[Ynet] Egypt, with its steadily growing population of some 113 million people (estimated to reach 160 million by 2050), is currently in the throes of a deep economic crisis, manifesting in a high inflation rate — approximately 34% as of 2023; a steep poverty rate at 29.7% as of 2019; a devaluation of the Egyptian Lira and a staggering debt to the tune of $165 billion.
...One of the main threats to Egypt’s economy is the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on one of the Nile River’s sources. This project might cut off part of Egypt’s water supply, floating concerns of already soaring unemployment rates climbing even higher, as some 20% of the country’s population makes its living in agriculture.
This also might deliver a blow to Egypt’s ability to produce food and supply electricity for its population, sinking the country’s GDP to a debilitating low. In turn, Egypt will find itself relying heavily on foreign imports, increasing its already staggering debt and dragging it into a whirlpool of financial crisis.
If that were not enough, Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, has been fostering various grandiose projects that are costing the Egyptian tax-payer billions of dollars. He is expected to continue pouring funds into these initiatives over the next few years, which will demand additional economic aid that will dig the economy into even deeper debt.
One such undertaking is the construction of the New Nile Delta project, aiming to enhance the country’s agricultural capacity to service its rapidly growing population. Egypt hopes that upon the conclusion of the Nile Delta expansion, it will be able to independently produce vaster quantities of food at lower costs, while at the same time creating jobs for millions of citizens.
Another such project is The New Administrative City — a new state-of-the-art capital located between its current capital of Cairo to Suez. The new city is expected to sit on an area of some 725 square kilometers (280 square miles) and become home to millions of people. The estimated cost of this project is approximately $58 billion. An additional 14 cities are currently under construction across the country. Despite the fact that large swaths of the new city have already been completed, they remain unpopulated for the time being, and it is estimated that by the end of 2024, some 10,000 families will have relocated to the city.
At the same time, El-Sisi is pushing the construction of a new coastal city on an area of 170 square kilometers (66 square miles), which is planned to include new residential buildings, hotels, tourist attractions, hospitals, universities and more. This project aims to increase the country’s inflow of tourism, investments and foreign currency as a means with which to boost its economy. For this project, Egypt had signed in 2024 a financing agreement with the UAE to the tune of $35 billion. Estimates in Egypt are that total investments in this endeavor will amount to at least $150 billion. In short, a typical Arab dictator with delusions of divinity.
Another problem for the Egyptian economy is its debt crunch, wherein the country’s foreign debt now exceeds $165 billion. In the 23-24 fiscal year, approximately 56% of the budget costs were allocated to covering past loans and interest, and to date, about 49% of the government’s revenues come from new loans. This creates a state of affairs in which Egypt is taking out gargantuan new loans to repay old debt and is in effect digging itself deeper into its financial hole.
In conclusion, in the current state of affairs, Egypt is entrenched in a near-crippling economic crisis that is not expected to end in the next several years. Additionally, since the start of the Gaza war, Egypt has been adopting actions and rhetoric that are contradictory to Israel’s interest. In response, Israel can — and must — bring into play the leverages it possesses in the form of control over the gas tap, its relations with the US and its diplomatic ties with Ethiopia, in order to advance Israel’s interest in the current armed conflict, i.e. the seizure of Rafah, the elimination of Hamas, the return of the Israeli hostages and the control over the Philadelphi Corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, and ensure Egypt’s support of these interest, while receiving aid from Israel. Israel should consider its long term interests. Deniably assist the collapse of Egyptian central government and use the troubles to retake Sinai (third time ice-cream) and to clean out Gaza.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
08/25/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
"If that were not enough, Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, has been fostering various grandiose projects..." Those so-called grandiose projects are absolutely essential given the drastic present state of the Egyptian economy.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Members of the British Parliament went wild in March 1940 when London's plans to strike the USSR were thwarted, according to declassified documents from the Russian Foreign Policy Archives published by the Presidential Library.
