Um exemplo de um
grande desafio para Fernando Medina em 2017
Garantir o direito
fundamental de acesso aos Transportes Públicos pelos Lisboetas, num
período de aumento progressivo e galopante do Turismo.
OVOODOCORVO
domingo, 1 de janeiro de 2017
Why Trump would be crazy to give Putin what he wants
Why
Trump would be crazy to give Putin what he wants
Trump
says it’s time to “move on to bigger and better things.” What
could be bigger than hijacking American democracy?
By EVELYN
FARKAS 12/31/16, 10:13 AM CET Updated 1/1/17, 7:05 AM CET
Tensions are heating
up between the Kremlin and the Obama administration, which imposed
new sanctions on Russia on Thursday in response to Russia’s alleged
and unprecedented interference in the U.S. presidential election,
mistreatment of U.S. diplomats and cybertheft.
Yet despite Russia’s
deliberate cyber-assault on our democracy, on U.S. sovereign domestic
affairs, it’s likely only a matter of weeks before the standoff
gives way to another attempt at a “reset.” On Friday, Russian
President Vladimir Putin announced he wouldn’t expel U.S. diplomats
from Russia in retaliation, saying that he’d wait to take his cues
“from the policy pursued by the administration of D. Trump.” And
the cues from President-elect Donald Trump are looking good. He has
repeatedly declared admiration for Putin. Last week, after receiving
a letter from Putin about the need for both countries to beef up
their nuclear weapons programs, Trump announced that it was “A very
nice letter. … His thoughts are so correct.” Trump’s advisers
have close and continuing contact with Russian oligarchs and Putin
associates; and he and his team have expressed opinions about NATO,
Ukraine and Syria that appear aligned with the Kremlin’s
perspective. As far as the recent election hacking, Trump has
thoroughly rejected the fact of Russia’s actions, although after he
said Thursday, “It’s time for our country to move on to bigger
and better things,” he said he’d get intelligence briefings on
the situation again.
Giving Putin the
reset he wants would be a big mistake.
U.S. interests and
the international system that has protected and enriched America for
decades are fundamentally at odds with what the Kremlin would expect
from a full reset: the chance to rewrite the rules of international
order in a way that would let Russia change borders through military
force, violate the Geneva conventions and murder political opponents
with impunity both in and outside Russia. Ceding these rights to
Russia in return for a few small gains will be damaging and
dangerous.
Just as worrisome is
the fact that such a reset with Russia will likely be short-lived.
Given Russian economic realities and its 2018 presidential election,
I expect any thaw to last only about a year, when Putin will turn up
the anti-American volume to previous levels, and defy Washington on
one issue or another. At that point, if Trump lives up to his
pro-Russia rhetoric, he will have given Putin much of what he wants —
largely gains in geopolitical influence which will be slow to
reverse; while America’s reset benefits, mostly less permanent
economic and diplomatic gains, will be easy for Moscow to unravel.
America will be left
standing amidst the rubble of the post World War II world order,
while Putin can retreat happy with the damage he has caused.
***
Trump won’t be the
first president to attempt to find common ground with Moscow. Every
commander-in-chief since the fall of the Berlin Wall has started his
tenure with a fresh, positive approach to America’s former nemesis.
Bill Clinton made a point to woo Boris Yeltsin. After that, George W.
Bush looked into Putin’s eyes and was reassured (because he saw a
soul there). Most recently there was President Barack Obama’s 2009
“reset” — the first one to claim the name officially.
There’s a reason
none of these numerous fresh starts has lasted very long: The ideal
Kremlin reset has typically entailed concessions that the U.S. was
unprepared to give.
This has been
especially true in the past decade. Ever since Putin’s Munich
Security Conference speech in 2007, Moscow has railed against a
U.S.-led international order, insisting that Russia be recognized as
a major power, on par with the United States and with a sphere of
influence in the Soviet Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Kremlin
expects Washington to cede them this 19th century prerogative and to
stay out of domestic affairs (especially when it comes to human
rights) in Russia and also in countries like Ukraine, which Russia
claims for its sphere.
