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The Qatari National Football Team is seeking sole victory against Kuwait tomorrow at Jaber International Stadium, during the third and final round of Group A competitions to stay in the tournament for semi-final qualification in the 26th Gulf CupThe Qatari national team suffered a 2-1 loss to Oman in the previous round of Group A, leaving them with just one point from a draw against the UAE, who have the same points and goal difference.Kuwait and Oman share the top spot in the group with four points each and identical goal differences, ahead of the final round, which also features a match between Oman and the UAE at the same time as Qatar's match against Kuwait to ensure fair competition.A win for Qatar could secure their semi-final qualification, provided the UAE fails to earn at least a point against Oman. In such a case, Oman would advance as group leaders, while Qatar would qualify for the semi-finals based on head-to-head results over Kuwait, as per Article 7, Paragraph 2 of the Arab Gulf Cup Football Federation (AGCFF) regulations.In the event that both Qatar and the UAE win, all four teams will be tied with four points, meaning the next criterion will be goal difference (goals scored and conceded). If the teams are still tied, goals scored will be considered, and if the tie continues, fair play (fewer yellow and red cards) will be used. If the teams remain equal, a draw will be held, as per the Gulf Cup Federation regulations.Qatar is aiming to improve its performance after the previous match against Oman, where they squandered an early lead after a goal from Almoez Ali in the second minute. They conceded two goals to Omani striker Issam Al-Subhi, resulting in a loss that now forces Qatar to win against the host team, Kuwait, to stay in the competition for the semi-finals.Coach Luis Garcia made five changes to the starting lineup from the first match, despite good performances against the UAE. He brought in Lucas Mendes, Abdullah Yousef, and Sultan AlBraik to the defense, replacing Bahaa Ellethy, Tarek Salman, and Homam El Amin. Meanwhile, Mubarak Shanan started as a winger instead of Yusuf Abdurisag, and Ibrahim Al Hassan replaced Mostafa Tarek, disrupting the team's stability.Qatar's task will be challenging against Kuwait, the host nation, who will have strong support from their fans, especially after their impressive 2-1 victory over the UAE. Kuwait's performance, particularly defensively, was solid, showcasing their historical strength in the tournament, having won the most titles with ten championships.The Kuwaiti team performed perfectly, especially defensively, after showing great strength in the face of the UAEs attack, and relied on quick transitions, which requires the Qatari team to be at the peak of its mental presence, especially in the back line in order to deal with counterattacks, in addition to finding offensive solutions in order to score.The last 15 encounters between Qatar and Kuwait show an even record, with both teams winning seven times, and one match ending in a draw. Both teams scored 21 goals over these matches. Mubarak Mustafa is the top Qatari scorer against Kuwait with three goals, while Jassim Al Huwaidi is Kuwait's top scorer against Qatar with five goals.

Japan Airlines' network was hit by a cyberattack on Thursday, resulting in delays to some domestic and international flights.Japanese News Agency Kyodo reported that Japan Airlines "system network used to check in luggage is under a cyberattack, with at least 24 domestic flights delayed for up to an hour and some international flights also affected."The company confirmed that it was working to counteract the cyberattack and determine its source, adding that the attack may have a larger effect on its flights.It stated that affected devices have been shut down for investigation, as the company works to restore its systems. Meanwhile, authorities in Tokyo have launched an investigation into the incident

From riding pillion on zooming motorbikes to round-the-clock airport stakeouts, India’s celebrity-hunting paparazzi photographers have gone from “outcasts” to becoming a key part of Bollywood’s vast film industry machine.Times have changed for celebrity snapper Manav Manglani, who scored big at the wedding of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in 2009 - by climbing a tree and perching on a branch for hours to spy over the venue’s walls.“We...were considered outcasts,” said the photographer, describing the early days of his trade.Fifteen years later, Manglani pushes streams of content to over 6.5mn followers on Instagram.“We are part of the system now”, he said, commanding a squad of nearly 20 photographers who stake out popular gyms, chic cafes and luxury hotels, their phones buzzing with tips.The team has divided the megacity into coverage zones, including someone stationed at the airport full-time.Mumbai-based Bollywood, the core of India’s Hindi-language film industry, is the long-time heart of moviemaking in the world’s most populous nation and a major cultural export.In celebrity-obsessed India, it can be a lucrative trade. Bollywood began a century ago. But it was in the 1970s that film magazines began publishing “inside” industry gossip, said Ram Kamal Mukherjee, a former editor-in-chief of Stardust magazine.The Bollywood publication brought “stories from the studios, bedroom stories, stories from the make-up van”, he said.The first wave of paparazzi began in India in the early 2000s, with freelance photographers chasing celebrities.The insatiable demand by social media and ubiquitous availability of smartphones shifted gears again - with photographers no longer “just providing pictures” but working to help produce a narrative, he said.“Today there is intervention,” Mukherjee said, citing examples such as staged incidents where young actors seemingly spontaneously hand cash to beggars. “There is brand building.”That has come alongside wider industry changes, including viewers shifting from the big screen.Traditional blockbuster spectacles drawing crowds into cinemas have been challenged by long-format narratives on streaming platforms viewed at home, commonly called OTT or “over-the-top” services in India. This, observers say, has helped paparazzi develop a role in the publicity machine.