Category Archives: Socio-economic Collapse

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody last month sparked the countrys biggest protests in years. Under the rallying cry, Woman, Life, Freedom, protesters have ground dozens of cities to a halt. The response from Irans authoritarian regime has been swift and harsh, with security forces opening fire on crowds and killing dozens.

Though the protesters remain undeterred, its hard to imagine how they prevail. When the regime in power has a monopoly on force and weapons and no qualms about civilian suffering, time is on its side.

This depressing reality only makes the bravery of the Iranian people that much more remarkable.

Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police for the crime of not wearing her headscarf appropriately. Removing and burning headscarves has become the calling card for these protests, and many women are also cutting their hair in a sign of defiance.

Though the regime continues its efforts to block internet access, images are still making it out to the world. They make clear that, despite the crackdowns and deep personal risk, people are still in the streets.

The protests today seem qualitatively different than other demonstrations in recent years. A variety of grievances were building Irans strangled economy, its terrible COVID-19 track record, unfettered corruption and repression but the proximate cause of this outcry was its treatment of women. This fact means todays dissent transcends socio-economic divisions and finds common cause across Iranian society.

The Iranian people were also primed for a backlash. Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rose to power last year and quickly cracked down on what had been a gradual shift towards moderation.

Irans prior president, Hassan Rouhani, was a relative reformist. He discouraged the morality police from enforcing harsh religious laws and sought to improve relations with the West. The Ayatollahs, Irans ruling religious leaders, did not look kindly on Rouhanis direction. When Rouhani could not run for a third term, religious leadership ensured no moderate could win again by not allowing any to run through a candidate vetting process. Turnout was historically low, and Raisis win predictable.

His rule has been unapologetically extreme, with the morality police emboldened to address any violations of religious dictate by women. Even before Mahsa Aminis death, public calls for change were growing.

The regime is in a vulnerable position. Supreme Leader Khamenei is 83 and in poor health. After more than three decades in power, his death could bring a succession crisis. The public faces high prices, inflation, and few economic opportunities. Efforts to return to the nuclear deal that could ease many of the sanctions hampering Irans economy face headwinds.

But none of this means the end of the Islamic Republic is imminent.

Even when people power succeeds in ousting oppressive leaders, there is no guarantee that what comes next is peace or democracy. Its not even certain to be an improvement.

Consider Sudan, where three years ago, in the face of similarly ruthless suppression by security forces, protests successfully drove out dictator Omar al-Bashir after nearly a 30-year reign. In truth, a military coup overthrew Bashir, with the blessing and cover of the masses, who then found their lot little improved when the sham transitional government was ousted for a full military takeover last year. The militarys claims that it will eventually transition to civilian rule are hardly credible, but there is no one else to negotiate with but those who hold the power.

Sri Lanka offers a similar cautionary tale. Widespread protests began in March after the countrys economic collapse. By July, protesters occupied President Gotabaya Rajapaksas house. Rajapaksa fled and resigned in what was widely hailed as a victory for the people. But instead of peoples rule, the former presidents allies quickly retook the helm and began harsh crackdowns, targeting those who led the protest movement with arrests and travel bans.

Rather than seek to better serve the people, those who took over in Sudan and Sri Lanka have instead sought to crush dissent. If the goal is to maintain power, that probably makes sense.

Irans regime faces a similar choice. If they give in to protester demands and end the mandatory hijab requirement, will that appease the public or empower them to demand more?

Irans extremist government is likely to fear the latter. Therefore, a continued crackdown is the most likely response. This doesnt mean the protests will end soon, but it does mean they will likely end tragically for many protesters.

The United States should continue to speak up for these protesters and all people oppressed by authoritarian regimes. But an important lesson for all of us is that, once planted, authoritarian regimes are exceedingly hard to uproot. For this reason, those of us who still have democracy must carefully guard what we have, and the United States and our allies must avoid reinforcing the power of dictators wherever possible.

Elizabeth Shackelford is a senior fellow on U.S. foreign policy with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is the author of The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age.

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Column: The hope and warning of Iran's protests - Meadville Tribune

Result of a 1992 Canadian government moratorium to preserve oceanic biomass

In 1992, Northern Cod populations fell to 1% of historical levels, due in large part to decades of overfishing.[3] The Canadian Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, John Crosbie, declared a moratorium on the Northern Cod fishery, which for the preceding 500 years had primarily shaped the lives and communities of Canada's eastern coast.[4] A significant factor contributing to the depletion of the cod stocks off Newfoundland's shores was the introduction of equipment and technology that increased landed fish volume.[5] From the 1950s onwards, new technology allowed fishers to trawl a larger area, fish more in-depth, and for a longer time. By the 1960s, powerful trawlers equipped with radar, electronic navigation systems, and sonar allowed crews to pursue fish with unparalleled success, and Canadian catches peaked in the late-1970s and early-1980s.[4] Cod stocks were depleted at a faster rate than could be replenished.[4]

The trawlers also caught enormous amounts of non-commercial fish, which were economically unimportant but very important ecologically. This incidental catch undermined the stability of the ecosystem, depleting stocks of important predator and prey species.

A significant factor contributing to the depletion of the cod stocks off the shores of Newfoundland included the introduction and proliferation of equipment and technology that increased the volume of landed fish. For centuries local fishers used technology that limited the volume of their catch, the area they fished, and let them target specific species and ages of fish.[5] From the 1950s onwards, as was common in all industries, new technology was introduced that allowed fishers to trawl a larger area, fish deeper and for a longer time. By the 1960s, powerful trawlers equipped with radar, electronic navigation systems, and sonar allowed crews to pursue fish with unparalleled success, and Canadian catches peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[4]

The new technologies adversely affected the northern cod population by both increasing the area and depth that was fished. The cod were being depleted until the surviving fish could not replenish the stock lost each year.[4] The trawlers caught enormous amounts of non-commercial fish, which were very important ecologically. Economically unimportant incidental catch undermines ecosystem stability, depleting stocks of important predator and prey species. Significant amounts of capelin an important prey species for the cod were caught as bycatch, further undermining the survival of the remaining cod stock.

Poor knowledge and understanding of the ocean ecosystem related with Newfoundland's Grand Banks and cod fisheries, as well as technical and environmental challenges associated with observational metrics, led to a misunderstanding of data on the "cod stocks" (meaning residual and recoverable fish). Rather than metrics of megatonnage of harvest, or average size of fish,[7] metrics of the residuum with high variation in the countable population due to sampling error, and dynamic environmental factors such as ocean temperature combined to make it difficult to discern the effects of exploitation to an inexpert regulator.[8] This led to uncertainty of predictions about the "cod stock," making it difficult for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Canada to choose the appropriate course of action when the federal government's priorities were elsewhere.[9]

In addition to ecological considerations, decisions regarding the future of the fisheries were also influenced by social and economic factors. Throughout Atlantic Canada, but especially in Newfoundland, the cod fishery was a source of social and cultural identity.[10] For many families, it also represented their livelihood: most families were connected either directly or indirectly with the fishery as fishermen, fish plant workers, fish sellers, fish transporters, or as employees in related businesses.[10] Additionally, many companies, both foreign and domestic, and individuals had invested heavily in the fishery's boats, equipment, and infrastructure.

In 1949 Newfoundland joined Canada as a province, and thus Newfoundland's fishery fell under the management of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The department mismanaged the resource and allowed overfishing.[11][12]

In 1969 the number of fishing trawlers increased, and coastal fishermen complained to the government.[13] This resulted in the government redefining the offshore fishery boundaries several times and eventually extended its limits from three miles to 200 miles offshore,[12] as part of its claim for an exclusive economic zone under the UNCLOS.

In 1968 the cod catch peaked at 810,000 tons, approximately three times more than the maximum yearly catch achieved before the super-trawlers. Around eight million tons of cod were caught between 1647 and 1750 (103 years), encompassing 25 to 40 cod generations. The factory trawlers took the same amount in 15 years.[14]

In 1976, the Canadian government declared the right to manage the fisheries in an exclusive economic zone that extended to 200 miles offshore. The government wanted to reverse declining fish stocks by removing foreign fishing within the new inshore fishery boundaries.[12] Fish mortality decreased immediately.[13] This was not due to a rise in cod stocks but because foreign trawlers could no longer fish the waters. Therefore, when Fisheries and Oceans set quotas, they overestimated the total supply and increased the total allowable catch.[14] With the absence of foreign fishing, many Canadian and U.S fishing trawlers took their place, and the number of cod kept diminishing past a point of recovery.[12]

Many local fishers noticed the drastic decrease of cod and tried to inform local government officials.

In a 1978 white paper, the Newfoundland government stated:[15]

It must be recognised that both the Federal and Provincial Governments, plant workers, and the private sector, which includes fishermen, all have a role to play at influencing and directing the course of development within the fisheries sector. It is essential, therefore, that various interest group conflicts be minimized and that the appropriate measures be taken to ensure that benefits accruing from the exploitation of fish stocks are consistent with rational resource management objectives and desirable socio-economic considerations.

