the same date in ill-tempered exchanges when Trump big powers are eyeing the riches of the 2018," the travel agency said in a state- first suggested the purchase, well, they Arctic with a lustful gaze and wondering ment to CNN Travel. "Ongoing traffic have subsided, says the Post. “Mette how best to secure their share (or more has been up by more than 600% on last Frederiksen and Trump patched things than their share) - by military might. year since last Friday." It is an extraor- up, Trump revealed. ‘She called me, dinary boost for an understandably At least one can admire Trump for a wonderful woman, we had a great nervous (and rather chilly) country. his direct approach to acquisition. In conversation, we have a very good rela-

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nothing about the place until Icelandic tor of the Arctic Studies Group at the Vikings landed on the south-western U.S. Naval War College in Newport, coast of the island in the 10th century, Rhode Island. apparently finding it uninhabited. Greenland, known to its native inhab- They were led by Eric the Red, who itants as Kalaallit Nunaat, is not only had been exiled from Iceland for man- the world’s largest island (Australia slaughter, accompanied by his family, and Antarctica are seen as continental servants and slaves. The ancestors of landmasses) but 75% of it is perma- the Inuit people who make up the nently covered by ice, leaving only its majority today are believed to have south-western fringes as wholly inhab- come from north-western Greenland itable. It is the only permanent ice sheet in around 1200. They survived the outside Antarctica. At 2.166-million “Little Ice Age”, from around 1300 to square kilometres, it is the least densely the mid-19th century, but the Norse populated country in the world. In tionship with Denmark, and we agreed settlers either died out or moved 2008, Greenland assumed more power to speak later,’ he said of their con- away. The rulers of both Denmark from the Danish government when versation. ‘But she was very nice. She and Norway were unaware that they Greenlanders voted for the Self-Gov- put a call in, and I appreciated it very had gone and continued to claim the ernment Act, which transferred power much.’” The State Department has now island as their territory. During the to the Greenland government. Under declared it will reopen its consulate in Second World War, after the German the new arrangement, Greenland will Nuuk for the first time in decades. The invasion of Denmark, the Greenland- gradually assume responsibility for US opened a consulate there in 1940 ers increasingly turned towards the policing, the judicial system, company in response to the Nazi takeover of United States and Canada. Denmark, but closed it again in 1953. law, accounting, and auditing; mineral Greenland may not be for sale but it There are certainly voices within resource activities; aviation; law of legal still holds promise for Washington, Greenland urging the country (and capacity, family law and succession law; it seems. In a letter sent to Congress Denmark) not to be too hasty in aliens and border controls; the working and seen by the Associated Press, the rebuffing Trump’s advances. They see environment; and financial regulation State Department says that the US closer ties as a possible counter to Rus- and supervision. Denmark retains con- has a “strategic interest in enhancing sia, with its growing military bases, trol of foreign affairs and defence. and to China, which announced plans political, economic and commercial The Greenlanders, with their own to finance and build three airports on relationships across the Arctic region”, language, their own culture and with Greenland. The idea was shelved after according to Britain’s Independent. It increasing power over the governance Denmark agreed to provide low-cost said a permanent US presence would of their island, seem unlikely to want loans for the projects. A former offi- allow it to “protect essential equities hegemony with the United States, cial in another Republican adminis- in Greenland while developing deeper especially if it means having Washing- tration, told the Politico website, that relationships with Greenlandic officials ton in charge. After all, they preferred the Greenland purchase is a serious and society”, and said the consulate the freedom to decide fisheries policy geopolitical issue for Washington. would be “a critical component of our to being inside the European Eco- “Trump’s been asking his government efforts to increase US presence in the nomic Community. It would take a lot for some matter of months what can Arctic and would serve as an effective to get them to accept the suzerainty of we do to make sure that China doesn’t platform to advance US interests in another nation. The somewhat sniffy get Greenland,” said the former offi- Greenland”. Trump is not the first US imperialist words of the hymn “From cial, who has experience in the Arctic. president to try to buy Greenland; it Greenland’s Icy Mountains” contains “When China did that, I think that was revealed in 1991 that Harry S. Tru- the lines: put it on the radar screen of the presi- man, US president from 1945 to 1953, “They call us to deliver dent.” Both the Pentagon and the State had secretly offered to buy Greenland, Their land from error’s chain.” Department have expressed alarm although he too was turned down. about China’s growing interest in the But nobody in Greenland thinks they’re Arctic, and have grappled to vari- in error, nor are they in chains, and ous degrees with policies designed to they’re not about to become pawns in THE FROZEN ISLAND reassert an American presence in the a struggle for arctic dominance among EVERYONE WANTS region, Politico said. Part of the pres- the big powers: the United States, Rus- ident’s rationale for offering to buy sia and China. The frozen wastes may So, what about Greenland itself? What Greenland is that US businesses could be thawing but relations among the makes it so special? It is, in many ways, profit from the island. Wall Street is three superpowers are not and nobody more closely linked historically to the certainly keen on the idea of much in Greenland wants frostbite as a result. American continent than to Europe. closer ties, and Wall Street very much But neither do they want Trump to say Its first settlers, in around 2,500 BCE, has the ear of the President. While to their government: are thought to have been from north- American companies would need to “I don't want to play in your yard, ern Canada but their descendants died invest quite a bit up front, it may take a If you won't be good to me.” out, as did the descendants of subse- while before investors see a return on quent waves of settlers, also from the investment. “It will be very profitable,” American landmass. Europeans knew said Walter Berbrick, founding direc- T. Kingsley Brooks

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TELESCOPE SCHOTT Delivers World’s Largest Convex Mirror Substrate for the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope

