The Weekly Wrap for Saturday, 24 June 2017

Welcome back, Here's everything you need to know but may have missed this week. First up, we dive into the question: what next after ISIS. Then we review a recent decision by the MSCI that is widely seen as a watershed moment for China's economic ambitions, and finally we ask why Mexico is spying on its journalists. - inkl   DEEP DIVE Both the concurrent military campaigns against the twin 'capitals' of ISIS are finally approaching victory. Each of the cities sits on the banks of one of the pair of famed rivers that gifted humanity its first civilisation. And each now lies in ruin. Mosul (on the Tigris) will fall first. Raqqa (on the Euphrates) will be next. But despite these victories vast swathes of land and major population centres on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian border will lie broken and ungovernable for a generation. Across the region powers great and small are already vying for influence and territory. So, what comes next? The al-Nuri mosque compound lies in complete ruin. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced this week that the end of the Battle of Mosul is nigh. The back of its resistance has been broken even though ISIS suicide bombers and mobile sniper teams continue to inflict staggering losses on Iraq's military. The local population too has suffered grievously. Civilians have been held as human shields and slain by the dozen while trying to escape across the frontline. And the fates of tens of thousands more darken with each passing day. This week Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's encircled forces denied their opponents a symbolic victory by blowing up the Great Mosque of al-Nuri. The site, with its famous leaning minaret, had stood for 845 years - until Thursday. It was on the steps of this very mosque that al-Baghdadi had declared his fleeting caliphate; the decision to destroy it is a perfect distillation of ISIS's cynicism and heresy. The fate of al-Baghdadi himself remains unclear, although the Kremlin is adamant that he was killed in a Russian Air Force bombing three weeks ago. The media has paid far less attention to the siege of Raqqa across the border in Syria. But after spending months surrounding the city, the mixed Kurdish-Arab forces of the SDF and YPG have finally penetrated its defences. And as has been the case right across the so-called caliphate, the emirs of Raqqa have retreated (this time, south to Deir ez-Zor). So what happens next? The thrust to dislodge ISIS from its remaining footholds along the Euphrates has revealed the incompatible aims of regional players. Turkish-backed militia have fought US-backed Kurds en route to Raqqa. Iranian and Iraqi Shia militias (who are tangentially allied with the regime and are soon to be released from the Battle of Mosul) will drive West and undoubtedly also brush up against the Kurds. And when Raqqa itself falls, competing interests will run aground at Deir Ez-Zor. Already these tensions are boiling over, with deadly results. The Assad regime, emboldened, is sending more troops to the south and encroaching upon territory held by CIA-backed rebels. Clashes are occurring more frequently, as are interventions by the US Air Force. This week an American warplane shot down a Syrian jet, risking a conflagration. Bashar al-Assad's Russian backers responded by declaring that any coalition aircraft flying west of the Euphrates would be tracked by their anti-aircraft missile batteries. The threat certainly worked on the Australian contingent who stopped flying over Syria forthwith. An extraordinary number of countries are bombing Syria from the air right now. Cruise missiles fired from Iranian military bases and Russian naval vessels crisscross Syria's airspace. The inbound flow of weaponry is matched only by the outbound flow of displaced people. Whatever happens next, we hope cool heads prevail, but it's hard to harbour confidence for a peaceful humanitarian outcome for Syria and Iraq's civilians. WORLDLYWISE As one analyst put it, "China is too big to be left behind". One step forward, one to the side - History was made this week as domestic Chinese businesses received a long-awaited status upgrade in Morgan Stanley Capital International's highly-respected emerging-market equity index. Where MSCI leads, the rest of Wall Street follows. And so the move is expected to facilitate and encourage investment in corporations listed on China's national markets. Although well received, the timing did take some by surprise since China's own markets are only now recovering from recent volatility. Yet within days investors were reminded once more of the particular challenges of doing business in China. 1.3% was wiped off the Shenzen Composite Index within a single day as internal tensions emerged between corporate giants and the Chinese government. Rumours had already been swirling that the country's financial regulators were launching investigations into some of the biggest names in China, including Wang Jianlin's Dalian Wanda Group Co. and Guo Guangchang's Fosun International. Readers of the last Weekend Wrap may also recall that a probe into its lending practices had sent the Anbang Insurance Group into a tailspin after its Chairman Wu Xiaohui disappeared into the state's custody. Mexico's murder rate is soaring. Mexico in the headlines - A string of stories about Mexico made the news this week, all of them connected, none of them positive. First, government figures revealed that the murder rate in Mexico has risen to a 20-year-high. In the first five months of the year just shy of 10,000 people were killed, mostly in the drug wars. That's a 30% increase on the same period last year.  Then, there was the revelation that the Mexican government had deployed advanced spyware to infect and monitor the phones of high-profile journalists and human rights activists. The software was developed by an Israeli cyber-weapon manufacturer and is only sold to national governments. Journalists in Mexico who investigate the dark confluence of drug money, the military and corrupt officials live dangerous lives. Seven have already been murdered just this year. Lastly, the authorities faced a growing chorus of criticism for mishandling (some say intentionally) the investigation into the 2015 slaying of a photojournalist, an activist, and three others. The group of five had fled to Mexico City from Veracruz after receiving death threats for their investigative work into the brazenly corrupt governor Javier Duarte. Duarte has also been linked to the deaths of 17 other journalists during his despotic reign.  TRUMPETER - WEEK 22 The Comey-tape bluff has now been conceded. GOP Senators finally revealed their Obamacare repeal bill. It includes deep cuts to Medicaid. Trump returned to Iowa for campaign-like rallies. After Otto Warmbier's death, Trump lambasted North Korea.  He tweeted that collaborating with Beijing had "not worked out". Republicans held on to Georgia's 6th in an intense election. Democrats lamented that their brand was "worse than Trump". Trump admitted he doesn't actually have Comey recordings. The US seethed over new video of Philando Castile's shooting. The EPA continued its purge of dissenting scientists. THE BEST OF TIMES... Scandinavians continue to make the rest of us look bad. Finland's new economy - Apparently money for nothing makes people happy. Not only that, it also give people more incentive to find work! Or at least that's what the early results from a Finnish experiment in Universal Basic Income suggest.  We're going (to our second) home - Evergreen genius and AI-sceptic Stephen Hawking is allegedly working on a propulsion system for a spaceship that could reach Alpha Centauri in a measly 25 years. It involves lasers and speeds of up to 100 million miles per hour. Wow. THE WORST OF TIMES... Winners are grinners, unless you are a Pakistan supporter in India. That's not cricket - Indians are never particularly pleased after losing a cricket match to Pakistan. But their rivalry took an absurd turn this week after a group of Muslim men were charged with sedition by Indian authorities for cheering the Pakistani win. Thankfully, the charges were later dropped.  Not a good year - Last week we talked about Travis Kalanick's rubbish year. This week, it got significantly worse when Uber's board agitated to have him resign from the top job. It worked. Problems aside, our hearts go out to the guy. P.S. Your weekend long read... Further to the point of Russian-American entanglement in Syria, try this great yarn from vaunted inkl newcomer Foreign Policy. Its title says it all, 'This is how Great Power wars get started'.