In 1986, scientists reviewed calculations and data, after which they determined, to conserve cod fishing, the total allowable catch rate had to be cut in half. However, even with these new statistics brought to light, no changes were made in the allotted yearly catch of cod.[12] With only a limited knowledge of cod biology, scientists predicted that the population of the species would rebound from its low point in 1975.

In the early-1990s, the industry collapsed entirely.

In 1992, John Crosbie, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, set the quota for cod at 187,969 tonnes, even though only 129,033 tonnes had been caught the previous year.

In 1992 the government announced a moratorium on cod fishing.[12] The moratorium was at first meant to last two years, hoping that the northern cod population would recover and the fishery. However, catches were still low,[16] and thus the cod fishery remained closed.

By 1993 six cod populations had collapsed, forcing a belated moratorium on fishing.[14] Spawning biomass had decreased by at least 75% in all stocks, by 90% in three of the six stocks, and by 99% in the case of "northern" cod, previously the largest cod fishery in the world.[14] The previous increases in catches were wrongly thought to be due to "the stock growing" but were caused by new technologies such as trawlers.[13]

Approximately 37,000 fishermen and fish plant workers lost their jobs due to the collapse of the cod fisheries; many people had to find new jobs or further their education to find employment.

The collapse of the northern cod fishery marked a profound change in the ecological, economic and socio-cultural structure of Atlantic Canada. The moratorium in 1992 was the largest industrial closure in Canadian history,[17] and it was expressed most acutely in Newfoundland, whose continental shelf lay under the region most heavily fished. Over 35,000 fishermen and plant workers from over 400 coastal communities became unemployed.[10] In response to dire warnings of social and economic consequences, the federal government initially provided income assistance through the Northern Cod Adjustment and Recovery Program, and later through the Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, which included money specifically for the retraining of those workers displaced by the closing of the fishery.[3] Newfoundland has since experienced a dramatic environmental, industrial, economic, and social restructuring, including considerable outward migration,[18] and increased economic diversification, an increased emphasis on education. A thriving invertebrates fishing industry emerged: as the predatory groundfish population declined, snow crab and northern shrimp proliferated, providing the basis for a new initiative that is roughly equivalent in economic value to the cod fishery it replaced.[3]

In 1992, following the early 1990s collapse of Canadian stocks, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) banned fishing for northern cod (that is, cod to the north and east of the island of Newfoundland, in Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization areas JKL as shown on this map. This caused great economic hardship in Newfoundland and Labrador. The collapse was blamed on warm water or harp seals, and it had even been suggested that the cod were still there; only rarely was overfishing acknowledged, or management's role in that.[citation needed]

In 1995, Brian Tobin, the Canadian Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, reopened the hunt on the harp seal, which prey on cod, stating: "There is only one major player still fishing the cod. His name is harp and his second name is seal."[19][bettersourceneeded]

In 1997, inspired by the Grand Banks cod fishery collapse, the Marine Stewardship Council was founded to set global sustainable fishing standards.[citation needed]

In 1997 the Minister for DFO partly lifted the ban on Canadian cod fishing, ten days before a federal election. However, independent Canadian scientists and the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea doubted there had been sufficient recovery.[20] In general, depleted populations of cod and other gadids do not appear to recover easily when fishing pressure is reduced or stopped.[21]

In 1998 the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) assessed Atlantic Cod. COSEWIC's designations, in theory, are informed by reports that it commissions and by expert discussion in the panel, and it claims to be scientific and apolitical. Recognizing faults in processes is not recreational but an essential step in their improvement. In this case much was mishandled. One observer opined "this process stinks";[22] the same observer later joined, and then became Chair of, COSEWIC. COSEWIC listed Atlantic cod as "vulnerable" (this category later renamed "special concern") on a single-unit basis, i.e. assuming a single homogeneous population. The basis (single-unit) of designation and the level (vulnerable) assigned was in contrast to the range of designations including "endangered"[22][23] for some of the ten management (sub) units addressed in the report[24] that COSEWIC had commissioned from Dr. K.N.I. Bell. That contradiction between the report and the listing reflected political pressure from the DFO; such bureaucratic pressure had been evident through three years of drafts.

The 1998 designation followed on from a deferral in 1997 and bureaucratic tactics including what one COSEWIC insider characterized as "a plan to make it late."[22][25] Press interest before the 1998 meeting[23] had, however, likely deterred a further deferral. COSEWIC's 'single unit' basis of listing was at the behest of DFO, although DFO had previously in criticism demanded (properly, given the new evidence) that the report address multiple stocks. Bell had agreed with that criticism and revised accordingly, but DFO then changed its mind without explanation.

By the time of COSEWIC's 1998 cod discussion, the Chair had been ousted for having said, "I have seen a lot of status reports it is as good as I have ever seen in regards to content."[22] COSEWIC had already attempted to alter[26] the 1998 report unilaterally. The report remains one of an undeclared number that is illegally suppressed (COSEWIC refuses to officially release it unless it can change it "so that it reflects COSEWIC's designation"),[25] in this case despite kudos from eminent reviewers of COSEWIC's own choice.[27] COSEWIC in defense asserted a right to alter the report or that Bell had been asked to provide a report that supported COSEWIC's designation;[25] either defense would involve explicit violations of ethics, of COSEWIC's procedures at the time, and norms of science. The key tactics used to avert any at-risk listing centered on the issue of stock discreteness, and DFO's single-stock stance within COSEWIC contradicted the multiple-stock hypothesis supported by the most recent science (including DFO's, hence DFO's earlier and proper demand that the report address these). Bell has argued that this contradiction between fact and tactic effectively painted management into a corner. It could not acknowledge or explain the contrast between areas where conservation measures were needed and areas where opposite observations were gaining press attention.[28] In effect, DFO's opposition to a listing compromised its ability to carry out its conservation mandate.

In 1998, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) listed the Atlantic cod as "vulnerable," a category subsequently rebranded as "special concern," though not as an endangered species. This decision process is formally supposed to be informed by Reports that are commissioned from authors. Dr. Kim N.I. Bell authored the 1998 Status Report for COSEWIC.[29][30] This was the first such report on a commercial fish species in Canada. The potential designation change (from Not At Risk to Endangered) was highly contentious because many considered that the collapse of Atlantic Cod had ultimately resulted from mismanagement by DFO. The Report (section: Author's Recommendation of Status) therefore discussed at great length the process of developing a recommendation for the designation. The Report contained discussion addressing points that DFO had offered because although COSEWIC had a mechanism for the 'jurisdiction' (i.e., the department responsible for the 'species' (here, for the population), to provide objections to an author), it had no mechanism for those objections to be objectively arbitrated as a matter of science. Rebuttal by authors was untraditional and unexpected. That is undoubtedly why, before the meeting which was to decide the designation, COSEWIC had massively unannouncedly edited the Report, thereby introducing many errors and changing meanings, including removing the word "few" from "there are few indications of improvement," and expunging a substantial section which engaged various objections raised by DFO. When the author discovered the unauthorized "edits," COSEWIC was obliged to circulate a letter explaining that it had sent out a version that lacked the author's approval and had to provide the author's version to members.[31][32]

The Report contained, under a subsection "Designation by geographic management units (as preferred by DFO in 1996)", recommendations (or options) for 10 geographic management units, being Not At Risk or Vulnerable (for 1 management area), Threatened or Endangered (for 5 management areas), and to Endangered (for 4 management areas). In its designation, COSEWIC:

COSEWIC did not account for its designation variation from the Report's recommendation and did not admit that variation. COSEWIC also refused to release the Report, although its rules required it to. Bell, the Report's author, subsequently stated that political pressure by the DFO within COSEWIC was what accounted for the difference.[22]

In 1998 in a book, Bell argued[33] that the collapse of the fishery and the failure of the Listing process was ultimately facilitated by secrecy (as long ago in the defense science context observed by the venerable C. P. Snow[34] and recently cast as "government information control" in the fishery context[35]) and the lack of a code of ethics appropriate to (at least) scientists whose findings are relevant to conservation and public resource management. He wrote that a proper code of ethics would acknowledge the obligations of all to conservation, the right of the public to know and understand scientific findings, the obligation of scientists to communicate vital issues with the public, and would not acknowledge the right of bureaucrats to impede[36] that dialogue, and that to be effective, such ethical issues need to be included in science curricula.

