Supply demands: Yemen peace talks

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Busy, taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com. Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. Latin America was once a region dominated by dictatorship. Democracy spread in the 1980s and but thanks to stagnating economies, many in the region have become disenchanted. Yet for democracy to succeed elsewhere, it must be preserved and defended. In Latin America. And in Bulgaria, there's a splashy apartment building that's ended up at the center of a corruption row. It seems that if you're influential in the country's politics, you might be able to get a place on the cheap. First up though, Today representatives of warring sides in the conflict in Yemen are due to meet in Jordan for the latest round of talks aimed at ending the violence. They come as Yemen's war stretches into its fifth year. Across the country, the rebel group known as the Houthis is battling the forces of a Western backed government. That government's also supported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The people of the Arab world's poorest country have suffered extraordinary famine and disease as the violence has dragged on. At the end of last year, there came a whisper of hope as the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced an agreement between Yemeni factions that were meeting in Sweden.

I sincerely hope that we are living the beginning of the end of one of the biggest tragedies of the 21st century, the conflict in Yemen.

The deal focused on ending a standoff between Houthis and government forces at the vital port city of Hodeidah.

And it is my deep belief that.

The question of Hodeida was the make.

It or break it.

But the agreement didn't seem to herald much of a breakthrough. After the Stockholm agreement, we didn't feel there was major change. Dalia Qasim is a Yemeni humanitarian who works in Hudaya she spoke to journalists in London earlier this year. The only thing that changed was that the bombardment stopped inside the city itself. The fighting continues to happen outside the city, and the front lines continue to shift. The humanitarian situation is just getting worse and worse. Today's talks are part of an effort to break the deadlock.

Today in Jordan. The Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government are sitting down. And this is really an effort to consolidate a ceasefire agreement that was reached last year, but they never really took effect.

Marjorie McShane is our middle east editor.

One of the biggest parts of that agreement was meant to be a pullout of the rebels from the main port of Hodeida, and they did not actually pull out. So part of the focus of today's talks is not only to make sure that pullout is actually happening, but also to figure out how to share revenues from the port of Hodeidah. And that might seem like a small thing, but it's actually quite important. The rebels control the bulk of the population areas in Yemen, and in those areas, people have not been paid salaries for years. And the thought is if that. If you can start to get some revenue from the port and then spread that revenue around, it will ease the economic crisis in Yemen.

But why Hodeida? Why is that so important?

So up to 80% of imports and aid pass through Hodeida, and the rebels have controlled the port on the ground, but at sea, the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they control the clearances for ships to come in. And the problem with that is the coalition has been using this power to really cut off the north and the areas of Yemen controlled by the Houthis, cut them off economically and really strangle them.

And so do you think the meeting today represents the chance for some progress on this? I mean, after an agreement that's stalled.

For months, I mean, there is so much distrust on all sides. You want to be optimistic, but you wanted to be optimistic back in December when all this stuff was agreed initially. And what happened then was the Houthis kind of faked a pullout. They handed over power over the port to the coast guard and police forces that were basically just aligned with them. So they basically just handed power back to themselves in other uniforms. So I'm not terribly optimistic about this. I think it's just really hard to be optimistic about Yemen in general. The reason to be a bit more optimistic this time is, is that the UN Is overseeing this pullout. And so far, they say it's all going to plan at the same time, you have government officials who disagree with that assessment.

So the UN Is mediating these talks, but who are the real power brokers here? Who has to be convinced? Who's kind of working from the sidelines?

So this is the really difficult thing about Yemen. At the talks in Jordan, you have the Houthi rebels, you have the Yemeni government, but that's not nearly all the players who are battling in the country. The offensive last year on Hodeira was led by the Emiratis, and they're using forces, Salafist forces. They're aligned with secessionists in the south. They're partnered with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is partnered with local Islamists. There's also the forces that are loyal to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. They were previously aligned with the Houthis. That alliance broke up at the end of 2017. They're now aligned loosely with the Emiratis. So it's a bit of a mess, and it's a bit of a patchwork. And you have a lot of the other forces who aren't part of the talks in Jordan feeling quite left out.