Given these demands,
Obama and the Kremlin would never see eye to eye. In 2008,
then-President Dimitri Medvedev proposed a European Security Treaty,
which would have given Russia a greater say in European affairs, but
also would have competed with or eliminated the need for NATO,
something firmly rejected by the White House. Moreover, while Obama
recognized Russia’s superpower legacy through the negotiation of
the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, he later dismissed
Russia as “a regional power,” and stood by those fighting for
freedom in Ukraine and Syria, at least to the extent necessary to
prevent outright Russian victory. Putin blamed Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton for the 2011 demonstrations against him after his
re-election and parliamentary elections which were widely regarded as
rigged for Putin allies, claiming her criticism of the elections gave
a “signal” to his opposition to head for the streets. And he
blamed Obama for the Magnitsky Act, passed by Congress in 2012 to
punish Russians accused of murdering Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky
and for other human rights violations. Putin retaliated in 2012 by
expelling the U.S. Agency for International Development from Russia,
halting some bilateral non-proliferation cooperation, banning Russian
adoptions by foreigners and clamping down on Russian non-governmental
organizations receiving U.S. and other foreign funding.
The “reset”
wasn’t a complete failure. Obama achieved some key objectives: the
New START treaty; a much-needed alternative transit route for troops
and equipment to Afghanistan through Russia; a signed agreement on
civilian nuclear cooperation; Russia’s abstention in the Security
Council on the vote to bomb Libya in 2011; and Russia’s accession
to the World Trade Organization. But there were sticking points, too.
Russia still refused to share intelligence on counter terrorism or
illicit narcotics trafficking, and even in the run-up to the Sochi
Olympics would not coordinate with U.S. security officials. And then
in the aftermath of the ousting of the Kremlin-backed Ukrainian
President Victor Yanukovich, Russia illegally annexed Crimea and
started a war in the Eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. The reset was
off life support; it was dead.
One might expect a
Trump reset to be deeper and more lasting. After all, the president-
elect seems prepared to deliver far more to Russia than Obama did. He
has questioned the relevance of NATO and dismissed Russia’s illegal
annexation of Crimea and ongoing operations in Eastern Ukraine. (His
advisers removed language from the Republican platform at the
convention calling for lethal defensive weapons for Ukraine.) He has
also trumpeted his interest in cooperating with Russia in Syria to
fight against terrorists, while ignoring Russia’s atrocities in
that country. In fact, spreading democracy and protecting human
rights doesn’t appear to be a priority at all for Trump, who has
also dismissed Putin’s brutal domestic tactics, including murder,
torture, unlawful detention and seizure of business assets aimed at
journalists and opponents of his government.
That’s a good
start for the Kremlin, but Putin wants even more than that from
Trump. His number one objective — and the most achievable — is
probably an end to all sanctions. The Kremlin will not accept a reset
deal without the sanctions relief; and it’s also a move that
Trump’s pick for secretary of State, Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, has
supported.
The United States
would be also expected to halt the new military deployments to the
eastern portions of NATO territory, and to end NATO expansion
entirely. This would ensure Russia a military buffer zone — but
also reduce the threat posed to the Kremlin by the positive allure of
democracy and free market capitalism, especially in Ukraine, which
the Kremlin considers an extension of Russia. Russia would also
expect Washington to withdraw its military and political support for
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and all of the former Soviet republics
(except the NATO-member Baltics), leaving those countries at the
mercy of Russian pressure, subversion and aggression. Finally, Moscow
would expect a free hand in Syria and an acceptance of Bashar al
Assad as the country’s leader into the foreseeable future.
Trump appears
prepared, at a minimum, to consider giving all this to Putin. In
return, Trump will likely demand that Russia use its airpower and
other military assets to fight ISIS and other terrorists in Syria, as
defined by his administration. He may also seek Russia’s
acquiescence and assistance in renegotiating the nuclear agreement
with Iran. If so, in exchange Moscow will likely demand the
dismantlement of the missile defense installations in Poland and
Romania as well as the Aegis deployments to Europe. This missile
defense system is aimed at addressing the Iranian and North Korean
missile threats, but is regarded suspiciously (and erroneously) by
the Russians as potentially countering Moscow’s missiles. And Trump
will also look to Russia for help on North Korea. The new
administration is likely to be tested early by North Korea (Obama was
greeted in February 2009 with a nuclear test by Pyongyang), and may
need Russia to get China to rein in Kim Jung Un, especially if the
U.S.-China relationship is strained.