In the ELT, M2 will reflect will be applied at the coating facility mountain Cerro Armazones in Chile, the light from the 39-m of the Paranal Observatory in Chile its performance will provide the before it is mounted in the telescope. sharpest view into space compared to main mirror extremely previous telescopes. precisely onto the The requirements for the casting of downstream mirror. the 4.25 m mirror substrate were SCHOTT is manufacturing the sub- extremely high due to very narrow strate material for four of the five mir- specifications for the glass quality. ror components of the ELT optics: for CHOTT recently announced Last year, a highly convex mirror sub- the ESO’s ELT 39-m primary mirror that it has manufactured a strate 10 cm thin was ground from the with 798 hexagons (plus 131 replace- curved secondary mirror sub- blank weighing more than 10 tons on ment segments), the 4.25-m second- strate made of ZERODUR® state-of-the-art CNC machines. ary mirror that is now being delivered, glass-ceramic in Mainz, Germany, for S the 4-m tertiary mirror, and the seg- the European Southern Observato- “It was a great challenge for our melt- mented fourth mirror (M4). ry’s (ESO) Extremely Large Telescope ing team and the experts running the (ELT). The substrate is 10 cm thin, CNC machines,” said Thomas Wester- The first set of 18 blanks for the pri- with an extreme curvature, a diame- hoff, Ph.D., head of the strategic busi- mary mirror of ESO’s Extremely ter of 4.25 m and a weight of 3 tons. ness field for ZERODUR at SCHOTT. Large Telescope have arrived safely at The substrate was manufactured for “A workpiece with this geometry had Safran Reosc in Poitiers, France. The the ELT’s secondary mirror (Mirror 2, never been manufactured before: The contracts for casting the blanks of or M2). M2 will be the largest convex mirror the mirror segments, as well as pol- ever made.” In France it will receive its “final ishing, mounting and testing them, touch” there, comprising fine pol- In the ELT, M2 will reflect the light were signed in 2017 with respectively ishing at REOSC, a SAFRAN Group from the 39-m main mirror extremely the German company SCHOTT and company. The actual mirror layer precisely onto the downstream mir- the French company Safran Reosc, made of silver with a wafer-thin layer ror. After the “First Light,” the com- a subsidiary of Safran Electronics & of silicon oxide as a protective film missioning of the ELT in 2025 on the Defense.

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AN EXTRAORDINARY TELESCOPE CALLS FOR AN EXCEPTIONAL SITE

Great care was therefore taken to ensure that the home of the ELT was the best possible. This required a high, dry site — perfect for observations. On 2–3 March 2010, the ELT Site Selection Advisory Committee presented a report to the ESO Council concluding that Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, stood out as the clearly preferred

© ESO site, because it has the best balance of sky quality across all This is the first segment blank for mirror 1 (M1) of the ELT. Manufactured by SCHOTT, it was completed at the end of August 2018. M1 is the primary mirror of the ELT and, when com- aspects and it can be integrated pleted, will be 39 metres in diameter and consist of 798 segments. The ELT is a revolution- with the existing ESO Paranal ary project that will allow astronomers to obtain images of larger planets and characterise their atmospheres, possibly enabling detection of biomarkers that could indicate life on Observatory. Several possible other planets. sites in Argentina, Chile, Morocco and Spain were tested. Cerro Armazones is a mountain Mirror blanks are packed by six into need to be cast and polished (includ- at an altitude of 3046 metres a special wooden transport crate and ing a spare set of 133 segments). in the central part of Chile's six of these crates can fit inside a reg- Once built the ELT will be the largest Atacama Desert, some 130 ular shipping container. Sophisticated ground-based telescope in operation. kilometres south of the town shock sensors travel with the blanks The telescope is being built at Cerro of Antofagasta and about 20 to measure any sudden acceleration Armazones in the Atacama Desert of kilometres from Cerro Paranal, or shock that could affect the blanks. northern Chile. With a primary mirror home of ESO's Very Large The shipping container with the first almost 40 metres in diameter, the ELT Telescope (travel info here). 18 blanks was sent from SCHOTT in will gather almost 100 million times On 13 October 2011, an agreement Mainz, Germany, and arrived at Safran more light than the human eye, which was signed between ESO and the Reosc the following day. The ELT mir- will allow scientists to tackle some of Chilean government, including ror blanks are made of the low-expan- the biggest challenges in current astro- the donation of 189 km2 of land © sion glass-ceramic Zerodur and are physics, such as the formation of the around Cerro Armazones for the circular, measuring 1.5 metres across first stars, the assembly of the first gal- installation of the ELT, as well as a and about 5 centimetres thick. The axies, the characterisation of the atmo- concession for 50 years relating to back of each blank is flat and the front spheres of Earth-like exoplanets, or the the surrounding area. surface is concave. The blanks come nature of dark matter and dark energy, in three types with slightly differently among many other questions. shaped front surfaces, depending on the planned location of the segment in the primary mirror. The first primary mirror segments were cast by SCHOTT in 2018. SCHOTT manufactures the blanks to approximate shape so that Safran Reosc does not need to remove too much material during the polishing process. Safran Reosc will polish the blanks before they are cut into hexagons and receive a final precise polishing using Ion Beam Figuring. When it is completed, the primary mirror will comprise 798 hexago- nal segments and will have a total light-collecting area of 978 m2. In

total, more than 900 segments will © ESO / L. Calçada Artist's rendering of the ELT in operation

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THE EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE

The ELT has a main mirror 39 metres in diameter, covering a field of view on the sky about a tenth of the size of the full Moon. The telescope's "eye" will be almost half the length of a soccer pitch in diameter and will gather 15 times more light than the largest optical telescopes operating today. The mirror design itself is rev- olutionary, and is based on a novel five-mirror scheme which results in exceptional image quality. The primary mirror consists of 798 segments, each 1.4 metres wide and only 50 mm thick. The optical design calls for a secondary mirror four metres in diameter — the largest secondary mirror ever employed on a telescope, and the largest convex mirror ever produced.

The very detailed design for the ELT shown here is preliminary.

Adaptive mirrors are incorporated into the optics of the telescope to compensate for the twinkling of astronomical sources caused by atmo- spheric turbulence. One of these mirrors, M4, is supported by more than 5000 actuators that can correct its shape a thousand times per second. The telescope will have several science instruments, and it will be possi- On 27 October 2013, the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, handed over the signed ble to switch quickly from one instru- legal documents by which the Chilean government transferred this land around Cerro ment to another. The telescope and Armazones to ESO.

© ESO dome — which together will weigh more than 8000 tonnes — will also be able to change positions on the sky and start a new observation within minutes. The ability to observe over a wide range of wavelengths from the optical to the mid-infrared will allow scientists to exploit the telescope's size to the fullest extent, allowing astronomers to tackle the biggest scientific challenges of our time. (ELT) is currently under construction in the remote Chilean Atacama Desert.

