Category Archives: Politics

Economic, Middle East, Politics, Society, United States

Trump’s capriciousness is undermining international stability

GEOPOLITICS

Intro: Trump boasted he would make America great again. What bitter irony that he’s now presiding over its slow demise as a superpower

President Donald Trump has never been shy of hubris in his self-declared role as a negotiator of world peace.

When sworn into office for the second time in January last year, the 47th US President claimed he would be ushering in a new era: “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier,” he proclaimed.

Just days ago, following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to UN human rights commissioner Navanethem Pillay and his evident belief it should have gone to him, he went further: “I have saved more lives than anyone in history.”

And yet since his inauguration it has become abundantly clear this president’s most enduring legacy may well be the greatest threat to the world order for decades.

From the battlefields of Ukraine to the oil-rich Persian Gulf and volatile waters of the Red Sea, the consequences of Trump’s erratic foreign policy are being felt across the globe.

At precisely the moment when the world desperately needs calm and experienced leadership – with 130-armed conflicts raging globally – it finds itself dependent on a US president whose capricious behaviour is directly undermining international stability.

The missile attacks on Riyadh airport by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, which killed 14 people and injured hundreds more, represented a chilling and unprecedented escalation in a Middle Eastern conflict that threatens to plunge the global markets into further imminent chaos.

For those in Saudi Arabia and beyond, it remains a terrifying reality that the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia whose fighters have often been dismissed as little more than barefoot tribesmen, now not only have the capacity to throw the Arab world’s largest economy into further turmoil but also to inflict such economic damage on the West that it could dwarf the ongoing war between America and Iran.

To date, much attention has been focused on Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which enormous quantities of the world’s oil and gas ordinarily pass. The disruption sent shockwaves through energy markets, caused prices to soar, and worryingly threatened supplies of fuel and fertiliser, the lifeblood of industrial and agricultural production.

Several hundred miles to the south-west, however, lies another maritime bottleneck that might yet prove even more damaging, particularly for Britain and Europe.

The Bab al-Mandab Strait, separating Yemen from the Horn of Africa, is the gateway to the Red Sea and, ultimately, the Suez Canal.

It is one of the great arteries of international commerce, carrying not only oil and liquified natural gas but container ships transporting everything from Chinese cars to Japanese electronics and white goods. If the Houthis succeed in closing this passage, the consequences could be catastrophic.

The Red Sea corridor handles roughly 30 per cent of global container traffic and, while it is one thing to pay more to fill your car, it is quite another when the supply of vehicles, fridges, washing machines, and pretty much everything else is suddenly imperilled.

This is not a theoretical threat. The Houthis have demonstrated through their attacks on Riyadh airport that they possess missiles and drones capable of penetrating defences in Saudi, a country that has spent billions on sophisticated military equipment.

And at a moment when the future of world trade has seldom looked more vulnerable, the current US president is so unpredictable we can no longer assume Washington would intervene in the Bab al-Mandab Strait to protect global commercial shipping.

While the US Navy may have done so under Joe Biden – in 2024 American carrier strike groups were deployed to counter Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, albeit ineffectively – the current US President has demonstrated an alarming unwillingness to protect anything other than American interests.

Only last month, for example, he called off a missile strike against the Houthis in return for a guarantee that attacks on US vessels in the area would not take place. And he will be fully aware that if he launches strikes, the Houthis may well attack US bases in the Middle East.

Despite his bellicose rhetoric, the truth is that President Trump looks desperately weak when confronted with the realities of international power. Supporters of Trump believed they were electing an “American First” president that would extricate them from expensive foreign entanglements, rebuild the economy, and end the military adventures of past administrations.

Instead, their erstwhile hero has achieved almost precisely the opposite. And with midterm elections fast approaching, the president is staring in the face the political consequences of his overseas adventures. With just over two weeks to go before the vote, polls show he is failing to arrest his declining popularity.

This is the primary reason why Trump decided to ease sanctions on Russian diesel, pursuing short-term political expediency at the expense of long-term international stability.

For years, Western policy towards Vladimir Putin has rested on the principle that Russia must pay an economic price for invading Ukraine.

Yet now the American President is prepared to loosen those restrictions to ease the energy crisis and attempt to bring down prices in the US.

