But in other ways, some of the region’s countries have prospered immensely as the fighting rages on, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to their coffers. Here are four ways the Ukraine
But in other ways, some of the region’s countries have prospered immensely as the fighting rages on, adding hundreds of billions of dollars to their coffers.
Here are four ways the Ukraine war has affected the Middle East over the last six months:
Energy exporters are cashing in
The war has seen oil prices rise to as much as a 14-year high. That has resulted in soaring inflation and economic contraction globally, but for energy-rich Persian Gulf states, it’s good news coming after an eight-year economic slump caused by low oil prices and the Covid-19 pandemic.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that the Middle East’s oil exporting states will make an additional $1.3 trillion in oil revenue in the next four years, it told the Financial Times last week.
The extra money means Gulf states will have budget surpluses for the first time since 2014. Economic growth is also expected to significantly accelerate. In the first four months of this year, for example, the Saudi economy grew 9.9%, the highest in a decade. In stark contrast, the US economy shrank 1.5%.
The war has also brought opportunities for the region’s gas producers. For decades, European countries opted to import gas from Russia via pipelines instead of having it shipped from faraway nations by sea. But as Europe weans itself off Russian gas, it’s looking for potential new partners to buy from. Qatar has pledged half of its total gas capacity to Europe in four years’ time.
The EU has also signed gas deals with Egypt and Israel, both aspiring natural gas hubs in the region. And on a visit to Paris this month, UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan signed an agreement guaranteeing the UAE’s export of diesel to France.
Strongmen feel emboldened
Regional strongmen that once came under harsh criticism from the West appear to be back in favor.
Despite vowing to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah, US President Joe Biden visited Saudi Arabia in a landmark trip last month. The move was seen as a capitulation to the kingdom’s weight in the global economy in the hope that it would produce more oil and tame global inflation ahead of the US midterm elections in November. That move largely failed, with the Saudi-led OPEC+ oil cartel opting for a modest rise in oil production, which one analyst described as a “slap in the face” for Biden.
The war has also allowed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to position himself as an indispensable figure in the international order. Faced with a sinking economy at home and elections next year, he has skillfully used his country’s geopolitical position to extract concessions for Turkey abroad by delaying the accession of Nordic countries to NATO. Erdogan has also maintained cordial relations with Russia while publicly opposing the war, selling coveted drones to Ukraine and even mediating between the belligerents.
Alliances are shifting
As trade routes shift with the war, so do alliances.
The UAE president’s adviser Anwar Gargash said in April that the war has proved that the international order is no longer unipolar with the United States at its helm and questioned the continued supremacy of the US dollar in the global economy. Abu Dhabi, he said, is reassessing its alliances. “Western hegemony on the global order is in its final days,” he added. The nation’s ambassador to the US said earlier this year that its relationship with Washington was going through a “stress test” after the UAE joined India and China in abstaining from a US-backed UN Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s war in February.
As relations with the West are reassessed, ties with China appear to be growing. The UAE last month referred to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as “provocative,” stressing its support for the one-China policy. Saudi Arabia has also touted China as an alternative to the US, stepping up military cooperation with Beijing and considering selling oil to it in yuan. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who hasn’t made any foreign trips since Covid-19 restrictions came into place, is expected to make a landmark trip to the kingdom this year.
“Where is the potential in the world today?” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) told The Atlantic magazine in an article published in March. “It’s in Saudi Arabia. And if you want to miss it, I believe other people in the East are going to be super happy.”
The US is taking note. In a Washington Post op-ed justifying his trip to Saudi Arabia, President Biden said he was putting the US in the “best possible position to outcompete China.”
Food and inflation crises raise tensions
Much of the world felt the impact of grain shipment disruptions following the invasion of Ukraine, but the Middle East was among the hardest hit.
Around a third of the world’s wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine, and some Middle Eastern states have come to rely on those two countries for more than half of their imports. War-torn Libya and economically shattered Lebanon took a hard blow from disruptions to the export of grain, along with Egypt — one of the world’s top wheat importers.
Ukraine’s grain exports resumed in late July following a UN-brokered deal between Kyiv and Moscow, and global food prices have stabilized since, but many in the Middle East are still waiting for stalled shipments.