“Being an influencer with followers with a very popular page, helping them promote the movies, the OTT, and the brands...we are now important,” Manglani said.Indian movies released in theatres raked in an “all-time high” of $1.4bn in box office revenue in 2023, according to consulting firm EY. But competition is fierce.Mandvi Sharma, a former publicist for mega-star Shah Rukh Khan, said the two sides can be “co-dependent”, especially for younger actors hoping photographers can boost their fame.“Things have changed”, said Viral Bhayani, a photographer with over 12mn Instagram followers, recalling how a decade ago he would have to “beg” for information about organised media events. It’s been quite a shift, “from being thrown out of places... to now being called everywhere”, he said.Despite their careers being more closely linked, old frictions remain, especially for big-name stars.In 2023, Bollywood star Alia Bhatt made a police complaint for “gross invasion” of privacy after two photographers took pictures of her at home from a neighbouring rooftop. But Manglani said his images are also a useful barometer to measure actors’ presence on the screen. Producers, directors and the brands, “are keenly watching whom am I featuring...what’s happening, and what is the traction on that celebrity,” Manglani said. “We used to run behind them,” he said. “We wanted money, we were earning by the picture... Now it’s both ways. They also need us, we also need them.”

From an anonymous office in a New Delhi mall, matrimonial detective Bhavna Paliwal runs the rule over prospective husbands and wives - a booming industry in India, where younger generations are increasingly choosing love matches over arranged marriage.The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches.So for some families, the first step when young lovers want to get married is not to call a priest or party planner but a sleuth like Paliwal with high-tech spy tools to investigate the prospective partner.Sheela, an office worker in New Delhi, said that when her daughter announced she wanted to marry her boyfriend, she immediately hired Paliwal.“I had a bad marriage,” said Sheela, whose name has been changed as her daughter remains unaware her fiance was spied on.“When my daughter said she’s in love, I wanted to support her - but not without proper checks.”Paliwal, 48, who founded her Tejas Detective Agency more than two decades ago, says business is better than ever.Her team handles around eight cases monthly.In one recent case - a client checking her prospective husband - Paliwal discovered a decimal point salary discrepancy.“The man said he earns around $70,700 annually,” Paliwal said. “We found out he was actually making $7,070.”It is discreet work. Paliwal’s office is tucked away in a city mall, with an innocuous sign board saying it houses an astrologer -- a service families often use to predict an auspicious wedding date.“Sometimes my clients also don’t want people to know they are meeting a detective,” she laughed.Hiring a detective can cost from $100-2,000, depending on the extent of surveillance needed.That is a small investment for families who splash out many times more on the wedding itself.It is not just worried parents trying to vet their prospective sons or daughters-in-law.Some want background checks on their future spouse - or, after marriage, to confirm a suspected affair.“It is a service to society,” said Sanjay Singh, a 51-year-old sleuth, who says his agency has handled “hundreds” of pre-matrimonial investigations this year alone.Private eye Akriti Khatri said around a quarter of cases at her Venus Detective Agency were pre-marriage checks.Arranged marriages binding two entire families together require a chain of checks before the couple even talk.That includes financial probes and, crucially, their status in India’s millennia-old caste hierarchy.Marriages breaking rigid caste or religious divisions can have deadly repercussions, sometimes resulting in so-called “honour” killings.In the past, such premarital checks were often done by family members, priests or professional matchmakers.But breakneck urbanisation in sprawling megacities has shaken social networks, challenging conventional ways of verifying marriage proposals.Arranged marriages now also happen online through matchmaking websites, or even dating apps.“Marriage proposals come on Tinder too,” added Singh.The job is not without its challenges.Layers of security in guarded modern apartment blocks mean it is often far harder for an agent to gain access to a property than older standalone homes.Singh said detectives had to rely on their charm to tell a “cock and bull story” to enter, saying his teams tread the grey zone between “legal and illegal”.But he stressed his agents operate on the right side of the law, ordering his teams to do “nothing unethical” while noting investigations often mean “somebody’s life is getting ruined”.Technology is on the side of the sleuths.Khatri has used tech developers to create an app for her agents to upload records directly online - leaving nothing on agents’ phones, in case they are caught.“This is safer for our team,” she said, adding it also helped them “get sharp results in less time and cost”.Surveillance tools starting at only a few dollars are readily available.Those include audio and video recording devices hidden in everyday items such as mosquito repellent socket devices, to more sophisticated magnetic GPS car trackers or tiny wearable cameras.The technology boom, Paliwal said, has put relationships under pressure.“The more hi-tech we become, the more problems we have in our lives,” she said.But she insisted that neither the technology nor the detectives should take the blame for exposing a cheat.“Such relationships would not have lasted anyway”, she said. “No relationship can work on the basis of lies.”