Mark Kurlansky, in his 1999 book about cod, wrote that the collapse of the cod fishery off Newfoundland, and the 1992 decision by Canada to impose an indefinite moratorium on the Grand Banks, is a dramatic example of the consequences of overfishing.[37]

In 2000, WWF placed cod on the endangered species list. The WWF issued a report stating that the global cod catch had dropped by 70% over the last 30 years and that if this trend continued, the world's cod stocks would disappear in 15 years.[38] smund Bjordal, director of the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, disputed the WWF's claim, noting the healthy Barents Sea cod population.[39] Cod (known in Norway as skrei or torsk) is among Norway's most important fishery exports, and the Barents Sea is Norway's most important cod fishery. In 2015, the Norwegian Seafood Council invited Crown Prince Haakon to take part in opening the year's cod fishing season on the island of Senja.[40]

By 2002, after a 10-year moratorium on fishing, the cod had still not returned.[41] The local ecosystem seemed to have changed, with forage fish, such as capelin, which used to provide food for the cod, increase in numbers, and eat the juvenile cod. The waters appeared to be dominated by crab and shrimp rather than fish.[41] Local inshore fishermen blamed hundreds of factory trawlers, mainly from Eastern Europe, which started arriving soon after WWII, catching all the breeding cod.[41]

In 2003, COSEWIC in an update designated the Newfoundland and Labrador population of Atlantic cod as endangered, and Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault announced an indefinite closure of the cod fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, thus closing the last remaining cod fishery in Atlantic Canada. In the Canadian system, however, under the 2002 Species at Risk Act (SARA)[42] the ultimate determination of conservation status (e.g., endangered) is a political, cabinet-level decision;[42] Cabinet decided not to accept COSEWIC's 2003 recommendations. Bell has explained[28] how both COSEWIC and public perceptions were manipulated, and the governing law broken, to favor that decision.

In 2004, the WWF in a report agreed that the Barents Sea cod fishery appeared to be healthy, but that the situation may not last due to illegal fishing, industrial development, and high quotas.[43]

In The End of the Line: How Overfishing Is Changing the World and What We Eat, author Charles Clover claims that cod is only one example of how the modern unsustainable fishing industry is destroying ocean ecosystems.[44]

In 2005, the WWFCanada accused foreign and Canadian fishing vessels of deliberate large-scale violations of the restrictions on the Grand Banks, in the form of bycatch. WWF also claimed poor enforcement by NAFO, an intergovernmental organization with a mandate to provide scientific fishery advice and management in the northwestern Atlantic.[45][46]

In 2006, the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research considered coastal cod (but not the North East Arctic cod) endangered, but has since reversed this assessment.[47]

In November 2006, Fisheries and Oceans Canada released an article suggesting that the unexpectedly slow recovery of the cod stock was due to inadequate food supplies, cooling of the North Atlantic, and a poor genetic stock due to the overfishing of larger cod.[48]

In 2010 a study by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization found that stocks in the Grand Banks near Newfoundland and Labrador had recovered by 69% since 2007, though that number only equated to 10% of the original stock.[49]

In 2010, Greenpeace International added the Atlantic cod to its seafood red list, "a list of fish that are commonly sold in supermarkets worldwide, and which have a very high risk of being sourced from unsustainable fisheries."[50] According to Seafood Watch, cod is currently on the list of fish consumers should avoid.

In summer 2011, a study was announced that showing East Coast cod stocks around Nova Scotia showed promises of recovery starting in 2005, despite earlier thoughts of complete collapse.[49] It said that on the Scotian Shelf after the cod were gone, the small plankton-eating fish (capelin etc.) that the cod ate multiplied to many times their old numbers and ate cod eggs and cod hatchlings, but in the early 2000s collapsed, giving in 2005 a window of opportunity for the cod to start to recover; but more time and studies were needed to study the long-term stability of the stock increase.

In 2011 in a letter to Nature, a team of Canadian scientists reported that cod in the Scotian Shelf ecosystem off Canada showed signs of recovery.[51] Brian Petrie, a team member said, "Cod is about a third of the way to full recovery, and haddock is already back to historical biomass levels."[52] Despite such positive reports, cod landings continued to decline since 2009, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada statistics through 2012.[53]

In 2015, two reports on cod fishery recovery suggested stocks may have recovered somewhat.[54][55]

In June 2018, the federal government reduced the cod quota, finding that the cod stocks had fallen again after just two years of fair catches.

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Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery - Wikipedia

Three economists were awarded the Nobel Prize in economic sciences on Oct. 10 for their discoveries which are said to have improved how society deals with financial crises.

Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig conducted research on the economic role played by banks during times of financial crisis. According to the Nobel Prize Organization, this research included an important finding on why it is not only important but vital to avoid the collapse of banks.

Tore Ellingsen, the chair of the committee for the prize in economic sciences, said:

Diamond highlights the important role banks play in society as a middleman between savers and borrowers. Banks can provide depositors open access to their funds while giving the option of long-term loans to borrowers.

Along with stressing the vital socio-economic role banks play, the research also points to the vulnerabilities of banks, which spur rumors of their imminent collapse in the instance of a run on banks.

As crypto and the Web3 world become more mainstream, banks have new things to consider as societal challenges and adaptations.

Users are now interested in decentralized finance (DeFi) for the very reason of taking out a middleman between them and their liquid assets. DeFi, in the noncustodial sense, gives users unfettered access to financial tools they need and is increasingly used as a tool to help the unbanked.

However, as a Bloomberg analyst reported, many who have been used to the security found in traditional finance have a fear of the unknown when it comes to activity in DeFi and crypto.

Related: Institutional crypto custody: How banks are housing digital assets

Banks and major TradFi corporations have taken hints from the increasingly relevant and useful role of cryptocurrencies. According to data from the Basel Committee,banks worldwide own 9.4 billion euros in crypto assets.

The Central Bank of Switzerland also claims central banks will be a major proponent to further push DeFi into the mainstream through the right combination of centralization and decentralization.

Banks around the world are trying to stay relevant with the shift toward digital currencies and the general digitization of money. Many are looking into developing their own central bank digital currencies (CBDC).

Most recently, the central bank of India released its outline for plans of a digital rupee CBDC.

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Economists debunk the banking system and win the Nobel Prize - Cointelegraph

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iranian police custody last month sparked the countrys biggest protests in years. Under the rallying cry, Woman, Life, Freedom, protesters have ground dozens of cities to a halt. The response from Irans authoritarian regime has been swift and harsh, with security forces opening fire on crowds and killing dozens.

Though the protesters remain undeterred, its hard to imagine how they prevail. When the regime in power has a monopoly on force and weapons and no qualms about civilian suffering, time is on its side.

This depressing reality only makes the bravery of the Iranian people that much more remarkable.

Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police for the crime of not wearing her headscarf appropriately. Removing and burning headscarves has become the calling card for these protests, and many women are also cutting their hair in a sign of defiance.

Though the regime continues its efforts to block internet access, images are still making it out to the world. They make clear that, despite the crackdowns and deep personal risk, people are still in the streets.

The protests today seem qualitatively different than other demonstrations in recent years. A variety of grievances were building Irans strangled economy, its terrible COVID-19 track record, unfettered corruption and repression but the proximate cause of this outcry was its treatment of women. This fact means todays dissent transcends socio-economic divisions and finds common cause across Iranian society.

The Iranian people were also primed for a backlash. Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi, a close ally of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rose to power last year and quickly cracked down on what had been a gradual shift towards moderation.

Irans prior president, Hassan Rouhani, was a relative reformist. He discouraged the morality police from enforcing harsh religious laws and sought to improve relations with the West. The Ayatollahs, Irans ruling religious leaders, did not look kindly on Rouhanis direction. When Rouhani could not run for a third term, religious leadership ensured no moderate could win again by not allowing any to run through a candidate vetting process. Turnout was historically low, and Raisis win predictable.

His rule has been unapologetically extreme, with the morality police emboldened to address any violations of religious dictate by women. Even before Mahsa Aminis death, public calls for change were growing.

The regime is in a vulnerable position. Supreme Leader Khamenei is 83 and in poor health. After more than three decades in power, his death could bring a succession crisis. The public faces high prices, inflation, and few economic opportunities. Efforts to return to the nuclear deal that could ease many of the sanctions hampering Irans economy face headwinds.

But none of this means the end of the Islamic Republic is imminent.

Even when people power succeeds in ousting oppressive leaders, there is no guarantee that what comes next is peace or democracy. Its not even certain to be an improvement.

Consider Sudan, where three years ago, in the face of similarly ruthless suppression by security forces, protests successfully drove out dictator Omar al-Bashir after nearly a 30-year reign. In truth, a military coup overthrew Bashir, with the blessing and cover of the masses, who then found their lot little improved when the sham transitional government was ousted for a full military takeover last year. The militarys claims that it will eventually transition to civilian rule are hardly credible, but there is no one else to negotiate with but those who hold the power.