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The French national rail company SNCF is taking a lead in adopting Galileo technology to boost customer services, in particular in its high-speed TGV network. With almost 50% of TGV trains already equipped with Galileo receivers, European GNSS is enabling improved customer information and traffic management. GNSS is a crucial technology for the digitalisation of infrastructure and autonomous train developments thanks to accurate and safe localisation of trains. Solutions are currently developed through partnerships between space and railway sectors.

atellite positioning and geoloca- French national rail company SNCF 70 MILLION PASSENGERS tion technologies, like Galileo, is already embracing GNSS-based are among the main technology systems, in particular for passenger TO BENEFIT S information, and fleet and traffic man- building blocks that can precisely and The aim is to deliver Galileo-enabled safely locate trains and contribute agement. “At the beginning of 2019, services along the entire train jour- to the future evolution of the Euro- some 250 high-speed trains were already equipped with Galileo-ready ney and customer experience. During pean Rail Traffic Management Sys- receivers. This represents nearly 50% of 2019, more than 70 million passen- tem (ERTMS). Implementation of the SNCF’s TGV fleet. Some 320 trains are gers will benefit from the improved ERTMS aims to harmonise signalling expected to be Galileo-ready by the end accuracy and positioning availabil- systems across Europe and European of 2019” said Antoine Barre, Head of ity delivered to French TGV trains GNSS can help to reduce its costs. Train localisation projects from SNCF. by Galileo. SNCF aims to equip its

36 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC entire train fleet with Galileo receivers to assist non-safety relevant train localisation and also plans to further investigate the future contribution of European GNSS within ERTMS. “Having Galileo on the iconic TGV trains is a major milestone for us, confirming that European GNSS is delivering a clear value added to one of the main EU Railway undertak- ings. It is also good to see that SNCF is further progressing towards GNSS adoption on the regional fleet on the basis of the GSA position paper delivered earlier to the Commu- nity of European Railways (CER), explaining the benefits of Galileo for such applications“ comments Daniel Lopour, Market Development officer from GSA. Currently, signalling is enabled by equipment installed along rail tracks that requires regular inspection and maintenance. Accurate and reliable geolocation using GNSS will enable rail networks to reduce the cost related to the infrastructure. Receivers installed in the train and connected via wireless networks should consid- erably reduce the costs of operation, maintenance and renewal of the net-

work. © Alstom SNCF has identified three main themes of work for future rail technologies: geolocation, telecommunica- Highly precise geolocation is a key was working on the remote operation tion and the use of satellite images for element to enable autonomy in all of trains for use cases like shunting infrastructure monitoring. modes of transport and future mobil- yards and the development of fully ity systems. For trains, autonomous autonomous train prototypes. operation can increase the density of trains operating in the network while The hybrid architecture makes it pos- TECHNOLOGY sible to take advantage of the bene- FORWARD at the same time improving safety and reliability of customer services. fits offered by both technologies: the GNSS corrects the natural drift of the Speaking at the recent Space for Inno- “We need to know accurately the posi- inertial unit, and when the GNSS is vation in Rail event in Vienna Corinne tion, velocity and attitude in real time not available, for example in tunnels Talotte, Director of Innovative Tech- to enable autonomous train systems,” or in dense urban environments, the nologies at SNCF, described SNCF’s explains Talotte. “We are developing inertial unit can take over to ensure Technology Forward programme that a multi-sensor system for localisation continuity of location data. The iner- is looking to build the ‘Railway for the based on GNSS but combined with tial unit also protects the system from Future’ – a railway that is “autono- other inertial sensors. This hybrid any possible disturbances in the GNSS mous, connected, and zero emission”. approach is inspired by the approach signal, such as jamming or spoofing, This spirit of innovation at SNCF aims already adopted in the aviation sec- as well as environmental factors. to accelerate the implementation of tor. SNCF is undertaking a number of new technologies. “First, this involves demonstrations with several partners, The use of autonomous trains with keeping an open mind on innovation including the ERTMS user group and innovative network control systems and learning from other transport the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking.” should enable SNCF to increase sectors,” says Talotte. “And our sec- throughput on its lines. The objec- ond important principle is to move tive is to carry more people and to demonstrate innovative technolo- HYBRID ARCHITECTURE more goods, with greater regularity, gies as soon as possible in real opera- improved energy efficiency and better tional situations to prepare the future At the Space for Innovation in Rail economic performance, while ensur- deployment of innovations.” event Corinne Talotte said that SNCF ing continuing high levels of safety.

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GALILEO

Galileo is Europe’s programme for a global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service, interoperable with the US GPS and Russian Glonass systems. Galileo’s modern and efficient design will

© ESA - Pierre Carril © ESA increase Europe's technological independence, and help to set international standards for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Galileo is developed in collaboration between SNCF believes that the autonomous EDRS enables people to observe Earth the European Union and the train is no longer science fiction, but almost live, accelerating responses to European Space Agency (ESA). the immediate future. A first proto- emergency situations and spurring The completeGalileo constellation type remote-controlled freight train the development of new services and will consist of 24 satellites plus should be tested during 2019, and the products, to create jobs and increase spares. With the satellites taking first prototypes of freight and passen- prosperity. about 14 hours to orbit Earth at ger trains with autonomous driving EDRS – dubbed the ‘SpaceDataHigh- altitudes of 23 222 km, there will capability are predicted from 2023, way’ by its private operator, Airbus always be at least four satellites with gradual implementation. (source – uses innovative laser technology to visible anywhere in the world. : European GNSS Agency) dramatically cut the time needed for The satellites will be positioned Earth observation satellites, to deliver on three orbital planes at an information to the ground. angle of 56 degrees to the equator, The second Galileo which will provide coverage right satellite EDRS-C The latest satellite, called EDRS-C, up to the polar regions.Galileo will operate in geostationary orbit, at also depends on an extensive successfully 31 degrees East longitude. It will join ground infrastructure, which will launched its sister EDRS-A, launched in Janu- have to make sure that time and ary 2016. The satellites can transmit positioning data are extremely The second satellite to join the constel- data at a rate of up to 1.8 Gbit/s. accurate –a single second’s clock lation that forms the European Data The geostationary position, higher error means apositioning error Relay System (EDRS) was launched than typical low-Earth orbiting up to a range of 300 000 km. This by Arianespace on 06 August, 21:30 observation satellites, will enable the ground infrastructure includes CEST (19:30 UTC). The satellite constellation to maintain an almost sensor stations worldwide, two was launched on board an Ariane 5, constant connection with the low- control centres, Mission Uplink together with a second passenger, Earth orbiting satellites that could stations, and Telemetry, Tracking Intelsat 39, from Europe’s Spaceport otherwise only transmit their infor- and Command (TT&C) stations. in Kourou, French Guiana. mation when in direct line-of-sight