The secret Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact was signed 23 August 1939. They agreed to split Poland, and the Soviet Union would take Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Bessarabia. A week later Nazi Germany invaded Poland from one side, and a few weeks after that the Soviets came in on the other; at the end of November the Soviets invaded Finland … the Allies figured out what had happened.
The war between the USSR and Finland ended on March 12, 1940. The parties signed a peace treaty. A few days later, the Soviet ambassador to England, Ivan Maisky, reported to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs about the mood in the British parliament.
"I have rarely seen parliament in such a state of irritation and excitement. More than ever, it became clear how timely the peace had been concluded," follows from a coded telegram from the USSR Ambassador to England Ivan Maisky on March 14, 1940.
He reported that the parliamentary "masses" were in a frenzy and greeted with stormy approval every anti-Soviet attack heard in the British Parliament. According to him, there was a great danger of open intervention by England and France on the side of Finland.
As reported on August 24 by the Regnum news agency, the Presidential Library declassified archives on Britain and France's plans to start a war with the USSR in 1940. According to Soviet intelligence, in early 1940, Britain and France decided to start a war against the Soviet Union. They planned to strike from Finland and the Caucasus, and to create a "national Russian government."
Thus, Britain and France planned to transfer Canadian troops to Finland to capture the port of Petsamo, which they intended to use as a military base against Murmansk and Arkhangelsk. The main task was to capture Leningrad.
#2
Western hysteria is all consuming. Any apposing views now are considered traitors and arrested or legally bound up in lengthy legal entanglements.
Scott Ritter or Durov as examples. JFK Jr.,Tulsi Gabbard and Trump also good examples.
Putin has the most western experience and has never indicated the wish for European expansion. Leadership of the west is pitiful. You replace Putin you will have a much more aggressive leadership to deal with. The Romanian and Ukrainian support for Nazi's is as strong as in WW11. Russia will deal with them as needed. You poke the bear you will be dealt with. The west no longer represents the people. Elites rule the roost.
#3
"Any apposing views now are considered traitors and arrested or legally bound up in lengthy legal entanglements."
Russia in a nutshell
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/25/2024 14:12 Comments ||
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#4
All totalitarians everywhere, gentlemen.
Dale, President Putin has stated that his first goal is to consolidate the lands of the former Soviet Union, followed by the lands of the former Eastern Block. There’s no point of discussing anything beyond that what are, it seems to me, seriously stretch goals for Russia for at least a generation or two. They have neither the economy nor the population to support a greater territory.
#6
his first goal is to consolidate the lands of the former Soviet Union
"Russia will deal with them as needed. You poke the bear you will be dealt with.
"
Whether they agree or not, Comrade.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/25/2024 16:36 Comments ||
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[JustTheNews] Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Defense called the notion “unrealistic and unaffordable.”
The likelihood of a European army – years in the potential making so that European nations could unite in defense of mutual enemies – appears all but dead now.
The idea dates back to the 1950s, and appeared to reemerged in earnest about eight years ago.
French President Emmanuel Macron and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel each expressed their support for such an army, particularly Macron in 2018 when the U.S. withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and amid then-President Donald Trump's protests that NATO member nations weren't paying their share to protect against mutual foes.
Earlier this year, the Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani again touched on the idea – only to received almost immediate pushback from his country’s European allies.
“If we want to be peacekeepers in the world, we need a European military,” he said, amid the global migration and related border-security issues the U.S. also faces.
“In a world with powerful players like the United States, China, India, Russia, and with crises from the Middle East to the Pacific … we can only be protected by the European Union,” which “must be prepared,” he also said.
Tajani is also Italy’s deputy prime minister, and his country was a founding member of the European Union, NATO and of the Group of Seven (G-7) countries, with Italy holding the group's rotating presidency this year.
So his words had weight, and they sent a chill across Europe.