The message this sends out is beyond appalling. While Western sanctions have never been watertight, and European countries have permitted exceptions when vital economic interests were at stake, there is a big difference between limited exemptions and the world’s most powerful democracy handing Russia a lifeline. It raises the possibility that the West’s entire strategy towards Ukraine could unravel.

At the same time, Trump continues to espouse extravagant and fantastical claims about his diplomatic achievements. Consider his announcement that there had been an energy ceasefire in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and that both parties had agreed. This was greeted with surprise in Kyiv. Relentless Russian attacks have continued.

The louder the threats and more extravagant the pronouncements, the greater the impression of a man desperately posturing while events slip beyond his control.

Together, these crises cannot be considered separately. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted our access to energy supplies from eastern Europe while the confrontation with Iran has threatened supplies from the Persian Gulf. Now the Houthi escalation threatens a crucial commercial route linking Europe to Asia. In effect we are facing a disastrous triple whammy.

While Trump blusters, Britain and France may promise further assistance to Saudi Arabia, but neither possesses the resources required to replace American power, for so long the guarantor of international security and free trade.

And herein lies perhaps the most unsettling prospect of all. It may fall to China, possibly alongside India, to broker an agreement between the Houthis, Iran and Saudi Arabia that removes the threat to international commerce.

Beijing has every reason to want this outcome, with its export economy depending on functioning trade routes. Yet their intervention would be one of the most troubling kind: what might this authoritarian state ask in return?

The erosion of America’s world leadership did not begin with Trump. But under this president it is accelerating at a terrifying pace.

The bitter irony is that the man who promised to make America great again may instead be presiding over its great dismantling as an international superpower.

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Britain, Economic, Government, Iran, Politics, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Society, United States

A winter of global discontent beckons

GLOBAL ECONOMY

Intro: As energy and food prices soar, we face a winter of global discontent facilitated by the West being run by failures of truly historic proportions

Houthi rebel forces have swept down the western coast of Yemen, seizing the strategic Red Sea port of Mokha (long renowned for its global coffee trade) then Dhubab, another port, before taking Perim Island at the mouth of the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait that connects the southern end of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean.

Many will say these are far off places of which we know nothing and care even less.

Perhaps. But what has just happened there is about to hit us even harder at the petrol and diesel pumps, the supermarket checkout counter, in monthly mortgage payments, bank loans, and household food and energy bills. Bab al-Mandab is Arabic for “The Gate of Grief” – and grief is what the global economy is in for this winter.

Oil and gas prices have already soared since Donald Trump’s war on Iran resulting in Tehran seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, a development the President managed somehow not to foresee.

Since then the US Navy has been deployed to wrestle back control, with mixed results.

Before Trump attacked Iran, around 25 per cent of global seaborne oil trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz and 20 per cent of global liquified natural gas (LNG). Oil flows are now less than half of that (perhaps no more than a third) and almost no LNG at all is getting out.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that oil and gas prices have soared. But nothing like the trebling and quadrupling of prices in previous energy crunches: that’s because several workarounds were instigated, none more important than the East-West pipeline from Saudi Arabia’s oil field heartlands to the oil port of Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The Saudis built this 750-mile pipeline in the 1980s, as the Iran-Iraq war was raging, precisely as a contingency for the Strait of Hormuz being shut. This year it became the most important piece of energy infrastructure in the world, its daily capacity of 7 million barrels doing its bit to mitigate the rise in oil prices.

No longer. Which brings us back to the Houthis.

Just as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened all vessels trying to transit the Strait of Hormuz, so the Houthis, Shia insurgents funded and armed by the IRGC, now threaten all shipping attempting to pass through the southern exit of the Red Sea.

The two most crucial maritime chokepoints in the world are now under the thumb of a hardline Iranian regime and a proxy doing its bidding. It would be hard to think of a more disastrous outcome from Trump’s war on Iran. But there’s worse.

As the Houthis pushed south to take control of Bab al-Mandab, the Saudi East-West pipeline came under attack from drones dispatched by Iraqi Shia militia, yet more Iranian proxies.

Even the dim-witted can surely see a pattern here.

The drones took out pumping stations, forcing the Saudis to close the pipeline for at least six weeks for repairs. This has crippled Saudi oil exports in the process, a harbinger of the global spike in oil prices to come.

This week the benchmark Brent crude oil price hit almost $110, the highest since May, before falling back a bit. Aramco, the Saudi national oil giant, told European refineries there would be no deliveries next month. The prices of what’s refined from crude oil – jet fuel, petrol, diesel – are rising fast.