The professionals in
the Trump administration may also demand, as part of any deal with
Putin, a serious dialogue with the Russian government about its
reliance on nuclear weapons and its escalation doctrine, which calls
for risky action to scare or dissuade adversaries from a fight. U.S.
officials could, and should, insist on frank conversation about
strategic stability — the military balance between the United
States and Russia — and the latter’s fears of military
encirclement and defeat. And Trump should demand Russia come back
into compliance with the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty, ditch
first use of tactical nuclear weapons and the escalation doctrine.
This could result in greater understanding and reduced risk of
miscalculation.
Finally, the Trump
administration would expect the Kremlin to cease using the United
States as a public scapegoat for Russian economic and political
problems and of course to halt cyberespionage and operations against
the United States. Moscow would have to tone down official
anti-Americanism, and end its current deplorable treatment of U.S.
diplomats and officials in Russia, given President-elect Trump’s
demonstrated sensitivity to criticism and deliberate public slights.
Trump’s gains
under this robust reset deal won’t, however, compensate for the
giant harm it would cause. If Putin gets everything he wants —
including a free hand in Ukraine — the United States and the world
would be in a far more dangerous situation. From the U.S.
perspective, security, trade and political relationships with its
closest allies would suffer a massive crisis of confidence and
erosion of trust, which could lead to misunderstandings and
miscalculations among them and with Russia — and in the worst case,
to military clashes. A large scale war could also break out between
Russia and its non-NATO neighbors, like Ukraine, whose governments
and people will resist these new reset terms, adding to existing
refugee flows and economic instability in Europe. In cases like
these, damage occurs quickly, but recovery — rebuilding trust and
institutions — is difficult and slow work. That’s all for a few
gains — increased trade with Russia, a re-negotiated Iran
agreement, some cooperation fighting terrorists in Syria, reining in
North Korea and China, progress on the INF Treaty and some kind words
— which could easily be undone by Moscow at any time.
At the same time,
Russia’s gains — lifting of sanctions, freedom of action on its
geographic periphery, the deciding vote on Syria’s future, maybe
even changes to U.S. missile defense — would all provide quick
benefits to the Kremlin, the effects of which would take some time to
reverse.
Put simply, it’s a
bad deal. Whatever perks the U.S. stands to get from a full reset
with Russia, they will never be worth the price: Almost certain
erosion or collapse of the international order in Europe that has
served U.S. interests and values for decades, and the abandonment of
our adherence to democracy, sovereignty and human rights.
***
It’s only a matter
of time before a Trump reset is put to the test. With oil prices down
and sanctions ramped up, since 2012 Putin has failed to prevent a
decline in the economic standard of living for ordinary Russians, and
pointing to the economic gains during his first turn as president in
the early 2000s hasn’t been enough to keep him in popular. Instead,
Putin has held on to power by preaching Russian neo-imperialism
coupled with patriotic anti-Americanism. Unless Russia’s economic
situation improves dramatically due to higher oil prices or as a
result of new energy deals after sanctions are lifted — which is
not likely — Putin will need to use America as a scapegoat for
Russia’s growing economic problems before long. Especially
approaching Russia’s presidential elections in 2018, Putin will be
tempted, perhaps forced, to adopt an anti-American stance to bolster
his popularity.
And then there’s
the issue of Trump’s sensitivity to criticism: Putin will be
mindful that any misstep by his government, any move that makes the
U.S. president look foolish or like a “loser” could bring reset
crashing down.
For these reasons
Moscow will push for fast implementation of its reset, or “deal”
with Trump. Putin will want to demonstrate to his public that Russia
is winning on the international stage, but he will be aware that very
soon he may want or need to pivot away from America.