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with their ground stations, which intro- duces delays of up to 90 minutes. The EDRS satellites can then beam the information back to Earth in almost real time. Since the end of 2016, EDRS has, on a daily basis, been transmitting images of Earth acquired by the Copernicus programme’s four Sentinel observation satellites. It is also due to relay information from the Interna- tional Space Station once a new antenna is installed on the outside of Europe’s Colum- bus laboratory. The EDRS-C satellite has been manufactured by OHB System AG based on a SmallGEO Platform. EDRS-C also hosts a Ka-band payload called HYLAS 3, which is designed to provide satellite communications services over Africa and the Middle-East. HYLAS 3 is owned by Avanti Communications. EDRS is a new, independent European satellite system, and is a public–private partnership between ESA and Airbus as part of ESA’s efforts to federate industry around large-scale programmes, stimulating technology developments to achieve economic benefits.

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EUROPEAN REGION LOSES GROUND IN EFFORT TO ELIMINATE MEASLES

ollowing several years of steady says Dr Günter Pfaff, Chair of the RVC. EMERGENCY progress toward elimination of The RVC was, on the other hand, RESPONSE TO MEASLES measles in the WHO European pleased to conclude that Austria and FRegion, the number of countries hav- CIRCULATION IN THE ing achieved or sustained elimination Switzerland attained elimination sta- EUROPE REGION of the disease has declined. This was the tus, having demonstrated the inter- conclusion of the European Regional ruption of endemic transmission for at The ongoing circulation of measles in Verification Commission for Measles least 36 months. the Region continues to be internally classified within WHO as a Grade 2 and Rubella Elimination (RVC) based For the Region as a whole, as of the end emergency. This designation allows the on an assessment of annual status of 2018, 35 countries are considered Organization to mobilize the technical, updates for 2018 submitted by the 53 to have achieved or sustained measles Member States of the Region. financial and human resources needed elimination (compared to 37 for 2017), to support the affected countries. The RVC determined that for the first 2 have interrupted the endemic trans- time since the verification process mission of measles (for 12–35 months), “Great efforts to control this highly began in the Region in 2012, 4 coun- 12 remain endemic for measles and 4 contagious disease have brought us a tries (Albania, Czechia, Greece and the that had previously eliminated the dis- long way towards regional elimination. United Kingdom) lost their measles ease have re-established measles trans- However, ongoing measles outbreaks elimination status. mission. demonstrate that more is needed. Through activation of the emergency “Re-establishment of measles trans- The surge in cases that began in 2018 response, WHO has increased its focus mission is concerning. If high immu- has continued into 2019, with approx- on measles elimination and upgraded nization coverage is not achieved and imately 90 000 cases reported for the its action. This is the time and oppor- sustained in every community, both first half of the year. This is already tunity to address any underlying children and adults will suffer unnec- more than that recorded for the whole health system, social determinants essarily and some will tragically die,” of 2018 (84 462). and societal challenges that may have

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Reported measles cases in the WHO European Region, January 2017–June2019. Source: Monthly aggregated case-based data reported by Member States to WHO/Europe, directly or via ECDC/TESSy, data as of 30 July 2019.

allowed this deadly virus to persist in this Region,” says Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, REGIONAL Risk assessment WHO Regional Director for Europe. OVERVIEW and emergency A detailed epidemiological analysis of grading the measles situation in the Region as A dramatic resurgence of measles continues to threaten the health of of mid-2019 is available in the most The assessment of the measles situa- susceptible individuals in the Euro- recent issue of WHO EpiBrief. tion in the Region considered num- pean Region. As measles typically ber of cases, pockets of vulnerability peaks in the spring, the number within countries and the need for of reported cases declined in June. ELIMINATION accelerated action to stop circulation However, approximately 90 000 chil- VERIFICATION PROCESS and prevent future outbreaks. Grad- dren and adults in the Region were infected with measles in the first ing the measles emergency triggered The RVC is an independent panel of half of 2019. This is double the num- the activation of WHO’s Incident experts that meets annually to assess ber of cases reported for the same Management System (IMS), which measles elimination status in the period in 2018 (44175) and exceeds provides a standardized yet flexi- Region based on extensive annual the total for 2018 (84462). For the ble approach to managing WHO’s reports submitted by each country. It 18-month period of 1 January 2018 response to the emergency. Since met on 12–14 June 2019 in Warsaw, to 30 June2019, 49 of the 53 countries the Grade 2 response activation, Poland to evaluate reports for 2018 and of the Region together reported over WHO has reviewed the situation in based its conclusion on several factors 174000 measles cases and over 100 all 53 Member States and grouped including measles surveillance data, measles-related deaths. On 6 May them based on the needs to contain routine immunization coverage, out- 2019, WHO activated a Grade 2 emer- the ongoing measles outbreak and break response, and the reach of sup- gency response to measles circulation their health system characteristics. plemental immunization campaigns in the European Region. This allows A strategic response plan (SRP) for and other activities. WHO to mobilizethe needed human the entire Region is being prepared The RVC also concluded that the sit- and financial resources to support and WHO is supporting health uation for rubella has improved. 39 the affected countries.Based on the authorities in Israel, Romania, Ser- countries achieved or sustained elim- continued need for an enhanced tai- bia and Ukraine in preparing/acti- ination status (compared to 37 in lored response to the spread of mea- vating plans for outbreak response 2017), 3 interrupted endemic trans- sles, on 5 August 2019 the emergency and identifying and addressing any mission (compared to 5 in 2017) and activation was extended for another underlying health system challenges 11 countries continue to be considered 3-month period when it will be reas- that may have contributed to the endemic for rubella. sessed. measles outbreaks.