Sri Lanka offers a similar cautionary tale. Widespread protests began in March after the countrys economic collapse. By July, protesters occupied President Gotabaya Rajapaksas house. Rajapaksa fled and resigned in what was widely hailed as a victory for the people. But instead of peoples rule, the former presidents allies quickly retook the helm and began harsh crackdowns, targeting those who led the protest movement with arrests and travel bans.

Rather than seek to better serve the people, those who took over in Sudan and Sri Lanka have instead sought to crush dissent. If the goal is to maintain power, that probably makes sense.

Irans regime faces a similar choice. If they give in to protester demands and end the mandatory hijab requirement, will that appease the public or empower them to demand more?

Irans extremist government is likely to fear the latter. Therefore, a continued crackdown is the most likely response. This doesnt mean the protests will end soon, but it does mean they will likely end tragically for many protesters.

The United States should continue to speak up for these protesters and all people oppressed by authoritarian regimes. But an important lesson for all of us is that, once planted, authoritarian regimes are exceedingly hard to uproot. For this reason, those of us who still have democracy must carefully guard what we have, and the United States and our allies must avoid reinforcing the power of dictators wherever possible.

Elizabeth Shackelford is a senior fellow on U.S. foreign policy with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. She was previously a U.S. diplomat and is the author of The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age.

2022 Chicago TribuneDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Elizabeth Shackelford: The hope and warning of Iran's protests - Rochester Post Bulletin

Afghanistan has long been a rentier state dependent on international aid. Aid has had a mixed impact on the long-run performance of the Afghan economy. From 2001 to 2021, the flow of aid undoubtedly shaped the contextures of a modern economy and bureaucracy, boosted a nascent but thriving civil society and private sector, and integrated Afghanistans economy into the world economy. Meanwhile, international assistance created a culture of dependency, increased systemic corruption, and hampered state legitimacy. Upon the collapse of the Afghan republic, international grants covered about 75 percent of the governments public expenditures. With a gradual decline in international assistance starting in 2014, economic growth slowed, while poverty and unemployment kept rising. The pandemic and the intensified conflict in the later years of the republic had already led the economy to the brink of a collapse.

When the Taliban took over on August 15, 2021, Afghanistan became a pariah state. The country was isolated from the international financial markets, and its economy began a free fall. An absolute majority of the population lost its purchasing power due to loss of employment, distorted civil service salary payments, reduced household incomes (particularly for the female-headed households who are denied the right to work), and the suspension of development aid. Total domestic expenditure declined by 60 percent. More than 82 percent of households lost their wages, 18 percent of families resorted to the negative coping mechanisms of child marriage or child labor, and 7.5 percent of families started begging for survival. Of those still employed, at least 70 percent lost a significant portion of their incomes.

The challenges of a failing economy and an extreme humanitarian catastrophe are rooted in three interrelated existential crises triggered by the triumph of the Taliban in Afghanistan: a legitimacy crisis, an accountability crisis, and a crisis of governance.

First, the two primary correlates of state legitimacy are the peoples perception of how rightfully the rulers hold and exercise power, and how satisfied the citizens are with the state in terms of the latters ability to maintain order and deliver public goods. The rise of the Taliban by means of force and the peoples dissatisfaction with them are at odds with these principles. Afghanistan is now in a state of anarchy. There is no constitutionnot a single law that would define the civil rights of the citizensand people have no influence over decisions that impact them in their everyday life. State-society relations are reduced to an oppressor-oppressed relationship.

The Talibans conceptualization of government is a theocracy guided by a group of clerics responsible for enforcing a dogmatic and intolerant version of Islampreached to them in Pakistani Madrasascombined with a set of primitive tribal norms of behavior. This combination was manifested in the form of a terrorist group in the past, and the current de facto regime has only produced full-scale religious violence, radicalization, and violations of basic rights. This dogmatic perception held the Taliban back over the past year, despite persistent national and international calls for the Taliban to embrace opportunities to negotiate with their fellow Afghans to form a political consensus and a coherent national discourse to bring the fractured Afghan polity together. Consequently, anarchism and the absence of a responsible and legitimate government in Afghanistan have triggered and fed the humanitarian catastrophe and economic turmoil, which cannot be patched up unless the root causes are addressed.

Second, the de facto rulers in Afghanistan have failed to generate accountability, both to the international community for their commitments under Doha Agreement and to the people of Afghanistan for their socio-economic management, budget expenditures, and delivery of public goods. The Taliban have censored the media and silenced dissenting voices and civil society; they have left no accountability mechanism in place.

The Taliban are mobilizing revenue from multiple sources simultaneously. These sources include formal and informal taxation. In addition, the exploitation of Afghanistans natural resources and the Talibans monopoly over opium cultivation, production, and trafficking are the cash cows of the de facto regime. Although the Taliban have reportedly reduced corporate taxes slightly to stimulate the crippled private sector, they have drastically increased informal collections, business license taxes, services fees, and other pity taxes, which is also an important driver of the skyrocketing retail prices in Afghanistan. Service fees for national ID cards, passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates, and collections from street vendors, for instance, have increased by up to 300 percent.

Upon entering Kabul, the Taliban started overexploiting Afghanistans natural resources. Over the past year, the Taliban-controlled Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has awarded contracts for the exploitation of close to 200 small-scale and large-scale mines across Afghanistan. This August, the ministry collected $7.9 million in revenue in just one week. On average, the Talibans revenue from mining amounted to $23.8 million last month, according to the data on the ministrys web portal. The Taliban are trucking up to 500,000 tons of coal to Pakistan each month via the Kharlacha, Gholam Khan, Chaman, and Torkham crossings. The Talibans Ministry of Finance taxes coal exports at $60 per ton, including a recent ten percent increase. The gross revenue to Afghanistan from the sale of coal (priced at $200 per ton) totals up to $130 million a month, most of which accrues to the Taliban for their prerogative to award and manage contracts.

The Taliban have budgeted $2.6 billion in expenditures and targeted $2.1 billion in revenue for the current fiscal year. With the Talibans over-taxation and relative efficiency in revenue mobilization, the actual revenue will be much higher than anticipated. But parlous revenue extraction from a rapidly contracting economy with austerity on the spending end puts the economy under further pressure. Despite a meager allocation of $0.31 billion (11 percent) of the total budget for development, the Taliban regime has not yet initiated any significant development project. Besides, humanitarian assistance and the salaries of thousands of teachers and health workers across Afghanistan are being paid by UN agencies, which saves the Talibans treasury a significant amount each month.

The question of what happens to the millions of dollars of revenue flowing into the hands of the Taliban, which pays for nothing except salaries to its civil servants (based on a reduced salary scale), remains unanswered. The Ministry of Finance has not made a breakdown of its revenue and expenditure public, nor is there any other transparent mechanism to ensure monitoring and transparency.

Third, a competent bureaucracycurrently missing in Afghanistanis a crucial element of a responsible government. The Taliban administration is filled with incompetent clerics who have incapacitated the institutions of service delivery. The international communitys provision of much-needed humanitarian aid and vital services has been a major relief for the Taliban regime.

Afghanistans acute humanitarian and economic challenges are more of an institutional and accountability failure than the result of a lack of resources. The incompetent leadership, a disrupted bureaucracy, the absence of women in public services, the flight of human capacity, and interventions with humanitarian aid delivery have decreased the value of money and exposed more than 90 percent of Afghans to food insecurity. A UN report estimates that the immediate cost of the Talibans ban on womens work to the Afghanistan economy is $1 billion, the equivalent of 5 percent of GDP.

The Talibans refusal to appoint a competent and independent central banker cost Afghanistan the collapse of its financial sector. The immediate repercussion of a failing banking system is the growth of informal financial markets, which could trigger potential money laundering concerns in Afghanistan and beyond.

The Taliban are ruling Afghanistan by force, opaquely, and without the consent of the people. They have failed to deliver on their promises to negotiate a political settlement, maintain security, end relationships with international jihadi networks, respect human rights, and providing public goods to the people of Afghanistan.

The international community has a moral obligation to assist the people of Afghanistan in rescuing their country from its current path toward radicalization and humanitarian catastrophe. Without proactive initiatives by the international community, the status quo will only lead to further misery for Afghans and the spread of jihadism beyond Afghanistan.

The narrative of inclusive government emphasized by the international community and some domestic elements is a failed narrative and cannot guarantee a sustainable solution to Afghanistans protracted conflict. Over the past twenty years, ensuring inclusivity has always been a challenging issue, and the liberal-minded elites could not agree on forming an inclusive government. Now, with the totalitarian Taliban on the scene, the idea of forming an inclusive government is absurd. Inclusivity in the form of putting some people of specific backgrounds into a Taliban government will be the repetition of the failed and destabilizing experiences of the past. A long-term solution to Afghanistans instability lies in all sides submission to the will of the people through a legitimate process. The international community should hold the Taliban accountable for their behavior and pressure them to jointly negotiate with other Afghans to decide the future course in Afghanistan.