And when the reset
does come to an end, it will have been well worth it for Putin. He
will have gained international stature from his friendly relationship
with Trump and will have pocketed influence gains in Eastern Europe.
For Trump, the robust reset described above will have been a loser.
The foundations of European security since 1945 — trust built
through institutions and mutual commitments — will be left shaken.
The United States’ only operational alliance — NATO — will be
left weak or dismantled.
It’s a potentially
disastrous situation; but a warming of relations with Russia need not
end this way. There is an alternative to the robust reset on Putin’s
terms — something that could provide the United States with some
gains, without consequential losses. This alternative would be a
transactional (and hopefully more lasting) Trump reset that addresses
a few of Putin’s key concerns without risking U.S. interests.
The Kremlin’s
primary objective is to keep Putin in power. If Putin is to be
prevented from switching in advance of the 2018 Russian elections to
the anti-American, neo-imperialist message, he needs to offer the
Russian people economic hope, if not results. To pave the way, Trump
could offer lucrative business deals, including those Arctic energy
agreements Exxon has been forced by U.S. sanctions to put on ice. And
he could agree to lift sanctions if Moscow removes some or all of its
troops from Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. Admittedly, this is a deal
the Kremlin will not want to make at the outset. Trump could sweeten
the deal by offering some tweaking of missile defense — for
example, resurrecting Robert Gates/Leon Panetta-era proposals for
joint NATO-Russia information (not operations) centers to increase
transparency and reassure Russia about the targets of missile
defense. Washington could also propose other military
confidence-building measures, such as limits on a future U.S. “prompt
global strike” precision-guided conventional missile system,
designed to deliver a weapon anywhere in the world within one hour.
The transactional
Trump reset will certainly require U.S. concessions. For example, it
would require the U.S. to keep some distance from democracy in Russia
— a sad side effect. But it would also require a big shift in
Kremlin policy away from the neo-imperial vision of the “Russian
world” and “the near-abroad” of buffer states.
A deal of this
nature, if it is possible, might be the best outcome in a world
where, as Trump’s Rolling Stones campaign theme song reminds us,
“you can’t always get what you want.” A full reset will require
American interests and values to fundamentally align with Russian
interests and values — something impossible with the current crop
of KGB-trained officials controlling the government. In the meantime,
though, just maybe, President Trump will get what we need.
Dr. Evelyn Farkas is
a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, served as
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia
from 2012 to 2015, is former Executive Director, Graham-Talent WMD
Commission and has served almost twenty years divided equally between
the executive and legislative branches of government.
Um mau ano: PSI-20 caiu 12% em 2016
Um
mau ano: PSI-20 caiu 12% em 2016
Foi
o oitavo índice do mundo com pior desempenho neste ano.
LUSA 31 de Dezembro
de 2016, 10:32
O principal índice
da bolsa portuguesa (PSI-20) fechou o ano com perdas de 11,9%, com 11
das 18 cotadas a desvalorizarem e sete a subirem, o que o torna o
oitavo índice do mundo com pior desempenho em 2016.
Na última sessão
do ano passado, o PSI-20 encerrou nos 5.313,17 pontos e, desde então,
nunca mais alcançou esse valor, tendo fechado na sexta-feira nos
4.679,20 pontos, num ano marcado por altos e baixos.
A 27 de Junho, o
PSI20 fechou o dia nos 4.260,13 pontos, o mínimo do ano, que
correspondia na altura a uma queda próxima dos 20%, pelo que
conseguiu recuperar no segundo semestre quase 10%.
Ao nível das
cotadas, em termos acumulados, a Caixa Económica Montepio Geral
registou a maior queda (-35,73%), seguida pelos CTT (-27,21%), pela
Pharol (-23,62%), pela Nos (-22,19%), pela Altri (-18,99%), pela EDP
Renováveis (-16,74%), pela Sonae (-16,60%) e pela Mota-Engil
(-16,36%).
A EDP, um dos
títulos com maior ponderação sobre o PSI-20 (a par da Galp Energia
e da Jerónimo Martins), recuou 12,86%, seguida pela Navigator
(-9,20%) e pela REN (-3,02%).