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beauty with towering cliffs of weath- But today, all around, there is emp- ered stone.. tiness and silence...in this immense space, man is dwarfed into insignifi- The faces of the sheer rock cliffs have cance. been eroded by the wind into faces of men, animals and monsters. The valley floors are some 900-1000 meters above sea level, and the great Everywhere in this extraordinary sandstone crags rise sheer, a further landscape are indications of man's 500-550 meters. Jabal Rum is the © EDM presence since the earliest known highest peak in the area and the sec- times. Scattered around are flint ond highest in Jordan. vast, silent place, timeless and hand axes, while on the rocks at the starkly beautiful.. Wadi Rum feet of the mountains are scratched The highest elevation in Jordan is, in is one of Jordan's main tourist the names of ancient travelers. The fact, Jamal Umm al Dami, culminat- Aattractions and one of the most stun- inscriptions of Anfaishiyya reveal a ing at 1,840 metres and located 30 ning desert landscapes in the world. series of etchings depicting camels, kilometres south of Wadi Rum village. warriors, and animals that cover a On a clear day, it is possible to see the It lies some 320 km southwest of Jor- stretch of the huge rock face. Red Sea and the Saudi border from its dan’s capital Amman, 120 km south of peak. Petra, and just 68 km north of the port The ancient Nabatean peoples, who city of Aqaba on the Red Sea. first emerged in the 4th century BC Others are some 27 km north of Wadi and who inhabited these regions until Rum village, such as Jabal Kharaz and Uniquely shaped massive mountains 106 AD have also left their mark in Jabal Burdah with its Rock Bridge, a rise vertically out of the pink desert the form of rock paintings, carvings, spectacular 260-foot-high natural sand, which separate one dark mass water systems in key areas, and of bridge that is truly breathtaking. It from another in a magnificent des- course temples and other architectural is one of Wadi Rum's most popular ert scenery of strange, breathtaking marvels, especially around Petra. attractions.

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There are many ways to explore this of Tristram’s Grackle, showing their fragile, unspoiled desert retreat. Seri- orange wing flashes. ous trekkers will be drawn to Wadi In early spring and autumn, Wadi Rum, with challenging climbs some Rum becomes an important flyway for 1750m high, while casual hikers can birds migrating between Africa and enjoy an easy course through the Eastern Europe, especially for birds colourful hills and canyons. of prey, like Steppe Buzzards, Honey Naturalists will be drawn to the desert Buzzards and Steppe Eagles. It is pos- in springtime, when rains bring the sible to see hundreds of these birds on greening of the hills and an explosion a single day. of 2000 species of wildflowers. Red Reptiles are widespread in Wadi Rum, anemones, poppies and the striking but do not exist in high numbers. This black iris, Jordan's national flower, may be considered fortunate by some all grow by the roadside and in more visitors, since there are ten species of © EDM quiet reaches. snake, of which two are very poison- tea or cardamon coffee in their black ous vipers: Cerastes gasperttii and Visitors to Wadi Rum usually see very tents, perhaps sitting by the fire under Echis coloratus. few animals because most desert crea- a starry desert sky, will have an expe- tures are nocturnal, to avoid the day- The Cerastes has the classic ‘side- rience not to be forgotten. time sun, and many of the larger ones winder’ movement and leaves Wadi Rum is home to the Zalabia are now reduced to very low numbers. indented ‘S’ shaped tracks in the sand. Bedouin who have made a success of It should be stressed, however, that However, if you take the time to look developing eco-adventure tourism as bites from these snakes are extremely carefully, you are likely to encounter their main source of income. The area rare; the vast majority of visitors never a number of interesting birds, insects is one of Jordan's important tourist see them. and reptiles – and some desert plants. destinations, and attracts an increas- Trees are rare in Wadi Rum and Down on the sand, one common small ing number of foreign tourists, partic- restricted to three types: Acacias, creature is a black beetle with very ularly trekkers and climbers, but also False Figs and Tamarisks. The Acacias, long legs called a Blaps beetle. It is fre- for camel and horse safaris or simply with their flat tops and spiny, sparse quently seen crossing areas of open day-trippers from Aqaba or Petra. sand during the daytime, where it tip- branches, are the most typically des- Its luxury camping retreats have also toes to keep its body off the hot ground. ert-looking tree. spurred more tourism to the area. The plants you will see most often Other kinds of invertebrates (insects, Popular activities in this desert envi- are the short, woody shrubs scat- spiders and their allies) have differ- ronment include camping under the tered across the desert, which consist ent strategies for keeping cool, such stars, riding Arabian horses, hiking of three main species: White Saxaul, as making burrows and hiding under and rock-climbing among the massive Jointed Anabasis and Hammada sal- stones. rock formations. All terrain vehicles (ATVs) and Jeeps, as well as excursions icornica. One group of renowned animals that in hot air balloons are also available. These provide an important food can be found frequently under stones source for Bedouin goats and cam- in Wadi Rum are scorpions. But for the ultimate adventure, there are the Microlight Flights, offered by els, especially in the summer months, A total of eight kinds have been The Royal Aero Sports Club of Jordan. when the smaller succulent desert recorded so far, from large brown Experienced ultralight aviation pilots plants have all dried up. ones to small yellow ones. It is the take one passenger at a time for a small, yellow ones that give the most The sparse desert scrub harbors a sur- cruise at speeds of 90 to 100 km/hour painful sting, although like snakes, prising variety of small birds, of which at altitudes of 1000 to 1200 metres, few visitors see them and very few the most common is the buff colored which are ideal for photography and ever get stung. Desert Lark. Other common but filming of the rock formations and more distinctive birds are the black Stunning in its natural beauty, Wadi sand dunes. and white Mourning Wheatear and Rum epitomizes the romance of the Wadi Rum is probably best known the White Crowned Black Wheatear, desert. Now the home of several because of its connection with the whose name gives away its striking Bedouin tribes, Wadi Rum has been enigmatic British officer T.E. Law- color pattern. inhabited for generations. These hos- rence, who was based here during the pitable and friendly desert people You are also likely to see African Rock Great Arab Revolt of 1917-18, and are settled in Wadi Rum in scattered Martins wheeling across the scrub as the setting for the film about his nomadic camps throughout the area. and along the cliffs during the sum- exploits in the region, "Lawrence of mer months, as well as passing flocks Visitors who are invited to share mint Arabia", shot in 1962.