For developing countries around the world – especially the poorest – the economic terrain has seldom been so slippery. Low-income countries have already suffered a lost decade, with virtually zero per capita income growth since 2010. Many middle-income countries are coming to terms with a demographic shift that puts them at risk of growing old before they grow rich. And many high-income countries risk stagnation because of sky-high debt and anaemic productivity growth.Such conditions are not conducive to international comity, at least not of the kind that fuelled so much progress after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Developing economies will need to get better at fending for themselves, and while some are already preparing to do so, they are operating with an antiquated policy framework.In the third decade of the 21st century, does it really make sense for developing countries to place an all-or-nothing bet on manufacturing? New research from the World Bank shows clearly that it does not. Developing countries would do far better to put services in the lead role, with manufacturing and agriculture serving as the supporting cast.Services include a wide range of activities – finance, health, tourism, logistics – and the benefits they generate spill over to other sectors. Yet relative to manufacturing, they continue to get a bad rap. Supposedly, they are notoriously slow to innovate, hard to trade, and difficult to free from regulatory restrictions. Yet services now account for more than two-thirds of global GDP and half of global trade (once you factor in services that are used in manufacturing and agriculture).Among those seizing the opportunities offered by trade in services, the most striking examples come from the home of the “Asian miracle.” While the textbook manufacturing-led model of economic growth once worked wonders in East Asia, these countries’ circumstances and needs have changed. Their populations are ageing quickly, the global economy is becoming more fragmented, and they are adapting. Over the past decade, our research shows, the share of services grew from 44% of economic activity in China to 53%, and from 44% to 48% in other economies across East Asia. These sectors now account for nearly 50% of employment in the region, up from 42% a decade ago.This shift reflects the rapid rise of digital technologies – nearly three-quarters of people in East Asia and the Pacific now have access to the Internet, a sevenfold increase from 2000 – as well as modest trade liberalisation for services. The result is an Asian economic renaissance. Opening services to competition has fuelled higher labour productivity even in manufacturing and agriculture, where firms can check prices, deliver goods, and receive payments much more efficiently.Across all major economies in East Asia and the Pacific, services now contribute more than manufacturing to overall labour-productivity growth, an essential condition for higher wages. In Vietnam, for example, labour productivity climbed by 2.9% after the government eased restrictions on foreign entry and ownership in several services sectors between 2008 and 2016 – reform commitments that were part of Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation. Moreover, manufacturing firms that use these liberalised services registered a 3.1% annual increase in labour productivity, and the biggest beneficiaries were small and medium sized private enterprises.The rise of services in East Asia has yielded other important benefits. It is powering foreign direct investment, with the growth rate of FDI in services exceeding that of manufacturing by a factor of five. It is also driving demand for higher-skilled workers. Close to 40% of formal workers in digital services in East Asia today have a university degree or higher. That’s double the rate for workers in other sectors. And the same trend is unlocking greater economic opportunities for women, because the ratio of female to male workers tends to be higher in the services sector than in manufacturing, and the proportion of women in the workforce grows as the level of economic development increases.These are all essential ingredients for long-term growth. But because the trajectory of services is so closely tied to the spread of digital technologies, developing economies have not benefited equally. The countries with the fastest growth in services tend to be upper-middle-income economies – especially in East Asia. In such economies, services have gone from a 40% share of GDP in 1970 to about 50% today. In low-income countries, however, services as a share of GDP are still about 40%, pretty much the same as in 1970.Yet even in the poorest countries, services represent a promising path to future prosperity. They can help all countries move from low- to middle- to high-income status. But first, we must reject the false choice between supporting services and supporting manufacturing. Policymakers should do both, while maximising the potential of the services sector to deliver growth and jobs. – Project SyndicateIndermit Gill is Chief Economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics at the World Bank. Aaditya Mattoo is Chief Economist of the East Asia and Pacific Region at the World Bank.