Do lado dos ganhos,
o BCP é um caso à parte, devido ao reagrupamento de acções feito
no final de Outubro, que levou a uma subida artificial superior a
2000%.
Depois, a Sonae
Capital somou 46,67%, a Corticeira Amorim ganhou 42,91%, a Galp
Energia avançou 32,37% e a Jerónimo Martins valorizou 22,88%, com
as duas últimas a darem um contributo importante para conter as
perdas anuais do PSI-20.
A Semapa cresceu
5,55% e o Banco BPI progrediu 3,67%, encerrando o lote das subidas.
A nível mundial, o
Brasil (76,16%), o Perú (68,59%) e o Cazaquistão (66,27%) foram os
países onde as bolsas mais valorizaram em 2016.
Nota ainda para as
fortes subidas das praças da Rússia (57,47%), do Paquistão
(50,81%), da Namíbia (43,43%), da Venezuela (41,65%), da Hungria
(35,49%), de Marrocos (31,82%) e da Colômbia (29,06%).
Já do lado das
perdas, a Nigéria liderou (-38,61%), seguida pelo Gana (-22,16%),
pelo Egipto (-21,10%), pela Mongólia (-19,01%) e pela Zâmbia
(-16,66%).
Seguiram-se-lhes a
China (Xangai perdeu 15,93%), a Dinamarca (-12,53%), Portugal
(-11,9%), o Sri Lanka (-10,38%) e a Itália (-10,20%).
O Portugal mais genuíno em 27 fotos de um veterinário da aldeia
O
Portugal mais genuíno em 27 fotos de um veterinário da aldeia
19/12/2016
Algo especial tem
chegado ao mail dos portugueses: são as imagens de Jorge Bacelar, um
veterinário da Murtosa apaixonado pela fotografia. Premiado lá
fora, ele fotografa cá dentro o mais genuíno.
"A paz depende de nós", diz Guterres / "Let us make 2017 a year for peace" - UN Secretary-General António Guterres
"A paz depende de nós", diz Guterres
O
ex-primeiro-ministro português começa neste domingo o mandato como
secretário-geral da ONU.
Francisca Gorjão
Henriques
FRANCISCA GORJÃO
HENRIQUES 1 de Janeiro de 2017, 6:50
António Guterres
pretende que 2017 seja “um ano de paz”. Na primeira mensagem
oficial como secretário-geral das Nações Unidas – este domingo
será o seu primeiro dia em funções – Guterres diz que “há,
sobretudo, uma pergunta” que o assalta: “Como ajudar os milhões
de seres humanos vítimas de conflitos e que sofrem enormemente em
guerras que parecem não ter fim?”
O antigo
primeiro-ministro português foi eleito a 5 de Outubro para “a
tarefa mais impossível do mundo”, como descreveu há décadas o
primeiro a ocupar o cargo, o norueguês Trygve Lie (secretário-geral
entre 1946 e 1952). A 12 de Dezembro, Guterres prestava juramento e
discursava perante a Assembleia Geral da ONU a favor do progresso de
medidas contra o aquecimento global e das reformas na instituição
(seja em matéria de orçamento ou de tolerância zero para crimes
sexuais das tropas de manutenção de paz).
ONU, a organização
que nem sempre une as nações
Agora, na sua
mensagem de arranque de um mandato de cinco anos, Guterres chama a
atenção para a “mais letal violência” de que são vítimas as
“populações civis em vários pontos do globo”. “Mulheres,
crianças e homens são mortos ou feridos, vendo-se forçados a
abandonar os seus lares, tudo perdendo. Até mesmo hospitais e
comboios humanitários são atingidos sem contemplação.” E
continua: “Nestas guerras não há vencedores; todos perdem.
Gastam-se biliões de dólares na destruição de sociedades e
economias, alimentando ciclos de desconfiança e medo que podem
perpetuar-se por gerações. Vastas regiões do planeta estão
inteiramente desestabilizadas e um novo fenómeno de terrorismo
global ameaça-nos a todos.”