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One of the area’s main attractions is the ruins of a house, bia”—the Arabs fought a guerilla-style war by interrupting erected on the Nabatean ruins of a water cistern where, train passages on the Hejaz Railway. according to legend, “Lawrence of Arabia” lived during the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. In the first three weeks of May 1918 alone, the Arabs destroyed railway tracks on 25 separate occasions. These There is also the Lawrence Spring: Marked by a water tank attacks on transportation systems wreaked havoc on Turk- near the entrance of Wadi Shallalah, this spring is named ish lines of communication and were instrumental in after T.E. Lawrence who famously made the area his mili- defeating the Turks and ending the Great War. tary base and home. The origins of the modern Middle East thus trace their way The official name of the small spring is Ain Abu Aineh, and back to the attacks on the trains of the Hejaz Railway. The views are spectacular from the top. This spring, on the edge refurbished steam locomotive at the Hejaz Wadi Rum stop of the open sands, is a regular stop on the 4WD circuit. puts that history on display for today’s audiences. Another important historical aspect of Wadi Rum is on dis- Visitors can walk the perimeter of the train and take pic- play at the Hejaz Railway desert stop. tures, or step inside to observe the compartments. The refurbished locomotive sitting at this desert station invokes the memory of the century-old conflict that helped On certain occasions, visitors can even pay to board the shape the modern Middle East. train and partake in a mock battle during a show put on by the Jordan Heritage Revival Company. In 1916, when the world was at war, and much of the Ara- bic-speaking world was controlled by the Ottoman Turkish Wadi Rum may be on your travel list for its visual paral- Empire, the Allied leadership - Britain, France and Russia - lels to the arid, crimson landscapes of Mars and the mys- sought to force the Turks out of the region; they urged Hus- terious, barren spaces on the Moon, but a stop at historical sein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, to join them and take up arms attractions such as the desert’s Hejaz Railway station is well against the Ottomans in return for Arab independence. worth the time. Under the leadership of Hussein’s son, Prince Faisal—and Because finding unique, historical gems within famous des- with assistance from the illustrious T.E. Lawrence “of Ara- tinations is often one of the most rewarding parts of travel.

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illa Ephrussi de Rothschild, donated the property and its collec- the villa. Next to the villa there is a also called Villa Île-de- tions to the Académie des Beaux Arts terrace with a formal French garden France, is a French seaside division of the Institut de France and and topiaries. Beyond the terrace is a Vvilla located at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat it is now open to the public. park with palm trees and a long basin, on the French Riviera. ornamented with fountains, statues, The villa is surrounded by nine gar- and basins with water lilies and other The villa was designed by the French dens, each on a different theme: Flo- aquatic plants. On the far end of the architect Aaron Messiah, and con- rentine, Spanish, « à la française », park is a hill covered with cypress structed between 1905 and 1912 exotic, a stone garden, a Japanese trees, surrounding a replica garden by Baroness Béatrice de Rothschild garden, a rose garden, Provençal and of the Temple of Love at the Petit (1864–1934). a garden de Sèvres. They were cre- Trianon palace. The slope below the ated between 1905 and 1912 under A member of the Rothschild bank- temple has a cascade of water in the the direction of landscape architect ing family and the wife of the banker form of a stairway, which feeds into Achille Duchêne. Baron Maurice de Ephrussi, Béatrice the large basin. de Rothschild built her rose-colored The garden was conceived in the form A stairway from the French garden villa on a promontory on the isthmus of a ship, to be viewed from the loggia descends to the circle of gardens on of Cap Ferrat, overlooking the Med- of the house, which was like the bridge the lower level. The Spanish gar- iterranean Sea. The Baroness filled of a vessel, with the sea visible on all den features a shaded courtyard and the mansion with antique furniture, sides. It was inspired by a voyage she fountain, with aromatic plants, Cat- paintings by Old Master, sculptures, made on the liner Île de France, and alan amphorae, and a Gallo-Roman objets d'art, and assembled an exten- the villa was given that name. The bench. The Florentine garden, fac- sive collection of rare porcelain. thirty gardeners who maintained the ing the harbour of Villefranche-sur- garden were dressed as sailors, with The gardens are classified by the Mer, has a grand stairway, an artifi- French Ministry of Culture as one of berets with red pom-poms. cial grotto, and a marble statue of an the Notable Gardens of France. The Garden à la française is the largest ephebe. Beyond the Florentine garden On her death in 1934, the Baroness garden and occupies the area behind is the lapidary, or stone garden, with

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an assortment of gargoyles, columns, and Maurice Ephrussi was officially ducive to the creation of a garden. and other architectural elements from pronounced. Béatrice then turned her Indeed, creating a park on a rocky ancient and medieval buildings. The attention to one of her great passions: promontory covered with trees and Japanese garden has a wooden pavil- collecting art. Béatrice had inherited exposed to strong winds was quite a ion, a bridge, and lanterns. The exotic her keen eye and her taste for beautiful tour de force. The Baroness had the garden features giant cactus and other objects from her family, renowned for ground dynamited and large quanti- rare plants. A rose garden with a statue the remarkable collections built up by ties of earth were brought in to relevel surrounded by columns adjoins it, several of her relatives over the years. the surface. Hundreds of Italian work- where pink, the favourite colour of the Her motto was ‘Ars Patriae Decus’: ‘Art ers were hired for these large-scale owner, is predominant. On the east is the honour of the fatherland’. She relevelling works. side of the villa is a garden of native acquired many items—a Tiepolo ceil- plants of Provence and a garden with ing, eighteenth-century furniture, a 1907 decorations of Sèvres porcelain. games table that had once belonged to Work begins on the Villa Marie Antoinette, and a rug commis- The villa was registered as a historical Béatrice Ephrussi was especially fas- sioned by Louis XIV—to furnish the monument in 1996. tidious when it came to the choice of future villa. an architect. She refused projects sub- THE VILLA : 1905 mitted by a dozen or so leading archi- Beatrice discovers Cap Ferrat tects, considering them as ‘idiotic’. The PAST AND PRESENT projects proposed by Claude Girault, Béatrice's father died in 1905 and architect of the Petit Palais and Hen- 1864 the Baroness inherited his immense ri-Paul Nénot, recipient of the Grand fortune. That same year, she decided Béatrice de Rothschild is born Prix de Rome and designer of the new to construct her dream home in Cap Sorbonne, were also rejected. Archi- Béatrice was the daughter of the baron Ferrat. When she first discovered this tect Jacques-Marcel Auburtin was Alphonse de Rothschild, a banker and plot of land, she was immediately eventually entrusted with the design renowned art collector. At the age of seduced by the beauty of the sur- of the Villa, having scrupulously met 19, she married Maurice Ephrussi, a roundings. However at the time, the all of Béatrice Ephrussi’s require- Parisian banker of Russian origin, 15 site was rather inaccessible—it was ments. He was assisted by Aaron years her senior, and a friend of her little more than a barren rocky area Messiah, an architect from Nice who parents. The marriage quickly turned traversed by a mule track. When she would go on to build several villas for sour for Béatrice. She contracted a learned of the sale of the terrain and the aristocracy. serious illness from Maurice, which that the Belgian King, Léopold II, was prevented her from having children. also interested in it, she purchased it Maurice was a gambler and in 1904, without hesitation. 1912 his debts totalled over 12 million gold Landscaping the gardens francs, the equivalent of 30 million 1905 euros today. Work begins on the gardens When the Baroness moved into the Villa, four hectares of the gardens Work on the gardens began imme- 1904 were still to be landscaped. The Bar- diately and took seven years to com- Maurice and Béatrice divorce oness had given priority to those areas plete. The Baroness called upon the of the grounds visible from the house, Worried about the future, the Roth- talents of several renowned personal- i.e. the French formal garden. schild family decided to bring Mau- ities such as Harold Peto and Achille rice to court in order to file for a Duchêne, highly prized landscape She spared no expense or effort when divorce. They won the case and in architects in Europe and the United it came to landscaping the grounds June 1904, after 21 years of marriage, States at the time. The site chosen for of the Villa, and even created a veri- the divorce of Béatrice de Rothschild the Villa was not particularly con- table mobile and living decor in her