The United Kingdom’s Labour government has given serious thought to the public investment needed to get the economy back on track after 14 years of austerity, neglect of social infrastructure, and capital flight triggered by Brexit and uncertain economic conditions. It understands that the situation demands a new strategy to tackle big problems like child poverty, health inequities, a weak industrial base, and struggling public infrastructure.What should this look like? The UK Department for Business and Trade’s recent industrial strategy “green paper”, Invest 2035, is a promising start. However, in my own response during the public consultation period, I stressed that an industrial strategy should be oriented around key “missions” like achieving net-zero emissions, rather than around specific sectors, as the government appears to be doing. While the government has set itself five “missions”, they seem more like goals with some targets, rather than being central to the way government and industry work together.For Labour to deliver on its agenda, it must get its public-private partnerships right. Historically, public-private collaborations in the UK have involved the state overpaying and the private sector underdelivering. Following the Brexit referendum, for example, the government secretly gave Nissan £61mn ($76mn) to build new cars in the UK. But Nissan still abandoned a planned expansion at its Sunderland plant, and the promised jobs never materialised.Likewise, under the failed “private finance initiative” schemes of the 1990s, the state would pay inflated sums to private contractors to operate public services such as prisons, schools, and hospitals before handing them back to the state, often in poor condition and without any clear improvement to the service. This approach was widely used in the construction of National Health Service hospitals, with the first 15 contracts generating £45mn in fees – some 4% of the capital value of the deals – for advisers across the public and private sector. A UK Treasury analysis later showed that the general costs of PFIs were double that of government borrowing.Fortunately, many public-private partnerships globally have produced more positive results. Germany’s national development bank, KfW, offers low-interest loans to companies that agree to decarbonise. Similarly, the French government’s Covid-19 bailout of Air France was conditional on the carrier curbing emissions per passenger and reducing domestic flights; by contrast, the UK bailed out easyJet with no strings attached.In the US, the CHIPS and Science Act required companies that benefit from public funds to commit to climate and workforce development plans, provide childcare, and pay a living wage. Preference is also given to companies that reinvest profits instead of using share buybacks.The UK does have some experience in shaping markets around clear goals. In developing the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, the government used a risk- and reward-sharing model in which it provided 95% of the funding in exchange for certain commitments from the company. AstraZeneca would provide the first 100mn doses to the UK and allow the government to donate and reassign surplus vaccines.Similarly, Octopus Energy’s acquisition of energy supplier Bulb allowed the UK government to reap £1.5bn in profit as Octopus repaid the public support it had received through an earlier profit-sharing deal. This agreement safeguarded jobs and prevented consumers from incurring any extra costs.With a mission-oriented strategy, the Labour government could scale up and systematise this type of public-private engagement. Rather than being “unreservedly pro-business,” as it claims to be in its green paper, it should ensure that public investment targets clear objectives: to crowd in private capital, create new markets, and increase long-term competitiveness.Consider the UK’s net-zero-emissions target, which is not only about clean power but also about how we eat, move, and build. The state has a crucial role to play as a first-mover, shaping markets so that private incentives are aligned with public goals. Yet judged by this standard, recent moves by the Labour government appear to fall short.For example, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s deals with Macquarie (an investment bank), Blackstone (asset management), and others raised more than £60bn without setting clear, outcomes-oriented expectations or ensuring that both risks and rewards are shared. Equally, the government’s support of carbon capture and storage (to the tune of £22bn so far) allows funds to flow to incumbent oil giants without holding them accountable in the green transition.These deals are structured to achieve growth at any cost, when what the UK really needs is growth that is inclusive and sustainable. That requires better corporate governance to prevent situations like Thames Water (a water and waste utility) being saddled with over £2bn in debt after Macquarie became a major shareholder in 2006.As I’ve said before, growth itself is not a mission; it is the result of public and private investment, and good growth is a result of directed investment. If the UK’s climate transition is going to deliver for people and planet over the long term, the government’s engagement with the private sector must reflect confidence, not capitulation. This can start by deploying tools that the government already has. The new National Wealth Fund and Great British Energy (a publicly owned clean-energy company that is expected to launch early next year) could make a huge difference, but only if policymakers get the implementation right.For example, the National Wealth Fund should introduce conditionalities for public investments; provide public access to intellectual property and patents for research; create subsidies and other incentives for mission-aligned investments; and use loan guarantees and bailouts to move companies toward decarbonisation, improved working conditions, and fewer share buybacks. Procurement is also a strong lever, because it represents one-third of the government’s total spending and can direct investment toward strategically important goals.Ultimately, the UK government must shift from a sectoral approach to a mission-oriented one that embraces a confident, outcomes-oriented form of public-private partnership, incentivising the private sector to do its part. Labour understands the problem, but its proposed solution still needs some work. – Project SyndicateMariana Mazzucato is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and author, most recently, of Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (Penguin Books, 2022).