O ano que se agora
inicia deve ser “o ano em que todos – cidadãos, governos,
dirigentes – procurem superar as suas diferenças”, através do
“diálogo e do respeito independentemente das divergências
políticas”, “por via de um cessar-fogo num campo de batalha ou
mediante entendimentos conseguidos à mesa de negociações para
obter soluções políticas”, defende. E termina: “A dignidade e
a esperança, o progresso e a prosperidade – enfim tudo o que
valorizamos como família humana – depende da paz. Mas a paz
depende de nós.”
Em Abril, no início
da sua candidatura à liderança da ONU, Guterres teve de escrever um
documento delineando a sua “visão” para o futuro, uma espécie
de programa de governo (o processo de eleição, que terminou com 13
votos favoráveis e duas abstenções dos membros do Conselho de
Segurança, foi descrito como o mais transparente de sempre). Nesse
documento, a “prevenção” e a “diplomacia da paz” eram já
um dos pontos fundamentais. Este trabalho irá exigir “uma
diplomacia mais poderosa, mais activa, mais agressiva e mais
presente”, como resumiu ao PÚBLICO um diplomata em Nova Iorque, no
início de Dezembro.
Quando em 2007 tomou
posse, o seu antecessor, Ban Ki-moon, tinha pela frente “os
demónios nucleares do Irão e da Coreia do Norte, uma ferida
sangrenta no Darfur, uma violência interminável no Médio Oriente,
o prisma de desastres ambientais, a escalada do terrorismo, a
proliferação de armas de destruição maciça, a epidemia da sida”,
enumerava então a revista Economist. Agora, António Guterres não
terá a vida mais facilitada e junta-se à lista uma realidade que
acompanhou bem de perto enquanto Alto Comissário da ONU para os
Refugiados: a maior crise de deslocados desde a II Guerra Mundial,
provocada pela guerra na Síria.
Aos desafios vem
juntar-se a eleição de Donald Trump para Presidente dos EUA, o país
que isoladamente mais contribui para o financiamento da ONU. Crítico
das Nações Unidas, não seria surpreendente se Trump reduzisse as
verbas, e minimizasse o quanto possível a instituição. Caberá a
Guterres – um homem “com carisma” e “sem medo de nomear os
adversários nos seus discursos, mesmo que eles estejam em Washington
ou em Moscovo”, escreveu o Washington Post depois da eleição –
convencer Trump de que tem mais a ganhar se trabalhar com as Nações
Unidas.
Will António Guterres be the UN's best ever secretary general?
Will
António Guterres be the UN's best ever secretary general?
Cultured
and consensual, the Portuguese politician has had the perfect
preparation for the United Nations’ top job
Angelique Chrisafis
and Julian Borger
Sunday 1 January
2017 07.00 GMT
When António
Guterres resigned halfway through his second term as Portuguese prime
minister in 2002 because his minority government was floundering, he
did something unusual for a man who had seen the highest reaches of
power.
Several times a
week, he went to slum neighbourhoods on the edge of Lisbon to give
free maths tuition to children.
“He never allowed
a journalist to go with him or let himself be filmed or photographed,
and he never let journalists talk to any of his students,” said
Ricardo Costa, editor-in-chief of the Portuguese SIC News, who
covered Guterres’s political career. The former prime minister told
his surprised students that what he was doing was personal and not
for show.
The Portuguese
socialist, who becomes the next UN secretary general on Sunday, is an
intellectual who grew up under Portugal’s dictatorship and came of
age with the 1974 revolution that ended 48 years of authoritarian
rule.
Crucial to
understanding Guterres, 67, is his Christian faith: his progressive
Catholicism always informed his brand of social democratic politics.
In the heady days of
Portugal’s revolution, it was rare to be a practising Catholic in a
new Socialist party where many members had Marxist backgrounds. But
Guterres, a star engineering student who grew a moustache in honour
of the Chilean left’s Salvador Allende, would eventually become a
modernising leader, arguing that his mission was social justice and
equality.
On the Portuguese
left, faith was a delicate issue that required discretion. Under
Guterres, the country held a referendum in 1998 on a proposal to
liberalise the strict abortion laws. Socialist MPs had a free vote
and, as prime minister, Guterres chose not to officially campaign.