Well, and you mention Saudi Arabia a couple of times amid the patchwork. And Saudi is, in turn backed by America, where talk of this humanitarian mess seems to be sort of increasing recently.

Yeah, yeah. So in April, both the Senate and the House voted to end American support for the war in Yemen. And it's an issue that seems to come up whenever, sort of America wants to take a shot at Saudi Arabia in particular. Now, Donald Trump really values the relationship with Saudi Arabia, so he vetoed the resolution that was meant to end America's support. And I think he'll continue to veto any efforts that are meant to sort of cut America's support for the war in Yemen. I mean, it's an issue in America that doesn't really resonate. The war in Yemen is often called the forgotten war, and I think that that's really true in America.

And earlier this week, Saudi Arabia said that some of its ships had been damaged by an attack. Is there any connection with any of this?

It's all quite murky right now. You have reports from American officials who are fingering Iran, but doing so anonymously. You know, there's speculation that it could be Iranian proxies. At the same time, you have vague reports that the Houthis are attacking Saudi installations. Again, it's not clear if that's related at all to these ship attacks, but it's the type of thing that gets you quite nervous, because you now have hawks sort of controlling policy in America and Iran and they're looking for provocations. And Yemen sort of plays in into this. I mean, certainly America is invoking Yemen as part of its anti Iran campaign. So, you know, an attack by a proxy on some ships in the Strait of Hormuz might be the exact type of thing that leads to a bigger war.

Roger, thank you very much for joining us.

My pleasure.

There was a time when the path to democracy was seen as a one way street, that once it was achieved, there was no going back. But as the past decade has revealed, democracy is not invulnerable in many parts of the world. It's being eroded. Take for example, Turkey's slide into authoritarianism under President Erdogan.

State institutions were purged of potential enemies and the Internet was increasingly blocked.

Or in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's promotion of what he calls illiberal democracy. It was once difficult to find liberal democracies in Latin America, a region largely run by dictators and military juntas.

New political explosions rock Argentina as Colonel Juan Peron spread strongman vice president is forced to resign by the military clique that rules this country of 14 million people.

But in the 1980s, dictators were ousted, deprived of even the most basic expression of democratic rights for the last 15.

Years, they gathered in Santiago today in.

Their tens of thousands.

All of them united in opposition to the regime of General Pinochet, transforming it into the world's third great region of democracy alongside Europe and North America. Today, most Latin Americans enjoy more rights and freedoms than they ever had before. But challenges to democracy are gaining momentum across the region.

There are two kinds of threats to democracy in Latin America today.

Michael Reed is a senior editor at the Economist.

The one is the obvious one, that in Venezuela and Nicaragua we have presidents who were originally elected who then remained in power through fraudulent elections and ruled as dictators. And they are backed by Communist Cuba, which never took part in the democratic wave in Latin America. But then on the other hand, more broadly across the region, many Latin Americans are discontented with their democracies. That's partly because the region's economy has been basically stagnant for the past few years. It varies a bit from country to country, but the central failure really is political. I mean, citizens are fed up with rising violent crime in many places and poor public services. And on top of that, there have been very well publicized cases of corruption. And so people feel annoyed and angry and they see politicians as self serving and out of touch.

And how has that Dissatisfaction manifested itself.

Well, there's been a big crop of elections in the region last year, and this. And there's been a tendency in some countries to abandon the broad, moderate, reformist center, let's say, and turn towards populist would be saviors. And that's particularly true in the two biggest countries in Brazil and in Mexico, where voters elected Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico. Very different in many ways, Bolsonaro of the right, Lopez Obrador of the left. But both are populists whose commitment to the rules and the dispersion of power and the toleration that's at the heart of democracy has not been, let's say, it's uncertain. And then in Argentina, where there's an election in October and November, there's a chance that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and other populists could come back.

Well, but for the moment, these are troubling trends and tendencies rather than, you know, tanks on the streets. I mean, is this a point at which we should be alarmed?