The first ship carrying grain left Ukraine on August 1 and was initially bound for Lebanon. The shipment however changed course after Lebanese buyers refused the delivery, so it sailed to Egypt instead, according to Reuters.
Soaring inflation has also battered a number of precarious Middle Eastern economies. Rising commodity prices in Iraq and Iran have driven many to the streets in protest. And in Egypt, where just a decade ago an uprising toppled the former regime under the slogan “bread, freedom and social justice,” households of all income levels are seeing their spending power erode fast.
The digest
US airstrikes hit Iran-backed groups in Syria
The US military conducted airstrikes Tuesday targeting Iran-backed groups in Syria’s Deir Ezzor, US Central Command said in a statement. The strikes targeted “infrastructure facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” No one was killed in the attack, according to an initial assessment by the US military, but a Syrian activist group said at least 10 people were killed and three were wounded.
- Background: American troops have been present in Syria since 2015 to combat the Islamic State, which has often brought them into conflict with Iran-backed groups. Israeli airstrikes targeted the warehouses at the same location in January 2021, according to Syria’s state news agency. The attack comes amid reports of indirect talks on reviving the nuclear deal between Iran and the US reaching an advanced stage.
- Why it matters: As talks advance, the US may be sending a message that even though it is working on reaching an agreement with Iran, it will continue to target Iran-backed groups in the region. Washington has refused to remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps from its list of terrorist organizations, which Tehran had previously demanded.
Turkey says it has no preconditions for dialogue with Syria
In a softening of its stance, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara has no preconditions for dialogue with Syria but any talks should focus on security on their border.
- Background: Turkey cut ties with Damascus 10 years ago in response to the uprising in Syria and backed rebels fighting to topple the Bashar al-Assad regime. But Turkey has in recent years maintained contact with the regime, directly through intelligence channels and indirectly through the Astana Group process, which aims to solve the Syrian civil war.
- Why it matters: Turkish President Erdogan has indicated he wants to launch yet another military incursion into northeast Syria. Over decades of tension, Turkey has already launched three military operations against Kurdish fighters in Syria’s north, the latest of which was in 2019. Asked about prospects for talks, Cavusoglu said they would need to have specific goals. “No conditions for dialogue, but what is the aim, the target? It needs to be goal-oriented,” he said.
Beirut port silo collapses two years after fatal blast
The northern wheat silo damaged after the deadly Beirut port blast in 2020 collapsed on Tuesday, state-run NNA reported. A large dust cloud was sent into adjacent areas of the port after the implosion as smoke from fires continued rising from the debris.
- Background: On August 4, 2020, hundreds of metric tons of ammonium nitrate ignited, sparking a massive blast in the Lebanese capital’s port, killing more than 215 people and injuring thousands. The silos had been on fire since then. Over the past month, segments of the silos were collapsing gradually as the army continued cordoning the area.
- Why it matters: The silos had become a symbol of dysfunction in Lebanon. Earlier this year the government had rolled out a plan to demolish them. Civil society groups, who see the silos as a memorial to the blast, reacted with outrage, and the plan was scrapped.
What to watch
Water shortages have turned the lush green marshlands of Iraq into a desolate desert. Watch Jomana Karadsheh’s report on the effect of climate change in the country.
What’s trending
Lebanon: #Bachir_Gemayel
Twitter users in Lebanon are marking 40 years since Bashir Gemayel was elected President by the country’s parliament. He was assassinated before taking office in 1982.
A deeply divisive figure in Lebanon’s history, Gemayel founded and led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Christian Phalange party that continues to play a role in the nation’s politics today. He was supported by many Lebanese Christians but considered a traitor by others for his cooperation with Israel, which invaded Lebanon in a 1982 war.
In October 2017, Habib al-Shartouni, a member of Lebanon’s Syrian Social Nationalist Party, was found guilty in absentia by a Lebanese court for planting the bomb that killed Gemayel.
Oman: #Turn_on_Discord
Omanis have turned to Twitter to complain about not being able to access popular social media platform Discord.
