Raghida Dergham is the founder and executive chairwoman of the Beirut Institute, and a columnist for The National
December 25, 2022
Among those who were betrayed by their luck in 2022 is Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose "special military operation" in Ukraine exposed the structural cracks in the Russian military – which Mr Putin today seeks to reassemble as if no war is taking place.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have also seen their luck and prestige diminish greatly, after the regime showed intransigence in the nuclear talks, in the response to popular protests, and in its wager on strategic relations with Russia and China.
The winners in 2022 are the courageous women of Iran, who have been able to bring about a shift in US and European policies that had been too lenient with the regime. More importantly, these women have been able to mobilise an unprecedented protest movement that has not staked its bets on foreign support, but on the unwavering Iranian people. They have forced capitals around the world to reassess their calculations.
Two scenes in Moscow and Washington over the space of a few days last week carried military implications that could have a decisive impact in the war.
At a time when Mr Putin was criticising the Russian military over its failures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was presenting to the US Congress, where he delivered a speech, a huge Ukrainian flag signed by soldiers. He also gave a Ukrainian soldier's medal to US President Joe Biden.
Mr Zelenskyy’s survival represents one of the biggest setbacks for the Kremlin, which had calculated that his removal from power would be straightforward. Some might argue that Mr Zelenskyy is not the shrewdest leader, having given Ukraine to Nato as ammunition in its conflict with Russia. What matters, however, is that he has this far succeeded in the political and media war.
Mr Putin’s speech to the Russian Ministry of Defence revived memories his speech to the brass a year ago, when he effectively announced his intention to invade Ukraine believing Nato would ultimately yield to his demands. But by doing so, he limited his options.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a productive trip to the US. AP Photo
Western preparations could be afoot to redraw the map of the international order without Russia
This year, he pledged to maintain nuclear deterrence and increase combat readiness of his nuclear forces, and to equip the strategic forces with modern weaponry. He indicated that the special military operation would continue until it achieved its goal. He intends to increase the size of Russia’s forces next year to nearly 1.5 million troops. He also made it clear that there was no room for negotiations.
Mr Biden, meanwhile, also signalled the door was closed to US-Russia talks on Ukraine. This is an achievement for Mr Zelenskyy, who is categorically opposed to allowing the US and Russia to determine Ukraine's fate. Mr Zelenskyy also secured the delivery of the US Patriot missile systems that the Kremlin deemed to be an escalation of the war and a direct US intervention. As one military expert put it, Mr Biden has achieved the dream of US generals to test and use the missiles against Russia.
Mr Zelenskyy also secured Mr Biden's support for a peace conference early next year, bringing together the coalition of Ukraine’s backers. One Russian expert compared this proposed meeting to the Tehran Conference of 1943, when the Allied Forces forged a consensus to open a second front against Nazi Germany and drew up a map of post-war coexistence among the winning powers, except now Russia was being excluded.
In other words, western preparations could be afoot to redraw the map of the international order without Russia. The process to exclude it had already begun, from global sports events such as the Qatar World Cup and the Paris 2024 Olympics, and from international summits such as the Munich Security Conference.
Around this time last year, I had argued in these pages that a Russia-West confrontation was inevitable, after Mr Putin had demanded that Nato provide written guarantees on Ukraine. The question of who lured whom into the conflict matters less a year later.
The war isn’t over. Russia hasn't been defeated yet, but it could yet be, and this notion until recently was considered impossible. Even China has not rushed to Russia’s side.
A demonstrator at a protest in support of Iranian women after the death of Mahsa Amini, near the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 7. Reuters
An image grab from a video posted on November 7 shows a mounted police unit patrolling in the Sadeghiyeh district of Iran's capital Tehran. AFP
A woman's hand pictured during a freedom rally for Iranian women, in Bern, Switzerland. EPA
Swiss National Council member Flavia Wasserfallen, of the Social Democratic Party, cuts her hair in solidarity with Iranian women at the freedom rally in Bern. EPA
Demonstrators protest in support of Iranian women and against the death of Mahsa Amini near the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Reuters
Members of the Iranian community living in Turkey protest near the Iranian consulate in Istanbul. Reuters
A woman attends a protest against the death of Mahsa Amini in Rome, Italy, on October 29. AP Photo
Protesters in Istanbul near the Iranian consulate. Reuters
Iran, on the other hand, has linked its fate to that of Russia. Today, its drones are being used in Russia’s war, with all the adversity this entails in terms of European-Iranian relations and the US's willingness to revive the nuclear agreement with Tehran. The regime has precluded a new deal despite its investment in it to get rid of sanctions, and launch efforts for economic recovery and expansion of its regional influence through militias it backs in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
The Iran nuclear deal is dead, yet it remains a dream for some European leaders. The Biden administration is frustrated by the use of Iranian drones in Ukraine, for which American and European firms may have supplied crucial parts, most likely inadvertently, yet in a manner that has caused embarrassment to Washington. The Biden administration is also troubled by the regime’s crackdown on young women and men in recent months.