Tehran has, in effect, opened a second front in its war with America, with huge consequences for the global economy – and Trump, still struggling to escape from the first front (which he started), has no idea what to do about it.

The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has pleaded with the US President for military help to repel the Houthis. Washington will likely be reluctant to assist, mindful that the Houthis survived a massive US bombing campaign, lasting over 50 days and involving 1,000 airstrikes, in the spring of 2025.

The Saudis are certainly in no position to dislodge the Houthis on their own. The group already controls a big chunk of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, despite previous Saudi military interventions on behalf of the beleaguered Yemeni government.

Now that the Houthis have their foot on the Saudi oil-export windpipe, they are going nowhere fast.

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Sometimes it really doesn’t rain but it pours. The coming global energy crunch will be compounded by the fact that Ukrainian drones have taken out a third of Russian diesel-refining capacity. Russia is now having to import diesel from India, pushing up global prices even further.

Russia is retaliating by sending its drones to hit Ukrainian grain infrastructure and exports going through the Black Sea, seriously hindering the amount of grain getting out from one of the world’s great bread baskets.

It’s a prelude to the soaring food prices to come. Farm machinery is powered by diesel. So that cost is rising. So is the cost of fertiliser. Around 20 per cent of global supply used to come through the Strait of Hormuz. Not now. The upward pressure on food prices will become relentless.

Suddenly we’re looking at the prospect of soaring energy and food prices, as oil and grain markets buckle. A new broad-based inflationary surge is coming down the pike.

The Bloomberg commodity index has already risen by 48 per cent this year. That’s now working its way into consumer prices.

UK inflation is back over 3 per cent – with more rises to come. European gas reserves are at historic lows, with time running out to replenish them for winter. So, gas is about to become much more expensive, too.

OFGEM’s energy price cap is forecast to rise by as much as 25 per cent in January.

We are now moving into a world of higher interest rates. The European Central Bank increased its benchmark rate last week; the US Federal Reserve did the same just days ago. The Bank of England kept its rate on hold. But it’s only a matter of time before it starts raising rates too. Now that inflation is back, it will have no other choice.

We are looking at higher interest rates for as far as the eye can see. The chance of reviving the housing market is non-existent. While all this unfolds, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic debate and promise irrelevancies while ignoring what really matters.

Britain has been consumed by rows over political donations which in the grand scheme of things barely matter a jot, but allow politicians to posture at their hypocritical worst.

America has a President – who’s caused much of the global economy’s turmoil – trying to bribe voters with a $5,000-a-head “dividend”. France has a lame-duck President who talks a lot and does nothing as his country sinks into a fiscal morass.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz might not survive next week following a series of bad results in elections.

The markets, of course, know exactly what’s happening. Inflation is coming back with a vengeance, the war on Iran is being lost, and the global economy is at the mercy of Islamists bent on our destruction.

It should come as no surprise the bond vigilantes demand ever higher interest rates. A risky world means ever-rising risk premiums.

We face a winter of global discontent with a political leadership missing in action, obsessed with an agenda that means little and is of a self-serving discourse, wholly inadequate to the challenges about to confront us. When the IRGC and the Houthis hold the upper hand, nobody can be in any doubt we’re being run by failures of historic proportions.

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Africa, Culture, Education, Government, History, Politics, Society, United Nations

The Mercator map does not give a faithful representation

UNITED NATIONS: CORRECT THE MAP

Intro: In Mercator’s design, Earth’s curvature is accommodated by making the countries close to the Equator seem smaller than they are and those nearer the North Pole bigger

Down the generations, it has been a constant fixture on practically every classroom wall.

But the traditional world map may be about to get an entirely new look.

The potential change follows a United Nations vote in favour of substituting the map we were all introduced to in childhood with one that shows Africa occupying rather more space than it currently does.

It has sparked a wave of diplomatic disagreement over whether this is a genuine attempt to give a more accurate picture – or just the latest example of politically motivated wokery.

The roots of the row actually date back quite some way – as far back as 1569, in fact – to Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator’s original design aimed at helping European explorers to plot their way across the oceans. While Mercator’s blueprint proved to be an excellent navigational aid, it failed to fully reflect how the world looks.