With over 150 million active monthly users, Discord plays a big role in the lives of gamers as it serves as a chat room for private games as well as those streaming their games.
Discord also grew to become a significant element in the utility function of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which are growing in popularity around the Gulf states.
An account that tracks Discord outages tweeted that the service has been banned in Oman. Oman’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority told CNN it couldn’t comment on the matter.
“I can name 10 other, more deserving services to be blocked in Oman, but you have gone ahead and blocked the useful one,” a disgruntled resident tweeted.
Saudi Arabia: #How_many_wives_would_you_take
Saudi men took to Twitter to ask each other how many wives they’d like to take.
While one user said marriage is not a “priority” for him, while another lamented that men could hardly attend to one wife. One user tweeted a photo with the number three.
Islam allows men to take up to four wives. While the practice isn’t widely adopted in the Muslim world, it isn’t uncommon either. Women can only take one husband.
According to the 2019 report by the Doha International Forum called State of Marriage in the Arab World, information on polygamy in Saudi Arabia is not readily available. Among the countries that were surveyed, Kuwait topped the list of polygamous countries with around 8% of married men having multiple wives.
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(CNN) — After two years of a pandemic, ever-changing travel restrictions and mandated Covid-19 tests, the summer of 2022 signaled vacations would finally be back in vogue.
With most Covid-19 restrictions lifted, planning a vacation became easier and many trips that had previously been delayed for pandemic-related reasons were finally able to take place. But in practice, flight cancellations, worker shortages and general travel chaos have robbed many travelers of their long anticipated stress-free bliss. And for those lucky enough to have managed a smooth getaway, the return to reality is hitting even harder than usual.
Whatever your vacation story, here are five tips from the experts to help you deal with a case of the post-vacation blues.
1. Plan a buffer for when you come back
We often overload ourselves with a long list of household chores as soon as we get back home or jump straight into work at lightning speed which emphasizes the contrast between vacation and reality. Instead, if possible, take a day to transition before returning to work and minimize household chores by doing what you can before you go away, advises Dr. Andrea Bonior, licensed clinical psychologist and author of “Detox Your Thoughts.”
“I often see people having a really hard time with the post-vacation blues when it’s like whiplash — so last night I was on a beach and now I’m in the office — instead if possible try to plan a buffer day so you can exhale and have some time to just be able to readjust,” she says.
“Give yourself a little self-compassion,” adds Dr. Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast. “You don’t need to answer all the emails immediately. It’s okay to ease back into the grind, and the evidence suggests that people will be more understanding than you predict.”
2. Try to maintain a vacation mindset
“Remember that ending the vacation doesn’t mean ending the fun,” says Santos. “We can find ways to get a bit more of that travel feeling in if we continue that tourist mindset into life back home. Maybe try a new restaurant or take a walk through a new neighborhood.”
Dr. Tracy Thomas, a psychologist and emotional scientist, says it’s important to identify what it is that makes you feel good when you’re away or in your “vacation mentality” and try to make it part of your daily reality.
“It’s fascinating that what people will do on vacation they won’t do at home — if you’re getting a massage when you’re away, waking up to see the sunrise or walking around a town, try to do some of that when you come home.”
Thomas also suggests cooking some of the dishes you enjoyed while you were away to keep the experience going. “When I go to Italy and eat pasta pomodoro, probably for a good month after that when I get home, I keep making it or ordering it instead of letting that process fade out.”
3. Practice gratitude
“Take some time to replay your positive travel memories back,” Santos advises. You could make an album, journal or just remind yourself of all the good experiences you were able to have if you were lucky enough to get away.
“You may have heard the advice that you should invest in experiences not things. Turns out one of the reasons that’s the case is that experiences make for fonder memories than our materials purchases — we can get a happiness boost not just from experiencing a vacation, but from remembering it,” Santos adds.
As well as being grateful for what you had, try and practice gratitude in your daily life says Bonior, explaining that while gratitude is good for us, many people misunderstand what it means.
“People tend to think gratitude means you need to count your blessings for everything, you can’t be upset about anything, somebody else has it worse than you do so you should be grateful, but gratitude in reality means leaning into everything — being able to truly engage and recognize that we’re lucky but also not being afraid to acknowledge the dark spots.”