Mirwais Parsa is a Research Fellow at the Center for Governance and Market, University of Pittsburgh.

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The Taliban's Triumph Has Been Afghanistan's Tragedy - The National Interest Online

This article is a response to Janan Ganeshs piece: Yes, GDP is (almost) everything

In his recent article Yes, GDP is (almost) everything, Janan Ganesh argued that despite the rising critiques of economic growth as an obscurer of what we genuinely value in society (nature, happiness, justice, and so on), a rising GDP is still the surest measurement of a morally desirable society, even for all its faults. He says:

There are two problems with the line that GDP isnt everything. One is that no sentient being has ever claimed that it is. The other is that GDP is very nearly everything. Immigrants versus nativists, cities versus provinces: the cultural fault lines that marble the body politic of the western world were there before the crash of 2008. The difference was that governments couldveil them with cash.

This article is sober and incisive, and possibly the most direct insight into not only the intellectual culture of growth-based economies, but also a snapshot into their real functioning. Modern heterodox economic movements, ecological, donut, wellbeing, and so on, might balk at this idea, but I would argue that at the basic level, Ganesh is entirely correct in his correlation of social success and GDP growth. Degrowth and other strands of ecological economics (or even Collapsitarians) are indeed correct that endless growth on a finite planet cant go on forever, but that doesnt mean our contemporary body politic doesnt require it.

As the gears of the neoliberal era rust against extreme weather, pandemics, war, looming famine, and the early onsets of peak oil, its delivery of growth is sluggish and ever more pained. As growth plateaus, it is easy to correlate this trend to rising social tensions. Strikes, fuel poverty, even government overthrows in places like Sri Lanka are closely tied to this sluggish GDP. Correspondingly, extremer politics and reactionary erosion of rights are springing up to try quell the unrest, but little is done (if it even could be) to ameliorate the underlying issue: global GDP is stumbling.

Looking at all this, its obvious Ganesh was correct that we needed GDP to ensure the contemporary social contract, and thats exactly why we need to end it.

Diminishing Returns

As the world is subject to a crushing ecological collapse driven primarily by this growth in its economy, many have convincingly suggested that we must include global ecosystems in the value system of global markets. The economic order, so the logic goes, is an unstoppable juggernaut that has no need to care for that outside it, but what is included within it has an inherent advantage. This has been the logic of ecosystem services, as well as its more modern derivatives such as carbon credits and natural tokenisation. In Indonesia, farmers were paid to preserve their adjacent jungles, and as long as the project continued the forests remained. Yet, when the project funding dried up, not only did they begin deforesting again, but on a more extreme level than farming communities who were never involved with the scheme at all.

This is the quandary of Ganeshs piece. He outright acknowledges that economic growth doesnt resolve underlying tensions, but merely drowns it out in the distractions of prosperity. It induces us to let our arbitration abilities atrophy, further justifying the pursuit of growth as the only metric towards social desirability. It is an antibiotic remedy, integral in appropriate dosage, but exacerbating the problems it seeks to solve if overused. Much as economic growth tends to deliver less and less profit as it goes on, the social dividends seem to be depreciating too. The recovery after the 2008 financial crash was failing to deliver even before COVID hit. Donald Trump rose to power on a wave of social and economic discontent, and countries like Chile almost collapsed amongst anti-austerity riots.

Human infrastructure (mainly concrete) alreadyoutweighs all living biomass on earth, and if this sheer amount of physically embodied GDP was failing to satiate the socio-economic needs of developed nations (let alone the Global South), how much more mass could we need to paper over tensions now?

Fighting the Inevitable

However, where Ganesh is incisive in his correlation of GDP to the social contract of modern nation states, his opinion on the opponents of GDP from degrowthers to (apparently) David Cameron and Prince Charles are less cognisant:

The looming recession will be painful. But it will also drive a certain kind of post-materialist humbug from polite discourse. Growth will be harder to dismiss as a bean counters tawdry obsession when there is so little of the stuff to go round.

Rather, as hard biophysical limits are approached and the stability of systems (from climate to the US-unipolar world) begins to unravel, various voices are cautiously approaching the question of a world without growth. Whether it isReuters publishing on this economic heresy or European governments requesting voluntary water rationing, the discourse on degrowth (outside its dedicated partisans) is only growing.

The end of growth is a physical certainty, and a green, non-extractive growth only a myth; anartefact of statistical errors and economics wishes. The question asked by serious political economy now is not how do we perpetuate growth, but rather, if it will be degrowth by design, or by disaster.

Teaser photo credit: By Arjun R Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58243501

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GDP is (almost) everything, and that's the problem - Resilience

Victoria 3, the next entry in Paradox's series of grand strategy games, finally has a release date. The next entry in the Victoria series will launch on PC on October 25th, 2022.

Much like its previous entries in theVictoria series,Victoria 3 will see players take the helm of a society spanning from 1836 through 1936, seeing players navigate the years after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, all the way through World War I and into the years leading up to the Second World War. Players can shape their society to meet the challenges the sim throws at them, from dealing with massive social issues that are starting to assert more control in the populations, through industrialization and more.

Via this morning's press release:

"Victoria 3 is a deep socio-economic and political simulation that endeavors to represent the needs and desires of every person on earth across a century of dramatic technological and social upheaval. Growing populations will have to be fed, but they will also make political demands to increase or maintain their power. Pass laws and social reforms to reflect the wishes of your citizens, or try to impose a brighter future on a nation that may not appreciate your forward thinking."

Like pretty much every Paradox grand strategy game, you can take the role of virtually any society on the planet during this time period, from Great Britain or post-Napoleonic France to even Asian powers such as the Japanese and the Qing Chinese. No two games will ever be alike as real-world scenarios mix with the world reacting to the decisions the player makes in their rise for dominance. Players can influence laws, social reform, and more.

Victoria 3 takes the simulation to a new level as every citizen of a nation is simulated as well, from the lowliest of farmer to the politician looking to make a name for themselves. Additionally, world trade is an important element to ensuring economic dominance staves off economic collapse.

Victoria 3 evokes an era that saw unprecedented technological improvements, social reforms, and more, while also being marked by war that helped shaped the modern world we live in even today. Victoria 3 is set to release on PC this October 25th, for $49.99.

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Victoria 3 Launches On October 25th, Bringing The Victorian Era To Life In Paradox's Grand Strategy Sim - MMORPG.com

Its unlikely that in 1970, when I was 12, I could have imagined myself covering the collapse of an empire. Nor could I have dreamed that 51 years later, my passion for Russia would still be alive, if battered by its barbaric invasion of its neighbour, Ukraine, in February 2022.

But back then, when I was a young girl, I did dream of being a foreign correspondent; in particular, a foreign correspondent in what was then the Soviet Union. From that romantic notion to doom-scrolling social media for news on the latest atrocity in Ukraine is quite the narrative arc.

Read more: Russia is fighting three undeclared wars. Its fourth an internal struggle for Russia itself might be looming

As far back into my childhood as I can recall, there were dinnertime conversations about how brutal capitalism could be, how Joseph Stalin had saved Europe from fascism and my favourite story of all, how the brave Soviet experiment with socialism would reap the benefits of communism at some point, sometime, in the future.

A new world, in the nirvana of time and place, where all human beings would live as equals! My father was from war-torn Malta, and he was a believer, at least in a better world. He remained that way to the end.

And when he encouraged me to go the Soviet Union for the first time in 1983, Iwas wearing his rose-coloured glasses. Everything seemed to be on the way to nirvana even the empty shops, the long queues for offcuts of substandard meat, and the clothes shops that sold thousands of copies of just one item of clothing in the same size and the same colour. This, I reasoned, was a place sacrificing something life for something better.

In 2022, after 30 years of Russias integration into the global economic and financial system, that long-lost world of deficits the word Russians used for everything not available was ancient history.

But by March 2022, the nirvana of nascent capitalism born in the 1990s had abruptly and eerily been shut down, thanks to the deep and wide sanctions imposed by the West on an invading belligerent Russia.

Its been a long road from nothing to something to uncertainty again. The world is yet to see whether Russians will again rise against a ruler whose voracious appetite for land and blood has returned them to an Orwellian nightmare.

In 1983, when I first travelled to Russia with a friend in the dead of winter, Orwell was hovering in my mind. Although nothing I saw could have been further from my own reality, I reasoned there was purpose. The driver sent to ferry us from the then only international airport in the capital was such a welcoming touch, I thought. The driver was of course associated with the UPDK, the Directorate for Service to the Diplomatic Corps, an agency of the Foreign Affairs Ministry charged with looking over the shoulder of any and all foreigners who dared then visit for leisure or work.

