One of the surprises of a fast-changing world is that the US dollar is still king. American power is in relative decline due to the rise of new economic powers such as China and the failure of US armed forces to achieve victory in expeditionary wars. But still the dollar rules the world as the favoured currency for foreign reserves and major international transactions.
It was not always going to be like this. A little more than a decade ago the euro, the European common currency, was set to challenge the dollar. But the European sovereign debt crisis of 2008 highlighted the political fragility of the European Union and the euro remains a work in progress.
China was also planning to internationalise its currency, the RMB, to make it a competitor to the US dollar, crowning its spectacular economic rise. But progress has been slow and economic turbulence has led the communist party to prioritise stable growth at home over the glamorous prize of achieving reserve currency status.
So the dollar still rules, despite successive governments in Washington gorging on foreign debt to a level which would be considered reckless in any other country.
The power of the dollar matters because US President Donald Trump is now using sanctions and the threat of trade wars as his favoured means of exerting pressure abroad, to an extent not seen before.
Most recently, Washington's raising of tariffs on imports of Turkish steel and aluminium and the sanctioning of two Turkish ministers over the detention of an American evangelical Christian preacher were a tipping point for a Turkish economy already in crisis.
Of course, Turkey's heavy reliance on foreign investment to propel its growth was always destined to collide with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's view that a pious people can defy the laws of economics. But it was the sanctions which provoked a stampede away from the Turkish lira, which has lost at least 40 per cent of its value this year.
At the same time, US sanctions are also in force against Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and against Iran, following Mr Trump's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama. The ultimate aim of these sanctions is to choke Iran's oil exports. The declared goal is making the regime "change its behaviour", though given National Security Adviser John Bolton's past support for regime change and with protests around the country at the collapse in value of the rial, many think that the US aim is more radical.
Sanctions have a mixed record of success at best. Saddam Hussein's Iraq was subject to a near total trade and financial embargo by the United Nations from 1990 but this served only to impoverish the people and strengthen the regime, leaving the US the option of abandoning the sanctions or invading, which it did, with terrible consequences, in 2003.
Russia has, to all appearances, weathered the Crimea sanctions and put on a fine show for the football World Cup this summer, thanks to deepening its economic and diplomatic ties with China. Iran has been under various levels of US sanction for more than 30 years and has prior experience in finding ways around the net.
A notable exception is South Africa, which faced international sanctions in the mid-1980s to force it to abandon its policy of apartheid, which it eventually did. But here the timing was key: the end of the Cold War meant that that the apartheid regime could no longer justify racial segregation on the bogus grounds of the "struggle against communism".
The big question is whether Mr Trump's "America First" policy – aggressively pursuing what he perceives to be the national interest, with scant regard for longstanding alliances or the stability of the global economy – is a game-changer as significant as the end of the Cold War.
Mr Erdogan has promised to widen his economic partners away from the US to Iran, Russia, China and some unspecified European countries. But he has no hope of a bailout from Russia, which has no money to spare and is more interested in having the US lift the Crimea sanctions than rescuing the Turkish president.
China may be keen to offer some gestures of support to a country facing trade threats from the US but is unlikely to want to aggravate its relationship with the US at a time when Mr Trump is promising ever more punitive taxes on the import of Chinese goods.
As for Iran, the hardliners seem to be in the ascendant again. They were persuaded to accept the 2015 nuclear deal, given the damage to the economy caused by the Obama-era sanctions. Now they are happy to tell President Hassan Rouhani that the Americans could not be trusted and he should have known it. How far China and Russia will go in supporting Iran is unknown.
Russia is perhaps the most interesting case. Vladimir Putin's popularity soared after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 but now there are rising signs of discontent at the cost of his foreign policy ambitions and the attendant decline in living standards. Only 16 per cent support Mr Putin's policy of confrontation with the West, according to the Levada Centre, a pollster.
It is clear that foreign powers are treating Mr Trump's no-holds-barred use of the power of the dollar with caution. But they also note that Mr Trump takes no interest in keeping his European and Japanese allies on board in his foreign policy – rather the opposite – and his global goals are unclear, to say the least.
How can a sanctions policy against Iran, for example, work if Russia, China and the European Union are not on board? they ask. They are waiting to see if Washington will pursue its pumped-up policy of sanctions with the vigour that Mr Trump has announced. That will be the test of whether the dollar really is still king.
Alan Philps is editor of The World Today magazine of international affairs
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Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
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When: April 25, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
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Second leg: May 1, Santiago Bernabeu, Madrid
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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.
Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
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Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
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.
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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.
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Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
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The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Founders: Marie-Christine Luijckx, Lyla Dalal AlRawi, Lindsey Fournie
Based: Dubai, UAE
Founded: 2015
Number of employees: 30
Sector: F&B
Funding so far: Dh3 million
Future funding plans: None at present
Future markets: Saudi Arabia, potentially Kuwait and other GCC countries
Ticket prices
- Golden circle - Dh995
- Floor Standing - Dh495
- Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
- Lower Bowl premium - Dh795
- Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
- Lower Bowl Standard- Dh595
- Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
- Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
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Date started: 2015
Founder: John Tsioris and Ioanna Angelidaki
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Staff: 200
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TCL INFO
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Bangla Tigers Owners: Shirajuddin Alam, Yasin Choudhary, Neelesh Bhatnager, Anis and Rizwan Sajan; Key player: TBC
Colombo Lions Owners: Sri Lanka Cricket; Key player: TBC
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Format 10 overs per side, matches last for 90 minutes
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