Essentially, it is all down to the Earth being round. Put simply, the laws of geometry make it impossible to give a faithful representation of a globe on a two-dimensional chart.

In Mercator’s design, the planet’s curvature is accommodated by making the countries close to the Equator seem smaller than they are and those nearer the North Pole bigger.

The upshot is that the entire African continent is shown as being roughly the same size as Greenland – despite actually being around 14 times larger.

Nonetheless, the geometric quirks of the Mercator map were warmly embraced in Victorian Britain. With major territories such as Canada lying far to the north and highlighted in vibrant red or pink on the map, the result was to make the Empire look even more far-reaching than it was.

The positioning of Britain at the centre of the world – originally because of its seafaring dominance, but later also due to the establishment of the Greenwich Prime Meridian – added to the effect.

TWO

The doubts about Mercator’s work surfaced in the late 19th century, as maps and atlases became more widely available. At the same time, people were becoming more knowledgeable about global geography and the relative size of individual land masses.

The beginnings of a backlash emerged in the 1970s as critics warned that both the development needs and economic potential of Third World nations were being underestimated as a result of the map – which was even described as an act of “cartographic colonialism”.

Fast forward to the early days of this century and the subject began featuring in mainstream television drama. In a 2001 episode of The West Wing – the NBC series based on the US presidency – a representative of the fictional Organisation of Cartographers for Social Equality had a meeting with presidential press secretary CJ Cregg (played by Allison Janney). According to a West Wing fan site, the group “felt strongly that traditional Mercator maps gave undue focus on the nations and people of the northern hemisphere”.

Nor does the White House connection end there. Some observers say Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland, understood to be largely based on its strategic military location, is at least partly inspired by his belief that it’s a much bigger country than it actually is. 

By 2018, a group of cartographers had produced a new map called the Equal Earth projection – which has since been used by NASA. It was adopted in February this year by the 54 member states of the African Union on the grounds that it “more accurately represents the sizes of all continents, particularly Africa”.

According to the Correct The Map campaign – set up by African lobby groups in favour of the Equal Earth model – it would be possible to “fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare”.

Yet while the campaign warns that “we have based our understanding of Africa, and the world, on a map that is wrong” for more than four centuries, there is also a strong political undertone. “The Mercator map isn’t just about misrepresenting the size of the global south, it’s about power and perception,” it says.

According to one of the groups involved, from Africa No Filter, the campaign is part of a drive to stop the “world’s longest misinformation and disinformation” about Africa.

The group told the BBC: “Africa’s misrepresentation on world maps is not just a cartographic error, it’s a narrative issue.”

Kenyan geographer Kioko Muendo agrees: “Maps are more than just guides for travellers; they shape how regions are perceived politically and economically.”

At a meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 4, member nations debated whether to adopt a Correct The Map resolution which described dropping the Mercator design as an act of “cognitive justice and memorial reparation”. Togo’s foreign minister Robert Dussey was one of the diplomats who argued for the change.

“A fair world begins with a fair map,” he said. “A map is never neutral. It shapes perceptions, influences how the place of peoples and continents in the world is understood.”

But US representative Yaryna Ferencevych was having none of it. In a damning volley of remarks, she told the hearing: “Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and ‘cognitive justice’”.

Describing it as part of “a much larger and more radical ideological project”, she said: “This resolution mocks the work and purpose of this institution.”

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Ms Ferencevych, a member of the US Senior Foreign Service, who has previously been posted to embassies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the UK added: “Resolutions like this and the ideological agenda they promote are like barnacles on our work here.”

Despite her reservations, the motion was carried by a wide margin, with the UK among the 164 member states voting in support, while six abstained and one – America – voted against.

In a statement published on its website after the result was declared, the UN said: “The resolution does not ban the Mercator projection or impose a replacement. Instead, it encourages governments, schools, international organisations and technology companies to use the Equal Earth projection and other so-called equal-area maps when relative size matters, and teach the limitations of any flat map in representing a spherical planet.”

It added: “Behind that seemingly technical debate lies a larger argument about history and power: whether a map designed for European sailors in the 16th century has, over generations, distorted not only geography but perceptions of a whole, vast and complex continent.”

None of this will convince anyone at the Trump White House, of course. The maps on the wall of the Oval Office are unlikely to be changed any time soon.

And President Trump will presumably continue to believe that Greenland covers far more terrain than it actually does.

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