UPDK still does much the same job, if now under commercial auspices although as Russias President Vladimir Putin tightens the noose around the freedoms won by his own people, the agency may well return to its darker days. But back in 1983 there was still, for me, romance to the Russian capital. The streets from Sheremetyevo Airport to the city centre were virtually empty, because cars were in deficit, and the trip took a brisk 15 minutes. Magic, I thought no traffic.

Arriving at the decrepit and now demolished Intourist Hotel on what was then Gorky Street, it was like being in the twilight zone. These two young female foreigners couldnt figure out what all the men and women hovering at the front of the hotel were up to. Maybe they were there to greet us? How friendly, I thought. It turns out they were awaiting tourists of the male variety and businessmen to proffer thewares of what we discovered was a highly lucrative trade in sex work.

Inside, surly desk workers looked over our documents and briskly marched off with our passports, which was a momentarily discombobulating feeling. But when they returned minutes later with our passports in hand, I thought how efficient! All foreigners, still to this day, need to have their passports registered with UPDK, as though our arrival at the airport and delivery to Intourist hadnt alreadybeen clocked.

A rickety lift took us to our floor, where a babushka sat on a chair in the hallway, arms comfortably perched over her bosom, scowling at us for reasons unclear. Still, I thought kindly of her; it was icy cold outside and this poor woman had to come to work.

Looking out our hotel window overlooking Gorky Street, we spied huge red banners with Lenins image fluttering in the wind. That must be the Lenin Museum, we decided. This place is going to be easy to navigate, I thought. The next day, we decided to put our lives on the line and make our way across Gorky Street through foot-high snow underpinned by ice.

Gorky Street was what in Australia wed call a highway six lanes wide and connecting the heart of the city centre, across from the Kremlin, to the outer reaches of the city. We hadnt seen the underpass to allow foot traffic to avoid the car traffic, which led to our first brush with the law. In the end, taking pity on us, the militsiya, or local police, accompanied us to the underpass and across the road, from where we emerged like magic just below the fluttering Lenin banners.

Sadly, a near hour-long effort to cross the road didnt get us to the Lenin Museum. As we looked up Gorky Street, there were Lenin banners fluttering everywhere. Most were worse for wear much like the rest of the city as it turned out but flutter they did, as if to say, Welcome to the land where we all sing from the same song sheet.

Only briefly in the scheme of time has this turned out to be untrue. The more than 30 years between 1991, when the old order collapsed, and 2022, when it threatens to rise again, was perhaps the nirvana.

Read more: 'Today is not my day': how Russia's journalists, writers and artists are turning silence into speech

When I was a child, being a foreign correspondent seemed like the best job in the world, particularly for a kid from the inner western Sydney suburbs at a time when travel was expensive and rare. I didnt see the inside of an aeroplane until I was 17.

But as a child, I imagined the vest-wearing, bespectacled, notepad-carrying reporter in fields of war, penning stories for faraway Australia, hungry for newsfrom the world out there, far, far away from our marooned island nation. And so it came to pass for this dreaming migrant child, carrying the burden common to my socio-economic and racial class of low expectation. Just minus the vest. But it didnt come easily.

I had spent years in newsrooms, commercial and the ABC, spiriting myself over to the then Soviet Republic of Russia each year on my annual break to poke around and observe. Id been travelling in and out of the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, since that first trip in 1983. Friends in Paris who, as young university students on exchange to Moscows State University, had met some like-minded Russians, led me to a woman who would become my lifelong friend.

Natasha Yakovleva was a film archivist with the state archives. She died recently, so trips to Moscow now feel empty. Back in 1985 when I met Natasha, she was as curious about me as I was about her, and surreptitiously she showed me the weird and wonderful underbelly of this intriguing city, about which, oddly, I felt I understood less and less with each visit.

By 1989, the ABC was ready to open a Moscow bureau and post its first correspondent. I was devastated when the job didnt come my way, although when the second position did later that year, I was happy not to have been the first correspondent in. Establishing a physical bureau, navigating the vagaries of UPDK and hiring support staff while filing on a big story would have been a herculean effort for a then young, single female.

Soviet society was thought by its members to be matriarchal. And in the sense that women carried the major burdens of life, including family life, in a country of constant deficits, perhaps it was. But men, like everywhere else, in every significant aspect of life outside the home, held all the power.

Operating as a foreign correspondent in this environment was often confusing. My questions were always entertained, but I was invariably considered exotic for having asked. My desire to understand the place was always welcomed but my curiosity was considered, by some, a little unbecoming for a woman.

The one saving grace for me was that socialism had given the Soviet people a strong sense that everyone was in the same sinking boat men, women and children. There was an affordance of empathy for hardships suffered and help when help was needed. That made a difference in reporting the place.

The demise of the Soviet Union was slow, burning with disappointment and rage and, of course, with anticipation. By the time I arrived as a correspondent, it was well and truly underway, though the end couldnt have been imagined.

Politically and geo-strategically isolated, the Kremlin plastered over the long and obvious economic disasters while holding out the promise of better days to come. And coercion was the tool of choice to ensure people maintained the faith, much as now in 2022, even if the faith is no longer communism but nationalism.

Mikhail Gorbachev came along in the mid-1980s. Perestroika (political and economic reinvention) and glasnost (openness) gave people the right to think for themselves about how they wanted to live and work.

But it enraged the bureaucrats and the hard left of the Soviet Communist Party. As a result, it wasnt a smooth, seamless transition from diktat to free thinking, and it brought societal schisms some of which were entirely predictable, some of which were not.

There were those who feared freer thinking would let loose the hounds of capitalism, which would kill off the achievements of their forebears whose blood and hard work had built the Soviet industrial base and, of course, rip away the sureties on which their lives were built. There were those who thought just a little freedom would do the job of making people feel valued and hopeful of a better life, and give them the chance to do something for themselves, outside the regimes boundaries, to make their lives better. And there were those who wanted the chains to be thrown off completely.

Add to that potent mix 14 largely resentful republics outside of Russia (the most politically and economically important republic of them all), and the result was years of social upheaval, from the Kremlin to the most far-flung corners of the Soviet empire.

The reverberation from that upheaval, the breaking apart of a 70-year-old federation of states built on dogma and held together by coercion and fate, is what the world now sees playing out in Ukraine.

By 1989, when I arrived in Moscow as a correspondent, even the most fearful regularly took to the streets in protests for and against Gorbachevs rule. There would be tens of thousands, sometimes even a million or more people, crushing into each other, carrying each other along with sheer body weight, overseen by scores of KGB and militsiya.

We saw this again on the streets of Russias big cities in 2022 as people protested Russias invasion of its neighbour, only this time the protests were smaller in number, people were instantly arrested, and they were entirely unified in what they wanted no war.

Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the protests were almost confused; some wanted a break put on reform, others wanted more and faster reform. There were uprisings against rulers and parliaments across the 15 Soviet republics, the most frightening of them being when local Soviet officials defended their political fortresses with force, though relatively few were killed. As punishment, the food-producing republics and their subjects who wanted freedom from Moscow imposed food blockades on the capital. Deficits of cars, furniture and clothes produced by decades of a malfunctioning economy suddenly seemed quaint, even preferable.

Throughout it all, I had a group of Russian friends holding my hand, taking me to the edges of Soviet society, where I could see how people were experiencing the teetering of an empire. Some of them are still holding my hand to help me understand what rage and fury brought their country to invade its neighbour.

When the USSR finally collapsed in December 1991, I again felt as I had when I first travelled there in 1983: I was in the land of the brave. Their new world wassomething neither they nor their forebears could ever have imagined. Now, in 2022, it all seems threatened.

Read more: Military history is repeating for Russia under Putin's regime of thieves

The odd thing about Russias relationship with women was the strange contradiction at its heart. While women had and have no real power, they simultaneously had and have all the power.

They cleared those underground crossings of ice and snow in labour for which they were physically unsuited. They were prevalent among university graduates in medicine and engineering, even if that led to a downgrading in the salary and status of both professions. They rarely appeared on politician roll calls, yet their influence was evident in politics. And, most certainly, the influence of womens thinking, needs and demands was evident in the manoeuvrings of local communities. There was a respect, and it was not secret.

When it came to journalism, some of the toughest were women. Anna Politkovskaya is a name still recognised in the West. Her fearless reporting of the war Russia waged against the semi-autonomous republic of Chechnya as it tried to break awayfrom Moscow remains a high point of independent journalism in a country where that has never been easy, and where it now appears to have been snuffed out completely by a new law penalising journalists for telling the truth about the war with Ukraine.

When Politkovskaya was gunned down returning to her apartment in Moscow in 2006, the Russians I knew were sad but not shocked. They expected something to happen to her. Who writes about atrocities perpetrated by the Kremlin without consequence?

Politkovskayas murder and the murder and harassment of dozens of journalists, activists and politicians since 2006 put paid to any notion that media in Putins Russia was free in the sense we understand media freedom in the West.

