MESOPOTAMIA NEWS FOCUS : Iraq’s Dire Fiscal Crisis
By KIRK H. SOWELL CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT – Iraq’s Prime Minister inherited a series of fiscal crises. As his interim government struggles to advert a complete economic collapse, austerity measures may come at the expense of much-needed reforms. November 02, 2020
Since taking office, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has faced a series of fiscal and security crises amid collapsing public services and protests. The collapse in global oil prices due to the coronavirus pandemic and the Saudi-Russia oil price war caused Iraq to face an internal solvency crisis as early as June. This fiscal crisis has short and long-term implications. In the short-term, Baghdad continuously struggles to pay public sector salaries, which required the state to borrow from the Central Bank over the summer. With low oil revenue, the state’s monthly profits are covering just over 50 percent of its expenses. In the longer-term, Iraq faces a looming macro-fiscal state collapse—potentially within the next year.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : ISRAELS GREAT HYPOCRISY TOWARDS ARMENIA –
“President Reuven Rivlin, soon after Armenia recalled its ambassador, called his Armenian counterpart and offered humanitarian aid. Asked whether his country would be interested in Israeli humanitarian aid, Pashinyan replied bitterly: “Humanitarian aid by a country that is selling weapons to mercenaries, which they are using to strike a civilian peaceful population? I propose that Israel send that aid to the mercenaries and to the terrorists as the logical continuation of its activities.”
Armenian PM to Post: Israel joins forces with the devil
Pashinyan said that it was only a matter of time before Turkey’s “imperialistic ambition” will be aimed toward Israel.
By HERB KEINON NOVEMBER 2, 2020 22:07 JERUSALEM POST
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : THE CORONA VIRUS – AN ANATOMY /
„Derjenige, der glaubt, dass wir in zwei Monaten durch sind, wenn wir uns jetzt alle am ‚Riemen reißen‘, dem liegt der Irrglaube zugrunde, dass das Virus durch einen Impfstoff oder andere Maßnahmen weggehen wird, der irrt. Das Virus wird Teil unseres Lebens bleiben.”
(Carl Christian Jancke) Betrachtet man das Worldometer, das auf den Daten unter anderem der Johns-Hopkins Universität beruht, verstärkt sich die Erkenntnis, dass alle Strategien der unterschiedlichen Staaten weitgehend ohne Einfluss auf die Infektionszahlen sind. Hier eine Zusammenfassung der Lage und Mitschriften der Pressekonferenz der Kassenärztlichen Vereinigung, die den Regierenden ein alternatives Konzept entgegenhält – ohne Erfolg.
Dossier – ein aktueller Sachstand zur Coronalage – Von Carl Christian Jancke (achgut achse) 3 Nov 2020
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : Turkey turns up heat on PKK in Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdish forces have deployed to a mountainous area long used as a camp ground by PKK militants, adding to the pressure the militants face from Turkey’s cross-border military operations in the region.
Fehim Tastekin Nov 2, 2020 AL MONITOR – Turkey’s months-long military operations in border areas on Iraqi Kurdistan soil have turned up pressure on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has long used the region as a base in its armed campaign against Ankara, pushing the militants to move deeper into Iraqi Kurdistan, where their presence is causing friction with local Kurds and fanning fears of renewed Kurdish fratricide.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : ISLAMIST AZERBAIJAN MURDERS CHRISTIAN ARMENIANS WITH ISRAELI DRONES & WEAPONRY
Possible war crimes committed in Nagorno-Karabakh: U.N. rights boss
Esta – Reuters 2 Nov 2020 – SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The U.N. human rights chief said on Monday artillery strikes in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh could amount to war crimes and she urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to halt attacks on civilian areas, schools and hospitals.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS BACKGROUNDER NORTH IRAQ / KURDISTAN
PKK must end occupation of Kurdistan Region’s border areas: Masoud Barzani
Hiwa Shilani | KURDISTA24 2 Nov 2020 – ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Senior Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Monday called on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters to leave the Kurdistan Region’s border areas to prevent further escalation with Turkey.
Since mid-June, the border areas in the Kurdistan Region have turned into an open battlefield between the Turkish army and the PKK fighters, a conflict that has resulted in a number of human casualties and substatial material losses.
MESOPOTAMIA FACING AN INNER-KURDISH WAR / PKK & KDP NORTH IRAQ
Barzani to PKK: Don’t Exploit Our Reluctance to Enter War Between Kurds
Basnews English 2020/11/02 – 17:13 ERBIL — Kurdish prominent leader and the president of the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Masoud Barzani has urged the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to act responsibly and do not exploit Kurdistan Region’s reluctance to enter a war between Kurds.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : In Defense of Trump’s National-Security Record
By Jim Talent 2 Nov 2020 – THE NATIONAL REVIEW
One of the many perversities of Trump’s presidency is that Donald J. Trump’s core deficiencies as a chief administrator — his ignorance and his laziness — are the chief practical virtues of his presidency. He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know, and this has created the opportunity for some of the people in his administration to get some useful things done. For this reason, the conservative advances that have accompanied the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) mostly have been in the fields in which the president has the least engagement and interest, whereas the catastrophes of the Trump presidency (and it won’t do to pretend that these do not exist) are strongly associated with those few areas of policy in which he takes an active interest or is personally and strongly engaged with ex officio.
I hesitate to contradict Kevin, but in my estimation, the Trump administration has accomplished quite a lot in the field of foreign and defense affairs, and the president — who practically and constitutionally controls those responsibilities — has to be given the lion’s share of credit for it.
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS THE IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY (IRAQ) – Unmasking Stakeknife: the most notorious double agent in British history
By James Harkin1 November 2020
For years during the worst of The Troubles, Freddie Scappaticci was chief rat and rat catcher-in-chief, at once the most notorious IRA ‘nutter’, tasked with seeking and silencing moles, and himself one of the biggest. As the British army ‘tout’ code-named ‘Stakeknife’, he belonged to a paranoid shadowland of informers and interrogators, ex-cops and executioners. Now, decades on, Operation Kenova is ready to report the cost in lives of keeping his secret. With its tenacious lead investigator facing down grizzled paramilitaries and security service agents thought too big to punish, GQ exposes the hidden agendas and unaccountable spy masters behind an extraordinary story neither side wants told
MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : THE CRUSADERS CAME FROM THE EAST / REMEMBER THE BATTEL OF POITIERS !
The age-old tension between Islam and France
A profound antipathy reaches back beyond the Enlightenment /UNHERD
BY TOM HOLLAND – Tom Holland is a writer, popular historian and cricketer. He is not an actor. His most recent book is Dominion – November 2, 2020 –
In 1798, Napoleon embarked on the first French invasion of Egypt since the era of the Crusades. He prepared for it with his customary attention to detail. Conscious that he was travelling to a predominantly Muslim land, he sought to make a careful study of Islam. Top of his reading list was, of course, the Qur’an. Raised as he had been to view the Bible as the archetype of scripture, he found it a surprising text. The character of Muhammad’s revelations, he realised, was radically different from that of the New Testament.
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