A year ago, Mr Biden himself enthusiastically determined to reverse his predecessor Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement that Barack Obama signed in 2018. Today, the same Mr Biden is determined to block pleas from the European states still seeking to revive the deal.
Indeed, the Europeans are still engaging Tehran behind the scenes for nuclear, oil and even emotional reasons. They feel they have invested too much in the talks and still believe in the validity of their draft proposal for a new deal. Some are still trying to extract positions from Iran that can help avert closing the door completely, such as an Iranian recognition of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
But Mr Biden is insistent on his position. He has understood that Tehran was never honest in its claim it was ready to place its nuclear programme under transparent monitoring. He has understood that his administration had been wrong to wield to Tehran’s diktats of excluding its regional behaviour and ballistic missile programme from the nuclear negotiations.
Iran’s women are the ones to awaken the Biden administration, not just the Iranian drones and missiles in Ukraine. Yet, none of this constitutes a policy. What the US must do is to build on recent steps to repair relations with the Arab Gulf countries and be vigilant about the IRGC’s infiltration of a number of fragile Arab states.
While one can put Gulf countries among the winners of 2022, the countries of the Arab Levant are in dire straits, hostage to the decisions of the Iranian regime and its Persian project, though this may have now started to crumble.
2023 may, therefore, be the year for decisive conclusions for the states whose leaders thought arrogance is the key to greatness.
Founder: Jon Richards, founder and chief executive; Samer Chebab, co-founder and chief operating officer, and Jonathan Rawlings, co-founder and chief financial officer
Based: Media City, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: 120 employees
Investors: 2014: $500,000 in a seed round led by Mulverhill Associates; 2015: $3m in Series A funding led by STC Ventures (managed by Iris Capital), Wamda and Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority; 2019: $8m in Series B funding with the same investors as Series A along with Precinct Partners, Saned and Argo Ventures (the VC arm of multinational insurer Argo Group)
End of free parking
- paid-for parking will be rolled across Abu Dhabi island on August 18
- drivers will have three working weeks leeway before fines are issued
- areas that are currently free to park - around Sheikh Zayed Bridge, Maqta Bridge, Mussaffah Bridge and the Corniche - will now require a ticket
- villa residents will need a permit to park outside their home. One vehicle is Dh800 and a second is Dh1,200.
- The penalty for failing to pay for a ticket after 10 minutes will be Dh200
- Parking on a patch of sand will incur a fine of Dh300
Australia: Aaron Finch (c), Mitchell Marsh, Alex Carey, Ashton Agar, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, D’Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa.
Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (c), Fakhar Zaman, Mohammad Hafeez, Sahibzada Farhan, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Asif Ali, Hussain Talat, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Usman Khan Shinwari, Hassan Ali, Imad Wasim, Waqas Maqsood, Faheem Ashraf.
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area. Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife. Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”. He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale. Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable
Amitav Ghosh, University of Chicago Press
What the law says
Micro-retirement is not a recognised concept or employment status under Federal Decree Law No. 33 of 2021 on the Regulation of Labour Relations (as amended) (UAE Labour Law). As such, it reflects a voluntary work-life balance practice, rather than a recognised legal employment category, according to Dilini Loku, senior associate for law firm Gateley Middle East.
“Some companies may offer formal sabbatical policies or career break programmes; however, beyond such arrangements, there is no automatic right or statutory entitlement to extended breaks,” she explains.
“Any leave taken beyond statutory entitlements, such as annual leave, is typically regarded as unpaid leave in accordance with Article 33 of the UAE Labour Law. While employees may legally take unpaid leave, such requests are subject to the employer’s discretion and require approval.”
If an employee resigns to pursue micro-retirement, the employment contract is terminated, and the employer is under no legal obligation to rehire the employee in the future unless specific contractual agreements are in place (such as return-to-work arrangements), which are generally uncommon, Ms Loku adds.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024. It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine. Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages]. The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts. With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians. Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved. Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world. The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
Priority access to new homes from participating developers
Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
Flexible payment plans from developers
Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