Well, certainly, I think alert, if not alarmed. I mean, in the 21st century, it's rare for tanks on the streets to snuff out democracy. Rather, the tendency over the last 10 or 12 years has been for elected autocrats to boil the frog of democracy gradually by capturing courts and other referees, by cowing the media and working to weaken civil society and forms of accountability. And so by the time that citizens squeal, it can be too late. And that's what happened in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, and that's what seems to be happening now in Turkey, for example.

So what's to be done about it? How to prevent the frog boiling?

The societies and the politicians need to work together to rid politics of corruption and cronyism. Campaign finance reform is important. Bringing in the armed forces, as Bolsonaro has done, into government is worrying. And in general, I think it's important that citizens are alert to ensure that institutions are not under the thumb of the president of the day. And above all, perhaps, and it's easy to say and harder to do, but politicians need to reconnect with ordinary citizens and their concerns, right?

I mean, that's a sort of view from within. What about internationally? I mean, America has a long, if not illustrious, history of involvement in the region. What role is it playing now?

Well, the administration of Donald Trump has taken a very decisive position on Venezuela today.

More than 50 countries around the world.

Now recognize the rightful government of Venezuela. It has recognized the speaker of the national assembly from the opposition, Huang Guaido as interim president pending an election page.

On socialism, turning the page on dictatorship.

And there will be no going back.

And it's trying to overthrow the regime of Nicolas Maduro with sweeping economic sanctions. It threatens military action, though that seems unlikely. And John Bolton, the US National Security Adviser, has also invoked the Monroe Doctrine as a tool in relation to Venezuela.

I think, look, in this administration, we're not afraid to use the phrase Monroe Doctrine. This is a country in our hemisphere. It's been the objective of American presidents going back to Ronald Reagan to have a completely democratic hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine began in the 19th century. In the 20th century, it was the doctrine under which the United States aggregated to itself a policing power in Latin America. So on the one hand, Mr. Bolton is sending a message to Russia and China not to meddle in Venezuela, but. But on the other hand, many Latin Americans have bad memories of the Monroe Doctrine and they saw it as American bullying. I think the important thing is for the United States to continue to work very closely with Latin American democracies in relation to Venezuela and others, such as the European Union. And I think that to be effective, sanctions are going to have to be combined with negotiations of some sort.

But why should America take such a strong interest in it? Why does the state of democracy in Latin America matter so much?

Well, I think there are two reasons. The first is that Latin America, along with Europe and North America, is the third great region of democracy in the world. And if democracy is to succeed as a global project, it's crucial that it works in Latin America and that it's defended. And secondly, it's a paradox that although Latin America rarely figures as a top priority of foreign policy in the US in terms of everyday life, its impact on everyday life through immigration, drugs, trade and cultural ties and so on, almost no other parts of the world have such a big bearing on the United States.

Michael, thank you very much for your time.

Thanks very much, Jason.

This week on Economist asks our interview show, My colleague Ann McElvoy spoke to the American philanthropist Melinda Gates about how gender equality begins at home.

I tell the story of, you know, we were all five of us, we have three children doing the dishes after dinner. But one night I realized I was kind of frustrated. And I realized, hey, after everybody else melted off to go upstairs, you know, Bill to his desk, our kids to do homework, I was still down in the kitchen for another, you know, 15 or 20 minutes doing some of the last minute tasks. And so I had to say to everybody, the next night, not very nicely. Hey, nobody leaves the kitchen till mom leaves the kitchen. And guess What? That extra 15 minutes got distributed really quickly between all five of us. And we each spent about three minutes doing something and we all went upstairs together.

Melinda, I feel I need you right round at my house. So let me give you an example. Last night I started to defrost the fridge. Forgot, and I won't denounce which member of my family, live on the podcast, came upstairs and she said, there's water coming out of the fridge.

So.

So tell me, what should I have done?

And I think in that case, you used to say, what do you think you should have done?

Yeah, I did try that. But are you suggesting then. I'm now teasing a little bit, but women themselves should just be much more assertive when they find it. I think perhaps in a household where everyone is thinking about equality, it might be a bit easier than in a household where people are actually trying to sort of get back up to the bedroom. Cause they don't want to think about equality of tasks.