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© EDM © EDM endeavour to design the French for- 1934 the estate lost many of its tall, beauti- mal garden. It was not uncommon ful trees and almost all of the Mexican Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild to see her employees hidden in pyra- garden. mids of green cardboard, representing passes away The Marnier Lapostolle family, who cypress trees, or manoeuvring long Suffering from tuberculosis, Béatrice lived in the neighbouring villa and strips of silver, grey and green fabric retired to Davos in Switzerland where were friends of the former head gar- in an attempt to determine the exact she passed away. One of her relatives dener and the owners of a remarkable location of the ponds, driveways and would describe Béatrice on her death- collection of cacti and rare plants, flower beds… bed in the following words: ‘she was offered many of the plants from their still beautiful, with the snowy halo of 1912 own collection to the Villa Ephrussi her hair surrounding the deathly pallor in an effort to restore the devastated The Baroness moves into the Villa of her face’. Mexican garden, today referred to as Béatrice made the Villa her winter That same year, the landscape archi- the ‘exotic garden’. residence and came here regularly for tect Louis Marchand was entrusted a period of ten or so years, dividing with designing the themed gardens of 1991 her time between Paris, Monaco and the estate: a Spanish, Florentine, Japa- Culturespaces named delegatee Deauville. nese, and Mexican garden. Such vari- The Académie des Beaux-Arts The Baroness Ephrussi de Rothschild ety would surely have pleased the first entrusted the management of the made her Villa a true haven for art col- occupant of the premises. He also had site to Culturespaces. The latter has lectors with porcelain, furniture and water put in the fountains and reno- overseen the renovation of the Villa’s paintings by the Great Masters. The vated the French formal gardens. interior, and the restoration of the Villa was decorated in the Rothschild 1945 gardens, respecting the original plan designed by Louis Marchand. Cul- style, i.e., with the best from each era, Following the Second World War resulting in a somewhat eclectic mix! turespaces is responsible for organiz- During the war, Cap Ferrat was ing several events at the site, including The Baroness furnished her Villa deserted by its inhabitants and the the Fête des Roses et des Plantes (Rose directly at the Gare de Beaulieu. A area was mined. The Villa remained and Plant Festival) showcasing the train would arrive from Paris, loaded unattended and the gardens aban- Villa’s splendid gardens. with furniture and works of art. The doned for two years. When Louis Baroness would select the artworks for Marchand returned to the Villa after The Villa is open 365 days a year from her Villa on the platform of the train the war, he quickly began work on the 10 a.m to 6 p.m, except: station! Those works not selected for badly neglected gardens, soon restor- July and August: from 10 a.m to 7 p.m the Villa Ephrussi would furnish her ing them to their pre-war splendour. From November to January: Monday to villa in Monaco. The building was also renovated, and Friday from 2 p.m to 6 p.m. / weekends a new colour scheme chosen for the and holidays from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. 1933 facades: once ochre yellow, the Villa Béatrice bequeaths her Last admission 30 minutes before was painted in reddish-pink hues, closing. collection to the Académie des providing it with a Venetian air. Beaux-Arts The cultural gift shop is open during 1985 A year before her death, Beatrice the Villa’s opening times. A harsh winter bequeathed her Villa and the entirety The tea room is open only on weekends of its collections to the Académie This year was marked by a particu- from November to January. des Beaux-Arts. The Académie also larly harsh winter. As the Villa’s lavish 06230 Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat received the 7 hectares of land and gardens are more exposed to the cold Tél : 04 93 01 33 09 some 5,000 works of art. wind than other gardens on the cape, Fax : 04 93 01 31 10

47 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC TIMELESS CHIC Standout Fashion and Beauty trends By Clara Bauman We all want a handbag in camel ! It is small, because ever since Jacquemus launched the Chiquito at the last Fashion Week event, and which was so small that it could only hold a lipstick or a credit card, micro bags are the trend now. And camel, because this warm and natural tone evokes the colours of the Indian summer. Our selection has taken inspiration from these trends, except that these models, fortunately, can also hold at least a smartphone and a key ring as well. At the very least !

Suede bag Leather bag with shoulder Twin-textured leather shoulder with shoulder strap strap and studded trim bag with studded trim (ikks.com) (lilu.be) (michaelkors.com)

It’s time to be on time ! During this month of good resolutions, Longines makes us feel like being punctual with its “Conquest Classic” quartz watch. What are the selling points ? • Round, stainless steel case (34 mm in diameter) set with 11 diamonds (0,074 carats) • Clock face in sublime, white mother-of-pearl. • EOL function (indicates the end of life of the battery) • Bracelet with a triple security lock. (longines.fr)

To the « Moonsun » and back It’s when the brand with the world’s most famous crystals teams up with the actress Penelope Cruz that a most desirable collection is born : “Moonsun”. On the agenda : rings, necklaces, brooches and ear rings, all inspired by Penelope’s fascination with the stars and space. Stars and crescent moons are to be found among the guest appearances in a collection that will make you sparkle at all times of day and night.

(swarovski.com)

48 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC TIMELESS CHIC Standout Fashion and Beauty trends By Clara Bauman Dress code : Everyone in blazers ! More elegant than a denim jacket and lighter than an overcoat, come autumn, the blazer reclaims its rightful place as an indispensable item in our wardrobes. As for the fabrics, textures range from the opulent to the enfolding (wool, tweed but also corduroy and velvet which are making a strong come-back).