But like all those killed or harassed, Politkovskaya was respected, heard. The Kremlin might wish to forget her and her reporting, but many havent. To this day, no one sits at her desk at Novaya Gazeta. (In March 2022, following two warnings from the censor, the paper suspended its operations until, it said, the end of Moscows so-called special military operation in Ukraine.)

Still, the retort I hear most often about this assassination is why didnt she just stick to issues that were safe to cover, issues that women should cover? Theres that odd relationship with women, again.

Read more: How long can Vladimir Putin hold on to power?

Into this I waded, in my early thirties, single, very excited to be on my first posting and covering what appeared to me then to be the most consequential story in the world. The USSR was in its death throes.

Gorbachev was tussling for authority with Boris Yeltsin, and on the streets, Russians were rooting for both men. The hard left of the Communist Party was keeping a watchful, anxious eye on the new liberties granted: the ability to trade; the new television programs which questioned; the protests which, while overseen by a still operative KGB, gave the newest freedom of all the right to protest.

Even though many in my circle thought that if communism was going to survive, it would need more than a little miracle, no one thought it would collapse. The system was corrupt and few showed any real loyalty to it. But the system did provide free health care, education and accommodation. Cradle-to-grave security was a big deal.

Russians also knew that the nirvana Lenin had promised, Stalin had corrupted and Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko had failed to revive was gone as an idea as much as an achievable destination. But life without the Communist Party was still unthinkable.

The new buzzword was biznez. Making do in a nation of deficits was no longer cutting it. Even the class of people who proudly maintained they pretend to pay us, we pretend to work were looking to find ways to do their own thing. My local state cafe, which rarely had anything but diluted coffee to offer its customers, and from which its manager, Galia, made a paltry amount of money each month, suddenly changed.

Galia was an imposing figure: tall, graceful and gracious, and most of all, determined. She decided to offer the locals something new real coffee, food and service. With her blonde beehive perched atop her strikingly Slavic face, Galia tapped into her contacts in the caviar industry, sourcing bucketloads of the stuff, red and black. When word spread, the customers came, queuing around the block to buy a slice or two of bread with caviar, and Turkish coffee that tasted real. She was in business for a good six months before the cafe was firebombed.

The era of mafia had taken hold, with thugs whose only way of doing biznez was to extort. Galia refused to pay for protection and her business was annihilated. This was life as the Communist Party lost control.

While danger was everywhere for those Russians trying to make a go of the new trade freedoms, fear of it was abating among others. By 1990, just six months before Russians experienced their first dance with democracy with the election of President Yeltsin, young people were making their voices heard. They would gather on street corners to deride the party mafia that guarded its own turf and operated protection rackets to ensure only a new class of post-communist entrepreneurs could live well. People werent afraid to talk about the issues anymore.

On television, Vzglyad, or Outlook, was a talk show hosted by the immensely popular Alexander Lyubimov, the son of a well-known spy. Looking back now from Putins Russia, this was a high point of media freedom. Lyubimov openly discussed with guests the ills of Soviet communism, what people wanted from government, how they would get it, what Gorbachev was doing right and wrong, how the feud between Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic, and Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, might hinder progress towards a capitalism-based nirvana.

In 1990, my friends could barely believe what they were watching. Now, in 2022, even using the word war to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine is penalised. As I spend nights doomscrolling for information on the war with Ukraine, I wonder how Lyubimov feels about the gains he forged being squashed so comprehensively?

As a correspondent, I would often hit the streets back then to test the limits of the newfound intolerance of the regime, and the reactions, while mixed, had one idea in common. Living as they had was no longer possible; personal freedom couldnt be the price for cradle-to-grave security.

Of course, few ordinary folk followed their desire for more freedom and a better life in a functioning economy to its logical conclusion. They thought the old structures could be reformed, renewed, revitalised. Certainly, no one I knew thought the old structures might actually collapse under the weight of the reforms. Not even Gorbachev.

And so, as 1990 ushered in a newly empowered Yeltsin, who held court at the Russian parliament, oddly named the White House, the demands for more grew louder and louder led by the non-Russian republics. The Communist Party was becoming very tetchy indeed.

Read more: A former journalist recalls Ukraine's 1991 vote for independence and how its resilience endures

On August 19 1991, Russia and the world woke to startling news. Gorbachev had been put under house arrest while holidaying with his family in Crimea. In the dead of night, a group of 11 men (of course) had hastily put together a State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) to return the USSR to its natural pre-Gorbachev state.

Led by the KGB chief, Vladimir Kryuchkov, the committee declared that the Soviet Union was falling apart. It said Gorbachev had refused to return order to the country and the protesters had eroded the authority of the state; extremism had taken hold. The GKChP encircled Moscow with tanks, and by morning, the capital had erupted in fury, fear and concern for Gorbachev, who was by then incommunicado.

On February 24 2022, when Putin sent Russian tanks across the border into the Donbas region of Ukraine, proclaiming his intent to rid Russias neighbour of its extremists and Nazis, I thought of what Gorbachev had said about the Emergency Committee many years after the failed 1991 coup:

I said to them they must be mad if they think the country would simply follow another dictatorship. People are not that tired.

Russian shelling may yet break the Ukrainian resolve to fight. But it wont be soon. Putin is now assessing how much fight the Ukrainians have in them and how many urban Russians still have memories of 1991 coursing through their veins. The difference: Gorbachev was largely unwilling to turn his military against his people. Putin is different.

When, in August 1991, the centre of Moscow was occupied by its own military, with columns of tanks rumbling through its main streets and soldiers armed with assault rifles fending off angry citizens, Muscovites screamed for sanity to prevail. Go home to your mother, was the most frequent refrain. Do you know what you are doing? was another. While there was animosity towards Gorbachev for failing to deliver on his reforms, he was preferable to the putschists.

I felt safe, mostly. But never safer than when I scrambled onto a tank to speak with a group of soldiers in their early twenties. They looked terrified, like they wanted to jump off the vehicle and go home. Today in Ukraine, some young Russian conscripts have been doing just that refusing to use force to overcome the Ukrainians whove stood in their path. Not enough of them have yet decided to defy their leaders to turn the tide, but the war is still young.

Through three days of heartache, confusion, mayhem, destruction, defiance, resilience and hope, Russians and the world were united the GKChP must fail. Little did anyone know that its resolve to turn back the tide would be eroded by internal disorder. Defence minister Dmitry Yazov and KGB chief Kryuchkov were at odds while the other committee members, overwhelmed by their own anxieties, drank themselves into a stupor. They had all failed to understand how perestroika and glasnost had changed their own people.

By day three, their efforts to end the Gorbachev era looked shambolic. Their so-called constitutional transfer of power was over before it had begun. The grave errors the putschists had committed were evident Yeltsin, the leader of the defiant, had not been arrested, the TV tower had not been captured, allowing media to broadcast the truth, mass arrests had not taken place.

Putin, a student of history, has no doubt studied the dying moments of the August 1991 putsch. He has not committed the same mistakes in Ukraine.

This is an edited extract of Monica Attards essay in Through Her Eyes: Australias Women Correspondents from Hiroshima to Ukraine by Trevor Watson and Melissa Roberts (Hardie Grant), published 6 September 2022.

Excerpt from:

Protests, 'biznez' and a failed coup: journalist Monica Attard on covering the empire Gorbachev allowed to collapse - The Conversation

In an unwitting manifestation of what Gramsci called trasformismo, former leaders from the Italian left have joined forces to form a centrist coalition.

Italy is the country where, as Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa famously put it in The Leopard, everything must change so that everything can remain the same. He was hinting at the smokescreen of reform which hides the stability of Italian power relationships. As elections loom later this month, once again some political leaders are trying to fill the space between the two main coalitions.

Ever since the introduction of a semi-majoritarian electoral system in the early 1990s, which promoted blocs on the right and left of the spectrum, individual leaders have tried to attract the moderate electorate (allegedly) uncomfortable with the platforms on offer. These attempts have invariably failed to achieve critical mass, leading to fragmentation and in many cases dissolution into the two main poles, right after the electoral contest.

The novelty this time is that the two leaders behind the terzo polo were formerly in the Democratic Party (PD) and occupied important positions: Matteo Renzi, secretary of the party and prime minister between 2014 and 2016, and Carlo Calenda, minister of development in two consecutive governments. Both subsequently created new parties around their uncontested leadershipanother distinguishing feature of Italian politics since Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italiaand, along with the PD, supported Mario Draghis government.

With almost 40 per cent of parliamentary seats assigned to first-past-the-post, single-member constituencies, the lack of an agreement on the centre left of the political spectrum and the creation of this third pole is giving further advantage to the right-wing parties, traditionally more able to form electoral coalitions. During the last legislature, the main parties from the right took different sides when it came to crucial decisions on the three governments which took turns in poweryet they reached an electoral agreement no more than a week after the fall of the Draghi cabinet in July.