Right. I think we're all in different places on equality in our homes, both in terms of how we think about it and what we want. But this is one of the reasons I bring it up is I think we have to constantly look at it in our homes.

Economist Asks is out every Friday, Available wherever you listen. In Bulgaria, an apartment building is drawing an unexpected amount of attention, and not just for its attempts to revive forgotten languages.

The Latera is a luxury apartment complex building in Sofia.

Matt Steinglass is the Economist's Europe correspondent.

And the front of the building is covered with sort of incised inscribed texts in the Glagolitic Alphabet, which is a 9th century ecclesiastic and Alphabet which basically no one can read, including Bulgarians. The texts on the front are mostly drawn from the Bible. The biggest One is the 91st Psalm, which begins, he who dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High abides in the shadow of the Almighty, meaning you are protected. And that's quite significant if you think about the fact that the person who actually lives in the penthouse of that apartment is the number two person in the ruling party. And this is the building that's become the center of a swelling corruption scandal in Bulgarian politics.

So what's the scandal here? Who's getting these apartments?

So it turns out that many of them received these apartments at far lower than the actual market value of the apartments. Tvitan Tsvatanov, the number two person in the ruling Gerb Party, the anti Corruption NGO that worked out how this all happened estimates that he ultimately paid about €250,000 for it. And they think that the market value of that apartment has got to be a good four times as high. The question is, why was this real estate company giving these people expensive luxury apartments at below the market rate? And what might they have done using their political influence that would make that a good trade for the real estate company? Now, Tvotan Tvitanov himself of course says that he did nothing wrong, that there is nothing improper about the transaction. Most of the other people involved as well say that they simply paid what they thought were the going rate for those apartments and that they were in no position to do anything for the real estate company.

So how big a scandal is this really? This is just a few apartments at the end of the day?

Well, the issue is that the real estate company that gave away these luxury apartments at cut rate prices also has an extremely large 34 story development going up for which the permits may not be valid or they may be valid. And that is up to the government to decide. The question is whether these people who occupy high positions in government might have been in a position to decide whether or not they could go ahead with the development. One of the other people who has been caught up in the scandal is the chairman of the Anti Corruption Commission, who ought to be the one investigating the scandal rather than somebody involved in it.

That is not a good look.

No. And it's indicative of the general situation of anti corruption efforts in Bulgaria. The EU is supposed to survey Bulgarian anti corruption efforts every six months and make sure that they're making progress as part of the terms of Bulgaria's accession to the eu. This will make the EU much less likely to let Bulgaria off the hook.

Where are the sort of Bulgarian people on this? They must surely be aware that there is a bit of corruption going on in their country. It has been for some time. This just looks like more icing on.

The cake for them. Right. One of the interesting things is that you would think that Bulgarians had become completely inured to corruption at this point. And many Bulgarians thought so as well. The fact that this scandal has attracted so much attention is pretty interesting. And it's partly related to the fact that 90% of Bulgarians own their own houses. So they know how much houses are worth.

It hits close to home, as it were.

Yes, exactly. So the idea that other people are getting in on a good investment deal because they're politically well connected makes a lot of people really angry and Will.

It have something of an effect if it's been a decade's worth of this kind of thing with EU sort of knocking at the door on matters of corruption, Is this something that will finally make a change?

Unfortunately, one can never say never, but it's not likely to be a game changer in Bulgaria. But it has kept the corruption issue on the table, which is a good thing. One consequence that could follow is the current Bulgarian government led by Boyko Borisov. The prime minister has promised to get the EU off Bulgaria's back by the end of their term. They want those reviews, those corruption reviews ended and it looks like that might not happen. Because of this scandal. It's going to be at least a lot harder for the EU to excuse ending surveillance of Bulgarian anti corruption efforts.

Matt, thanks very much for coming in.

Thank you for having.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and you can subscribe to the economist@exterator.com radio. Offer 12 issues for $12 or 12 pounds. See you back here tomorrow.