Fashion inspiration So, how will the blazer be worn in 2019-2020 ?

Subdued in tone but very stylish in its “skirt suit” version (liujo.com) Glam rock, with hot pants… it’s a knockout ! With that androgynous allure (sarahdesainthubert.be) (lesvraiesfilles.com) Must haves

Androgynous cut, sleeves With one of the season’s inescapable nonchalantly rolled up… prints: the Prince of Wales check Thumbs up for the (paulsmith.com) “effortless chic” prized by the very Parisian Inès de la Fressange (uniqlo.com)

Tommy Hilfiger has taken inspiration from the “schoolgirl style” (tommyhilfiger.com)

An uncluttered cut in navy blue… this is what’s called a basic An asymmetric cut for the more daring (filippa-k.com) (cosstores.com) 49 - EUROPEDIPLOMATIC - BOOKS

CALL SIGN CHAOS SECURING INDIA THE MODI WAY By: Jim Mattis and Bing West By: Nitin A Gokhale LEARNING TO LEAD BALAKOT, ANTI SATELLITE MISSILE TEST AND MORE A clear-eyed account of learning how to The Narendra Modi government, ever lead in a chaotic world, by General Jim Mat- since it came to power in May 2014, has tis—the former Secretary of Defense and made several departures from the past in one of the most formidable strategic think- India's foreign and national security pol- ers of our time—and Bing West, a former icies. The Prime Minister's personal atten- assistant secretary of defense and combat tion to these two aspects of governance Marine. Call Sign Chaos is the account of has set new benchmarks. These decisions Jim Mattis’s storied career, from wide-rang- have made the world sit up and take notice S ing leadership roles in three wars to ulti- of a more confident and assured Indian mately commanding a quarter of a million government, not afraid to take poten- troops across the Middle East. Along the tially risky decisions. In Securing India way, Mattis recounts his foundational experiences as a leader, extract- the Modi Way: Pathankot, Surgical Strikes ing the lessons he has learned about the nature of warfighting and and More, released in September 2017, Nitin A. Gokhale provided peacemaking, the importance of allies, and the strategic dilemmas— the most intimate and sweeping account of Team Narendra Modi's and short-sighted thinking—now facing our nation. He makes it clear approach to national security and foreign policy initiatives. This why America must return to a strategic footing so as not to continue revised and updated edition includes details of how the unprece- winning battles but fighting inconclusive wars. Mattis divides his book dented decisions to strike a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist camp at into three parts: Direct Leadership, Executive Leadership, and Stra- Balakot inside Pakistan and to carry out a test to acquire the capa- tegic Leadership. In the first part, Mattis recalls his early experiences bility to destroy a satellite in space, were taken. Drawing on internal leading Marines into battle, when he knew his troops as well as his own discussions, as yet unknown information, meeting notes and hours brothers. In the second part, he explores what it means to command of interviews with key players in the national security team, Gokhale thousands of troops and how to adapt your leadership style to ensure brings alive inside stories of policy formulation at the highest levels your intent is understood by your most junior troops so that they can in the government. Painstakingly researched, the book details hith- own their mission. In the third part, Mattis describes the challengesElisabeth erto unknown THURAT aspects of the planning Clinic and execution : of the Balakot and techniques of leadership at the strategic level, where military lead- strike, the aerial dogfight between Indian and Pakistani air forces ers reconcile war’s grim realities with political leaders’ human aspira- and India's quiet diplomacy in turning the situation around in Mal- tions, where complexity reigns and the consequences of imprudence dives. The earlier edition had details surgical strikes, revamping of are severe, even catastrophic. Call Sign Chaos is a memoir of a life -of UsesNew APIVITA Delhi's policy towards natural China and french Pakistan, India's products renewed out.- warfighting and lifelong learning, following along as Mattis rises from reach to the Middle East, Prime Minister Modi's attempt to leverage Marine recruit to four-star general. It is a journey about learning to- Canthe propose Indian diaspora many worldwide treatments and his attention withto smallest of details lead and a story about how he, through constant study and action, besides focusing on some small but far-reaching steps taken to secure developed a unique leadership philosophy, one relevant to us all. - WorksIndia inwith every possiblethe unique way-on land, low in space, level cyber laser and maritime therapy (manufactureddomains. The book by in Erchonia, many ways is the afirst US authentic world account of the Modi government's decision making process on vital issues. TRIPLE-AXIS the ﬁeld of Low Level Laser Therapy). By: Ariane Tabatabai, Dina Esfandiary THE TESTAMENTS IRAN'S RELATIONS WITH RUSSIA AND CHINA By: Margaret Atwood The most significant challenge to the post- THE SEQUEL TO THE HANDMAID’S TALE Cold War international order is the growing power of ambitious states opposed to Margaret Atwood’s dystopian master- the West. Iran, Russia and China each view piece, The Handmaid’s Tale, has become the global structure through the prism of a modern classic—and now she brings historical experience. Rejecting the uni- the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion versality of Western liberal values, these in this riveting sequel. More than fifteen states and their governments each con- years after the events of The Handmaid’s sider the relative decline of Western eco- Tale, the theocratic regime of the Repub- nomic hegemony as an opportunity. Yet lic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, cooperation between them remains frag- Bespoke treatmentbut there are signs it is beginning to rot mentary. The end of Western sanctions and the Iranian nuclear deal; from within. At this crucial moment, the the Syrian conflict; new institutions in Central and East Asia: in all lives of three radically different women these areas and beyond, the potential for unity or divergence is strikS- tate-of-the-artconverge, with potentiallyequipment explosive results.Two have grown up as ing. In this new and comprehensive study, Ariane Tabatabai and Dina part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The Esfandiary address the substance of this `triple axis' in the realms Spotlesstestimonies ofhygiene these two young women are joined by a third voice: of energy, trade, and military security. In particular they scrutinise a woman who wields power through the ruthless accumulation Iran-Russia and the often overlooked field of Iran-China relations. and deployment of secrets. As Atwood unfolds The Testaments, she Their argument - that interactions between the three will shape the opens up the innermost workings of Gilead as each woman is forced world stage for decades to come - will be of interest to anyone looking to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what to understand the contemporary international security puzzle. she believes.

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