While official sources and the media highlight strong consumer-spending and jobs data in the US, or tout high US stock-market valuations, more than three-quarters of Americans view economic conditions as poor (36%) or fair (41%). This disconnect between performance and perception can have far-reaching consequences; it already helped to propel Donald Trump to victory in last month’s presidential election. So, what is causing it?Here, it is worth considering how market participants deal with asymmetric information – when one party has more or better information than another party or parties. Imagine you were seeking to make a purchase. As a buyer, there is a limit to the information you can glean about your options through direct observation. So, you make your decision based on your beliefs about those options, which extend beyond discernible facts to include unseen or anticipated characteristics.But the process is not finished when the transaction is complete. You then engage in “discovery” – essentially, observation. If, during this process, you learn things that do not correspond with the beliefs that drove your decision, you modify your beliefs.In the signalling and screening models that economists use, the choices made by a variety of agents close information gaps and lead to equilibrium: the beliefs shaping demand lead to choices on the supply side that turn out to be consistent with those beliefs. The crucial point is that the direct observation that follows a transaction anchors beliefs and determines equilibrium.But in our highly complex economy, characterised by specialisation and interconnectedness, such observation is not always possible. On the contrary, many or even most of the conditions that are salient for an individual’s well-being or decision-making today are not local or subject to personal observation. There can be no comprehensive discovery process ensuring that beliefs are linked to underlying realities.Where personal verification is impractical or impossible, we rely on informational intermediaries, including the traditional media, government, or experts, such as climate scientists. In our digital age, social-media platforms and online sources have also claimed a prominent position in our information ecosystems.But if these intermediaries are to close information gaps, they must be trustworthy – and Americans are not convinced that they are. A 2023 Gallup poll showed that faith in institutions, from media to government, had reached historic lows in the US, with only 18% of respondents expressing confidence in newspapers, 14% in television news, and 8% in Congress. Scientists fare better, with 76% of Americans reporting a “great deal” or “fair amount” of confidence that they will act in the public’s best interests, though the group that identifies as “highly sceptical” is growing, especially among self-reported Republicans.Why don’t Americans trust the institutions that are supposed to be helping to close information gaps? Rosy news about the economy’s performance that fails to account for people’s pocketbook realities might be part of the answer.Income-distribution data can help shed light on these realities. The 2008 global financial crisis – which began with the collapse of a housing bubble – dealt a major blow to the balance sheets of the bottom 50% of households. In 2010, this group accounted for just 0.7% of total household net worth. A partial recovery followed, but the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent surge in inflation, which spurred the US Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, produced new headwinds. More than a quarter of US households now spend more than 95% of their income on necessities, leaving them vulnerable to even mild shocks and making wealth-building all but impossible.This year, total US household net worth stood at $154tn, with the bottom 50% of the distribution accounting for $3.8tn – just 2.5% of the total. That works out to $58,000, on average, for some 66mn US households, with many owning much less. The top 10% hold two-thirds of all US household wealth, and the bottom 90% share the remaining one-third.It is not difficult to understand why Americans might be mistrustful of those delivering a rosy economic narrative that does not correspond with their experience. Even when media outlets do highlight the challenging economic conditions many Americans face, their reports are not translated into policies and actions that make a significant difference. This has been true for at least two decades, and undermines confidence in the system as a whole. At a certain point, people may start assuming that traditional institutions are either lying or clueless.The de-anchoring of beliefs from traditional sources of information leaves the field wide open for alternatives, which may well be unreliable. The Internet – and social media, in particular – both facilitates and complicates this process, as it delivers access to vast numbers of unverified sources. The results can be highly polarizing.While research into social media’s impact on our behaviour is ongoing, it seems clear that platforms like Facebook, X, and TikTok have become powerful mechanisms for group formation. The process is self-reinforcing: individuals select their group based partly on shared beliefs, and the group influences members’ perspectives. Confirmation bias – the tendency to seek information that is consistent with one’s prior beliefs – reinforces groups’ diverging perceptions of reality. Some controversial beliefs – such as the claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump – are not actually beliefs for many, but rather screening devices to verify group members’ allegiance to the same “facts”.Against this backdrop, restoring a shared baseline perception of reality as a foundation for economic policy amounts to a formidable task. Americans’ sharply divergent economic experiences, rooted in soaring wealth inequality and many other hardships, including the rising costs of health care and college, will only compound the challenge. – Project SyndicateMichael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Emeritus Professor of Economics and a former dean of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a co-author (with Mohamed A El-Erian, Gordon Brown, and Reid Lidow) of Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World (Simon & Schuster, 2023).