“True gratitude doesn’t mean you have to be happy and feel blessed all the time, it means to realize the whole life experience is something pretty amazing and I’m here for it,” she adds.
4. Exercise
Numerous scientific studies have shown moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise is good for combating anxiety and depression. In fact, a study published in April in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, showed adults who did activities equivalent to 1.25 hours of brisk walking per week had an 18% lower risk of depression compared with those who did not exercise.
“Exercising doesn’t mean you won’t be depressed but it does helps mitigate it,” Bonior says, adding that exercise doesn’t have to be intense or look a certain way — even a walk can be a boost for your physical and mental health or dancing in your room she explains.
In addition, exercise is widely known to improve sleep, lower blood pressure, reduces stress and boost your mood — so although you may feel like moping around the house post-vacation, it’s a good idea to force yourself out and about for a mood inducing boost.
5. Acknowledge your feelings
Talk to others about how you feel, commiserate with other travelers or journal — it’s important to stay connected with friends and loved ones and not withdraw.
“The research shows that for us to be able to just articulate that we have a certain emotion, that makes that emotion feel less scary so we feel more in control. It also helps us avoid black and white thinking,” Bonior says, explaining that we can have multiple emotions at the same time like being sad but excited.
Of course if you’re feeling an overwhelming sense of dread about your routine or your job, it may signal a need for change or a revaluation of where you want to be. If the symptoms persist or get worse you may also want to seek out some professional help to address other underlying causes.
“If your vacation didn’t go so well, you can get a happiness boost here by trying to figure out what you learned,” says Santos. “The act of expressively journaling about what went wrong can help you figure out what insights you’ve gotten or how you’ve grown. At the very least, even the worst holidays can turn into funny stories that we can share with friends for a boost of social connection.”
Top photo credit: ALBERTO L. POMARES G./iStockphoto/Getty Images/iStockphoto
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When they last met, in February in Beijing during the Winter Olympics, they proclaimed their friendship had “no limits.” Since then, Russia has sought ever closer ties with China as Europe and the United States responded to the invasion with wave after wave of sanctions.
Beijing has carefully avoided violating Western sanctions or providing direct military support to Moscow. This balancing act, experts say, is a sign that Xi won’t sacrifice China’s economic interests to rescue Putin, who arrived at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan this week with his army retreating from large swathes of Ukrainian territory.
But the trading relationship is booming, in a lopsided way, as Russia desperately seeks new markets and China — an economy 10 times the size — scrambles for cheap commodities.
Record trade
China’s spending on Russian goods soared 60% in August from a year ago, hitting $11.2 billion, according to Chinese customs statistics, surpassing July’s 49% gain.
Its shipments to Russia, meanwhile, jumped 26% to $8 billion in August, also accelerating from the previous month.
For the first eight months of this year, total goods trade between China and Russia surged 31% to $117.2 billion. That’s already 80% of last year’s total — which stood at a record $147 billion.
“Russia needs China more than China needs Russia,” said Keith Krach, former Under Secretary of State for Economic growth, Energy and the Environment in the United States.
“As the war in Ukraine drags on, Putin’s losing friends fast and increasingly becoming more and more dependent on China, whose economy is 10 times the size of Russia’s,” he added.
For China, Russia now accounts for 2.8% of its total trade volume, slightly higher than the 2.5% share at the end of last year. The European Union and United States have much bigger shares.
China was already Russia’s largest single trading partner before the war, and accounted for 16% of its total foreign trade.
But the world’s second biggest economy has assumed much greater significance for Russia, which has plunged into a recession because of the Western sanctions.
The Russian central bank stopped publishing detailed trade data when the war in Ukraine started. But Bruegel, a European economic think tank, analyzed statistics from Russia’s top 34 trading partners recently and estimated that China accounted for roughly 24% of Russia’s exports in June.
“China-Russia trade is booming because China is taking advantage of the Ukraine crisis to buy Russian energy at a discount and replace Western firms that have exited the market,” said Neil Thomas, a senior analyst on China at Eurasia Group.