Spain’s Ministry of Foreign Defense called the notion “unrealistic and unaffordable.”
The Defense Ministry in Copenhagen said: “Denmark does not support establishing an EU army.”
There were similar comments from France, Poland, Slovenia and elsewhere in the EU.
Most criticisms focused on the bureaucratic hurdles for forming such a force, and the current structure that has most European militaries working within the context of NATO.
The prevailing thought now is that Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, if reelected, would not outright quit NATO but would take a big step back in what Trump adviser Dan Caldwell calls a “radical reorientation” of the group.
So why is a European army – which would draw money and troops from the European nations and operate under a central command – not on the table for most Europeans?
“There are superficial similarities between the United States in the 18th Century and the European Union today,” Gregory Alegi, a historian and political scientist who specializes in U.S. history for LUISS University in Rome, told Just the News. “Both started as confederations of autonomous states that began a process of deepening ties between them.”
But Alegi noted that the U.S. had a national army and a powerful chief executive (the president) before it had a common currency and a single economy. The European Union has done those things in reverse order.
“The European Union of today is more like the United States under the flawed Articles of Confederation than to the U.S. Constitution that replaced it,” Alegi said.
“Under the Articles of Confederation there was no president, the country was led by the president of the Continental Congress and that person had no power when Congress was not in session. It’s a lot like the European Union of today.”
Alegi said that in 1957, when the seeds of the European Union were planted with the six-nation European Economic Community there were talks of establishing a common army, but the idea never gained much traction.
“The notion collapsed because there was a fear it would be dominated by one country, it would have been France at the time,” he continued. “Remember this is in the wake of World War II. Domination by one country was a frightening idea.”
The historian said that while the European Union was not wired to include a European Army, he predicted it would happen eventually. But not in the near term.
“Europe is often described as an economic giant and a military and political dwarf,” Alegi said. “If Europe wants to play a role in the world it’s not enough to have lofty ideas about human rights and how the world should work. It must have the ability to support those ideas, which means taking a stance and backing them up. Europe has been slow on that, but they will have to do it. There is no alternative.”
Sure. Except that not one of the Western European countries is willing to spend the money. And those Eastern European countries who are growing their militaries are — very reasonably — not willing to be made the unpaid mercenaries for Western European fads and fancies.
#2
Then, when a predictably bungled debate performance precipitated the palace coup against President Biden, the same shadowy DNC operatives appointed his successor, also without an election.
I'd really like to know who those shadowy DNC operatives are. I have trouble believing that it's just Baraq. I think the American people have a right to know who is running the country and what their agenda really is. It sure as hell ain't Joe and it'll never be Kamala either.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/25/2024 15:25 Comments ||
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#3
I'd really like to know who those shadowy DNC operatives are. I have trouble believing that it's just Baraq.
[MyJewishLearning] Like other spiritual traditions, Judaism offers a range of views on the afterlife, including some parallels to the concepts of heaven and hell familiar to us from popular Western (i.e., Christian) teachings. While in traditional Jewish thought the subjects of heaven and hell were treated extensively, most modern Jewish thinkers have shied away from this topic, preferring to follow the biblical model, which focuses on life on earth.
The subject of death is treated inconsistently in the Bible, though most often it suggests that physical death is the end of life. This is the case with such central figures as Abraham, Moses, and Miriam.
There are, however, several biblical references to a place called Sheol (cf. Numbers 30, 33). It is described as a region "dark and deep," "the Pit," and "the Land of Forgetfulness," where human beings descend after death. The suggestion is that in the netherworld of Sheol, the deceased, although cut off from God and humankind, live on in some shadowy state of existence.
While this vision of Sheol is rather bleak (setting precedents for later Jewish and Christian ideas of an underground hell) there is generally no concept of judgment or reward and punishment attached to it. In fact, the more pessimistic books of the Bible, such as Ecclesiastes and Job, insist that all of the dead go down to Sheol, whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free man.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