A motley crew of centrist pundits in Europe, the Global South, and, following Donald Trump’s election victory, the US believe that the West is in decline. To be sure, never has so much power been concentrated in the hands of so few people (and postcodes) in the West, but does that alone mean Western power is doomed?In Europe, there is good reason to embrace the narrative of decline. Just as the Roman Empire shifted its capital to Constantinople to extend its hegemony by another millennium, abandoning Rome to the barbarians, so did the West’s centre of gravity shift to the US, abandoning Britain and Europe to the stagnation that is rendering them inert, backward, and increasingly irrelevant.But there is a deeper reason for the pundits’ gloomy sentiment: the tendency to confuse the decline of the West’s commitment to its own value system (universal human rights, diversity, and openness) with the West’s decline. Like a snake shedding its old skin, the West is gaining power by shedding a value system which sustained its ascendancy during the 20th century but which, in the 21st, no longer serves that goal.Democracy was never a prerequisite for the rise of capitalism, and what we now think of as the West’s value system is not a prerequisite for it, either. Western power was built not on humanist principles but, rather, on brutal exploitation at home coupled with the slave trade, the opium trade, and various genocides in the Americas, Africa, and Australia.During its ascendancy, Western power went unchecked abroad. Europe sent millions of colonists to subjugate peoples and extract resources. Europeans pretended the natives they saw were not human and declared their land terra nullius, a land without a people for settlers craving that land – the first act of every genocide from the Americas, Africa, and Australia to Palestine today.But, while unassailable abroad, Western power was challenged at home by its wretched lower classes who rose up in response to economic crises caused by the inability of the many to consume enough of the goods they were producing in the factories belonging to the few. These conflicts spilled over into industrial-scale warfare between Western powers vying for markets, culminating in two world wars.As a consequence, the West’s elites had to make concessions. Domestically, they acquiesced to public education, health systems, and pensions. Internationally, outrage at the West’s cruel wars and genocides led to decolonisation, universal declarations of human rights, and international criminal courts.For a couple of decades after World War II, the West basked in the warm glow of distributive justice, the mixed economy, diversity, the rule of law at home, and a rules-based international order. Economically, these values were served extraordinarily well by the centrally planned, US-designed global monetary system known as Bretton Woods, which allowed America to recycle its surpluses to Europe and Japan, essentially dollarising its allies to sustain its own net exports.But then, by 1971, America had become a deficit country. Rather than tighten its belt in Germanic style, the US blew up Bretton Woods and blew out its trade deficit. Germany, Japan, and later China became net exporters, whose dollar profits were sent to Wall Street to buy US government debt, real estate, and shares in companies that the US allowed foreigners to invest in.Then, the American ruling class had an epiphany: Why manufacture stuff at home when foreign capitalists could be relied upon to dispatch both their products and their dollars to the US? So, they exported whole production lines abroad, triggering the deindustrialisation of America’s manufacturing heartlands.Wall Street was at the heart of this audacious new recycling mechanism. To play its role, it had to be unrestrained. But wholesale deregulation needed an economics and a political philosophy to support it. Demand created its own supply, and neoliberalism was born. Before long, the world was awash in derivatives surfing the tsunami of foreign capital inundating New York’s banks. When the wave broke in 2008, the West nearly broke with it.Panicked Western leaders authorised the minting of $35tn to refloat the financiers while imposing austerity on their populations. The only part of these trillions that was actually invested in machinery went to building up the cloud capital that gave Big Tech its pervasive power over Western populations’ hearts and minds.The combination of socialism for financiers, collapsing prospects for the bottom 50%, and the surrender of our minds to Big Tech’s cloud capital gave birth to a Brave New West, whose overweening elites have little use for the last century’s value system. Free trade, anti-trust rules, net zero, democracy, openness to migration, diversity, human rights, and the