Russia displaced Saudi Arabia in May as the top supplier of oil to China. Moscow has held onto that top spot for three straight months through July, according to the latest Chinese customs data.
China’s coal imports from Russia also hit a five-year high of 7.42 million metric tons in July.
Yuan the new dollar in Russia?
The Ukraine war has also sent demand for the Chinese yuan soaring in Russia, as Western sanctions largely cut Moscow off from global financial system and restricted its access to the dollar and euro.
Yuan trade on the Moscow stock exchange amounted to 20% of the total trading volumes by major currencies in July, up from no more than 0.5% in January, according to Russian news media outlet Kommersant.
Daily trading volumes in the yuan-ruble exchange rate also hit a new record last month, surpassing ruble-dollar trade for the first time in history, according to Russian state-controlled media RT.
According to statistics published by SWIFT, the messaging system used by financial institutions globally to process international payments, Russia was the third biggest market in the world for payments made in yuan outside mainland China in July, after Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. The country didn’t even appear on SWIFT’s list of top 15 yuan markets in February.
Russian companies and banks are also increasingly turning to the yuan for international payments.
Last week, Russia’s Gazprom said it would start billing China in yuan and ruble for natural gas supplies, while Russia’s VTB bank said it was launching money transfers to China in yuan.
For Beijing, it’s a boost to its ambitions to make the yuan a global currency.
“Increased Russian use of the yuan also helps to inch forward China’s long-term goals to make the redback a global currency, to insulate itself from Western financial sanctions, and to enhance its institutional power in international finance,” said Thomas from Eurasia Group.
For Russia, this partnership with China “is born of desperation,” said Krach.
“Because Russia has been severely weakened, in part by sanctions, Putin is willing to do a deal with a predatory power so long as it gains access to capital,” he added.
Chinese companies fill the vacuum
Chinese companies are also taking advantage of the exodus of Western brands from Russia.
Chinese smartphones accounted for two-thirds of all new sales in Russia between April and June, Reuters reported, citing Russia’s top electronics retailer M.Video-Eldorado. Their total share in Russia has steadily increased from 50% in the first quarter, to 60% in April, and then to more than 70% in June, M.Video said.
Xiaomi was the best-selling smartphone maker in Russia in July, holding 42% of the market, according to Russian media Kommersant.
Samsung (SSNLF), once the market leader, had only 8.5% of the market in July. Apple (AAPL) held 7%. The two companies accounted for almost half of the Russian market prior to the Ukraine invasion, but suspended sales of new products in the country after the war began.
Chinese cars have also flooded Russia.
Passenger cars from Chinese manufacturers accounted for almost 26% of Russia’s market in August, the highest on record, according to Russian analytical agency Autostat. That compares with just 9.5% in the first quarter.
Major global auto players, including Ford and Toyota, have pulled back from Russia this year.
Limits in ‘no limits’ partnership
But there are also significant limits in the China-Russia partnership, analysts said.
China is not providing military, commercial, or technological support that would “risk significant US sanctions on China,” said Thomas at Eurasia Group.
“Beijing will not sacrifice its own economic interests to support Moscow,” he said.
Fearing a US backlash, China has so far “steadfastly” refused to violate international sanctions against Russia, forcing Moscow to request military support from North Korea, said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Beijing’s refusal to violate US and international sanctions reflects its begrudging acceptance that China remains reliant on Western capital and technology to sustain its ongoing development, even though Xi is personally inclined to assist Putin’s war effort,” he said.
Moreover, China’s rapid economic slowdown this year will further constrain Xi’s willingness to help Putin. The Chinese president won’t want to risk anything that further destabilizes the economy mere weeks before he’s poised to secure an historic third term at the Communist Party’s congress.
What the future holds
Future relations will likely remained strained, and China will want to keep its options open, analysts said.
“There’s always been mistrust between the two regimes, which historically treated each other as rivals,” Krach noted.
The current Sino-Russia partnership is mainly a “defensive” one, enhanced by Beijing and Moscow’s shared view that NATO and the United States pose a “palpable national security threat,” said Susan Thornton, senior fellow and visiting lecturer at Yale Law School.
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is not in China’s interest, but given Western hostility, China will not oppose Russia,” she added.
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