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Given the strong lead of the right-wing parties in the polls, the maximum ambition the new centrist pole can credibly entertain is to become indispensable to the formation of a government whose main shareholder will be Giorgia Melonis Fratelli dItalia. This would probably guarantee a seat in the government to the leaders but would certainly not shape its political orientation.

Beyond the aspirations for the next legislature, the glue that keeps Italian centrist parties together is a technocratic approach to politics. The system is not regarded as potentially broken or flawed and so small tweaks will suffice. There is no recognition of moral or political conflicts to be disentangled or traded off but merely of technical problems for which the right technical solution has to be found.

In the complex world we inhabit, this is profoundly wrong: any fiscal-, trade-, industrial- or energy-policy decision bears important distributional consequences, across social groups, regions, states and even generations. Ranking outcomes and identifying correct answers relies on welfare assumptions and value judgements, which remain veiled in the technocratic discourse.

The main tenet informing this discourse, its hidden ideological foundation, is a strong pro-market visionand it is not by chance that important leaders from the left of the spectrum, such as Renzi and Calenda, are among its principal sponsors. An economic paradigm becomes fully established when even its opponents start looking at the world through its hegemonic lens.

At its peak, the Keynesian welfare state received as much support from conservatives as it did from progressives, while progressive leaders such as Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and Bill Clinton in the United States completed the neoliberal reforms initiated by their conservative predecessors after the sunset of Keynesianism. In the case of Italy, having been formally Communist for over four decades, the main party of the left was pushed to embrace pro-market positions after the collapse of the iron curtainincluding to gain credibility vis-a-vis foreign partnersand presents itself, internally and externally, as a credible option for governing the country.

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Over the years, through its multiple mutations, the Italian left lost contact with its traditional function of promoting social equality and defending vulnerable groupsalso because the nature of socio-economic conflicts profoundly changed and this was not fully appreciated by its leaders. Transformations induced by globalisation and technical progress produced winners and losers and affected different social groups differently, depending on the individuals ability to adjust and take advantage.

The winners were educated individuals, urban populations, those working in dynamic and innovative sectors and the shareholders of companies operating in increasingly concentrated markets. The losers were by and large poorly-educated individuals, small entrepreneurs, self-employed professionals who lived in the less dynamic areas of the country and/or operated in sectors more exposed to external competition. These individuals are now attracted by the nationalist and conservative proposals of right-wing partiestheir radical alternatives resonating with citizens fears and concerns, recast as immigration or other purported threats to the national body politic.

To go on to the front foot again, the Italian left needs to recover its original function and give answers to this (vast) part of the population. It needs to propose to the country a new narrative, an animating vision to guide policy decisions, an alternative to both the populist right-wing rhetoric and the technocratic discourse which is slowing the transition from neoliberalism in Italy (and in Europe more generally). Social policy and fiscal redistribution are no longer enough in a world of increasing concentration of income and wealth and asymmetry in labour markets.

As recently emphasised by Dani Rodrik, we need policy designed to disseminate productive economic opportunities throughout all regions and all segments of the labour force. Supply-side measures to create new jobs are of paramount importance, along with specific interventions aimed at marginalised groups to facilitate access to fairly remunerated posts, with place-based policies favouring local development in remote areas. These measures should be accompanied by important public investments to foster the green transition and by a renewed commitment in international arenas to trade rules empowering states and labour vis--vis multinational corporations.

Otherwise, the far right in Italy will get away with continuing to promise changeso everything stays the same.

Piergiuseppe Fortunato is an economist at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, where he leads projects on global value chains and economic integration, and an external professor of political economics at the Universit de Neuchtel.

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The life and death of Italian centrism - Social Europe

Aided by Chinese investment, Laos is rapidly expanding its hydropower production on the Mekong River, but both countries need to tread carefully, Phillip Guerreiro writes.

Over the last 15 years, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have ramped up their involvement international hydropower development, particularly in the Mekong River basin, which flows south from China through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

The Mekong River is crucial to the livelihood of those living near its banks, providing fresh water for irrigation, aquaculture, transportation, and fishing. While experts continue to analyse Chinas development of dams on its portion of the Mekong, Chinese dam funding and construction in neighbouring countries in the lower Mekong basin (LMB) remain understudied.

The LMB encompasses five countries, but Laos contains over 80 per cent of the dams constructed by Chinese companies in the area.

Contrary to debt trap arguments, Laos seems to be pursing these agreements with China with agency and freedom. While China is providing funding and know-how, these dam projects are being pursued of Laos own accord.

After all, these projects provide some big benefits. Between 2010 and 2011 alone, the total hydroelectric capacity in Laos from Chinese investments jumped from 200 megawatts (MW) to around 1,900 MW. As of 2019, it was estimated that Laotian hydroelectric capacity from dams with known Chinese involvement had reached 5,000 MW enough electricity to power millions of homes.

However, these developments also have their have negative impacts. Officials view dams as a means of generating economic development, but many locals, experts, and non-government organisations contend that they are detrimental to the environment, especially fishing stocks, and that they exacerbate socio-economic issues.

Broadly, hydropower is viewed as a green technology, but this is a reductive view. Researchers have shown that artificial bodies of water often contribute to decomposition in an area, accelerating the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from organic matter.

In all, greenhouse gases from dams and reservoirs account for between one and two per cent of global emissions caused by humans, and this should factor into the calculations of decision-makers developing hydropower policies.

Further, the upfront cost of dams are deceptive, since dams regularly experience cost blowouts, and engineering difficulties in dam development often require costly adjustments to construction.

Finally, sometimes dams break including while they are being built.

In 2018, Laos suffered a catastrophic dam collapse in the southern province of Attepeu. The collapse resulted in 71 confirmed deaths, at least 1,000 people missing, and tens of thousands impacted by the floodwaters, which reached as far south as Cambodia.

This collapse was of a relatively small dam, and it must serve as a warning to the Laotian government, which is supporting the construction of much larger dams.

Moreover, environmental assessments are not optimistic about the health of the Mekong basin in Laos.

The Xayaburi dam on the main stem of the Mekong has already affected the quality of sediment for agriculture, access to migratory fish, and water levels. Further construction along the tributaries in the basin has only added to the pain.

Yet Laos isnt slowing down. Its now entering phase two of the Nam Ou River Cascade Hydropower Project in northern Laos, which consists of seven dams with a combined hydroelectric capacity of 1,270 MW. Although the development predates the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it has since been brought under the BRI umbrella.

This presents significant challenges to northern Laos, a region with low population density and high poverty levels. The dams will worsen water quality issues, disrupt transportation, impact agricultural production, and could reduce fish biodiversity by more than two thirds.

Laos also faces significant financial commitments on these projects. The country has a foreign debt crisis, and its difficulty paying down this debt has resulted in concessions to China for the use of its projects.

In September 2020, the state-owned China Southern Power Grid Company obtained majority control of Electricite du Laos, the Laotian SOE which maintains its electrical grid.

Then, in March 2021, the terms of this concession were finalised, with a 25-year agreement allowing China Southern Power Grid Company to build and manage its power grid, including electricity exports to neighboring countries forming part of the deal.

Effectively, Laos handed over its control of its power to a Chinese SOE. This alarmed skeptics of Chinas infrastructure investments and means Laos cant challenge China if their electricity interests diverge.

From the Laotian governments perspective, the opportunity to expand on its energy generation is seen as an avenue to generate economic productivity. Its objective is to become the centre of electrical generation and a major exporter of electricity to the region or the battery of Southeast Asia.

This is also why Laos is upgrading its domestic grid to handle larger loads for export, which also aligns with regional ambitions for an upgraded Southeast Asian grid.

To understand Chinas motivations, it is important to examine the role Yunnan province plays.

Bordering Laos and containing the Chinese portion of the Mekong, Chinas Yunnan province has been a key advocate of downstream investment. China has constructed dams on its portion of the Mekong, but the availability of space in the province is limited for future dams.

To accelerate the development of Chinas inner provinces, there have been calls to use infrastructure in Yunnan to connect Chinese firms to Southeast Asian markets and resources via a bridgehead strategy.

It would include projects such as roads, railways, and dams, which would in turn see electricity demand grow. With pre-existing ambitions for a regionally connected grid and Laos willing to host more dams, there is massive scope for Chinese enterprises to construct more dams. They could then use Laos grid concessions to import energy generated from these projects into China. Energy shortages in China make this a near certainty.

While these projects have potential and align with the regions energy ambitions, policymakers in China need to carefully consider the environmental and social impacts of their dams. In Laos, leaders must ensure projects dont develop beyond their means.

Ultimately, both countries must remember that the Mekong River continues to flow beyond their borders if their projects arent carefully and responsibly executed, the whole of Southeast Asia will feel the pain.

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Giving a dam in the Mekong basin - Policy Forum