International Court of Justice were treated with the same contempt with which the US treated friendly dictators after their usefulness ended.With Europe rendered impotent by its inability to federate political power after it had federated its money, and the developing world more in debt than ever, only China is left standing in the West’s way. The irony, however, is that China does not want to be a hegemon. It just wants to sell its wares unimpeded.But the West is now convinced that China poses a lethal threat. Like Oedipus’s father, who died at his son’s hand because he believed the prophecy that his son would kill him, so the West is working tirelessly to push China to take the plunge and seriously challenge Western power, such as by turning the Brics into a renminbi-based Bretton-Woods-like system.In 2024, the West continued to grow stronger. But, with its value system in the gutter, so did its penchant for engineering its decline. – Project SyndicateYanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MeRA25 party and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens.

Donald Trump’s election as the 47th president of the US has undoubtedly filled Russian President Vladimir Putin with hope. Trump has long expressed his admiration for Putin, and he has given every indication that he will discontinue President Joe Biden’s policy of providing substantial material support to Ukraine (weapons, intelligence, and financing) in its defence against Russian aggression.Moreover, Trump’s choice of vice-president, J D Vance, shares his view, stating that “the American people will not tolerate another endless war, and neither will I”. With Republicans gaining control of both houses of Congress and pursuing draconian cuts to any spending that is associated with Democratic priorities, US support for Ukraine will soon be withdrawn.Regardless of what Europeans tell themselves, they will not be able to compensate for the loss of American financial and military aid for Ukraine. They have neither the will nor the capacity to do so. And while many have described recent developments in Syria as a loss for Putin, that doesn’t make them a win for the Ukrainians and Europe.To be sure, Putin has lost a key ally with the downfall of Bashar al-Assad. In the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse, Russia is withdrawing its forces from its air and naval bases on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, which means that it is losing essential conduits for supplying the forces it has deployed in various African countries. For a leader who harbours global power ambitions, this marks a severe setback.Putin’s strategic loss in the eastern Mediterranean might be only partly mitigated by a “deal” with Trump. For example, the incoming US administration could pursue a grand bargain in which Russia supports US-Israeli efforts to shut down Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for a face-saving partial victory in Ukraine.Alternatively, Trump’s arrival in the White House could amount to a green light for Israel to launch strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.This scenario would be catastrophic for Putin’s dreams of global influence, because it would fundamentally alter Russia’s role in the Middle East and on the world stage. Former US president Barack Obama’s dismissive description of Russia as a “regional power”, rather than a great one, would be confirmed. Russia would still have a powerful partner in China, but China’s own estimation of its northern neighbour’s importance would be significantly downgraded.But another possibility is that Trump will simply roll over for Putin by forcing the Ukrainians into ceasefire negotiations and territorial concessions without any effective Western security guarantees. Such a grotesque outcome would further alter Europe’s own security architecture. Nato would still exist, but its relevance would be much in doubt as long as Trump is in office. European security would henceforth depend on Ukrainian security. Its future prosperity and stability would be tied to a fragile ceasefire that would do nothing to counter the constant threat of Russian hybrid warfare.In other words, from Europe’s perspective, Trump and Vance’s idea of peace will be nothing of the kind. Europe will continue to face profound risks to its security and internal cohesion, only now it will be confronting them alone. What will Putin do with the reprieve offered by a suspension of hostilities? What will it mean for Europe if the situation in Syria deteriorates and produces another 2015-style refugee crisis?Faced with so much uncertainty, Europeans have no choice but to pursue considerable investments in rearmament and security, even if such outlays become more difficult under conditions of flagging growth and a new trade war.

The 26th Arabian Gulf Cup in Kuwait is turning into one for the ages after another round of thrilling Group B matches on the fourth day of action on Wednesday.Bahrain booked their place in the semi-finals with a 2-0 win over Iraq, and Saudi Arabia came from 2-0 down to beat Yemen 3-2 in a game.At the Jaber Al Ahmad International Stadium, Bahrain opened the scoring through Ali Madan after the Iraqi defence was sliced open down the left, allowing the wide man to connect with a cross unmarked and finish from close range.The same player made it 2-0 a minute into the second half when the defence was caught napping, allowing him to score at the second attempt. The win moves them to six points from two games, guaranteeing passage through to the last four with one more group match to play against Yemen on Saturday.In the evening’s opening match at the Jaber Al Mubarak International Stadium, Yemen stunned Saudi Arabia by taking the lead in the eighth minute when a short corner resulted in some fine work from captain Abdulwasea al-Matari whose pin-point cross was met by the head of Harwan al-Zubaidi.That lead was doubled in the 27th minute when a short back pass was intercepted by Abdulmajeed Sabarah to poke past the advancing keeper and send the Yemen fans wild. But the two-goal lead was short-lived as Saudi Arabia hit back just two minutes later. A well-worked free kick found Mohammed Kanno unmarked to head home and reduce the arrears to 2-1 at the break.The game then turned on a controversial penalty awarded to Saudi Arabia early in the second half for handball following a lengthy VAR check. Musab al-Juwayr kept his calm from the spot to bring the scores level.Despite Saudi pressure, the game appeared to be heading to a draw, but in the fourth added minute, Abdullah Alhamddan broke Yemeni hearts with a vital winner, setting Group B up for a frantic finale on Saturday night when the winner of Saudi Arabia and Iraq will advance to the semi-finals with Bahrain.Saudi coach Herve Renard was not too pleased with his side’s performance and said the team lacked the focus. The Frenchman said: “Skills are essential in football, but concentration is equally critical. I noticed a lack of focus throughout the match. We are working on improving this, especially since it is vital in international competitions.”Renard acknowledged the difficulty of the Gulf Cup tournament, stating: “This is a very challenging competition. While the team has qualified for the World Cup several times, the Gulf Cup presents its own unique difficulties. Our start was not ideal, but I hope today marks a turning point for us.”Renard explained the decision to replace midfielder Abdulelah Hawsawi early in the game. “I was not satisfied with his first ten minutes, particularly his insistence and body language. At this international level, players must display greater desire. Hawsawi is a good player with potential for growth in the future.”Reflecting on the match itself, Renard noted its unpredictability: “Today’s game was unusual, but such scenarios are part of football. The positive aspect was our ability to come back after being two goals down. As a coach, you must consider the players’ energy and readiness.”Renard also shared his halftime strategy: “I told the players at halftime that we would come back. They continued their offensive work while avoiding defensive errors. Mistakes and successes are collective, and I reminded them of that during the break. Today’s game reminded me of our comeback against Uzbekistan, which became a turning point for us. I hope this match serves a similar purpose.”Renard’s focus on mental readiness and team cohesion will be critical as Saudi Arabia aims to build momentum in the Gulf Cup.

The Qatari junior golf team claimed two gold medals in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) Junior and Women’s Golf Championship, hosted by Oman at the Ghala Golf Club in Muscat.Daniel Sokolov secured the gold medal in the under-16 singles category, finishing the tournament with a total of 218 strokes over three rounds. He dominated the leaderboard from the first day to the last, showcasing his skill and deserving the title. Omani player Adam al-Barwani came in second with 247 strokes, while his compatriot Brunesh Jakwani placed third.In the team competition for the same age group, the Qatari junior team excelled, winning the gold medal with a combined score of 480 strokes over three rounds. The Omani team finished second with 490 strokes, followed by the UAE team in third place with 519 strokes.In the women’s singles competition, Qatari player Nada Radwan delivered an impressive performance, securing fourth place with a total of 243 strokes after a fierce contest with players from the UAE team, who claimed the top three positions.Mohammed Faisal al-Naimi, head of Qatar’s delegation to the championship and Board Member of the Qatar Golf Association, praised the outstanding performances of the players, highlighting their consistent excellence throughout the championship amidst strong competition from top Gulf golfers.He also emphasised that investment in youth categories is yielding results and positioning Qatari golf for further success.Fahad Nasser al-Naimi, Secretary-General and Executive Committee Member of the Arab Golf Federation, underlined the importance of nurturing young players and involving them in tournaments that enhance their skills and refine their talent.He expressed optimism for a bright future for Qatari golf, with the younger generation holding great promise.