But it was publicly known that he opposed changing the law, which
irked many in his party. The no vote against liberalising the
abortion law narrowly won, but turnout was so low that the result was
not binding. Abortion laws were finally relaxed in 2007 after a
second referendum.
Born in Lisbon,
Guterres spent stretches of his childhood with relatives in the
countryside, where he saw the poverty of rural life under the
dictatorship, and later volunteered with Catholic student groups on
social projects in the capital.
In 1976, the young
engineering lecturer was elected a Socialist MP in Portugal’s first
democratic vote since the revolution. In parliament, he was a
fearsome orator. Such was his talent for verbally destroying
political opponents, he became known as “the talking pickaxe”.
Tony Blair shares a
laugh with António Guterres at the start of the Congress of the
Socialist International in Paris in November 1999. Photograph:
Laurent Rebours/AP
Guterres became
prime minister in 1995. His campaign slogan was “heart and reason”,
a cry for more humanism and social politics. Three years earlier he
had taken over the Socialist party and modernised it, although he
remained to the left of contemporaries such as Tony Blair. For years
he led the Socialist International international grouping of leftwing
parties.
With Portugal’s
rapid economic growth and nearly full employment, Guterres was able
to set up a guaranteed minimum income and nursery schooling for all.
But he had failed to win an absolute majority and was condemned to
preside over a tricky minority government. He had to rely on his
skill for consensus, always having to negotiate with the opposition
parties if he wanted to get anything passed – something he later
argued was perfect training for running the UN.
“He was a skilful
person – very smart, very quick to understand the other point of
view and very focused on having solutions – that’s why it
worked,” said António Vitorino, Guterres’s deputy prime minister
and defence minister.
Guterres was
furiously hardworking. But behind this was a backdrop of family
tragedy. His wife, Luísa Guimarães e Melo, a psychiatrist with whom
he had two children, had been critically ill for most of his time in
government and was undergoing treatment at a London hospital.
“It was one of the
hardest moments of his political life,” Vitorino said. “Every
Friday morning, he took a plane to London, spent the weekend there in
a very desperate situation and then on Monday morning he was back at
work. I was his deputy prime minister, I was amazed. I could never
have done what he was doing.”
In 1998, Guterres’s
wife died. The following year, he threw himself into the general
elections. He had hoped to win an outright majority but the
Socialists ended up one MP short and began a second minority
government. This time, a slowdown in the economy made things harder.
Guterres, privately
growing disillusioned with internal party politics, turned
increasingly to his interest in international diplomacy. He had
already won praise for his role in resolving the crisis in
Timor-Leste, a former Portuguese colony, which had erupted into
violence in 1999 after a referendum vote in favour of independence
from Indonesia. Guterres led diplomatic efforts to convince the UN to
intervene to restore peace.
In 2000, when
Portugal took the rotating presidency of the European Union, its
success was attributed to Guterres’s ability to get big leaders to
agree and smaller leaders to be heard.
“He did something
very original: he looked at what every country wanted and set up an
agenda that could be interesting for everyone,” said Francisco
Seixas da Costa, a Portuguese diplomat who served as Guterres’s
European affairs secretary. “Small countries disappear in the
decision-making process so we tried to listen to their interests.”
Guterres managed to
talk down powerful leaders at loggerheads. “At the European
council, I remember a conflict between Jacques Chirac and Helmut Kohl
over one issue,” Seixas da Costa said. “Guterres asked for the
floor. I was sitting next to him, I was afraid it might be naive. But
he took the floor and made a proposal that covered both their
interests, and it was a success. It worked. He had a fantastic
capacity to moderate and create links and bridges.”
In 2002, halfway
through his second term as prime minister, Guterres abruptly resigned
after the Socialists suffered a drubbing in local elections. He
famously said he wanted to avoid the country falling into a
“political swamp” and that he had discovered “politics has its
limits”.
At the time he was
unpopular, criticised for too much compromise and too much dialogue.
But over the years since his departure, polls showed he was
increasingly liked and seen as fair, serious and honest – a
possible contender for Portuguese president, although he never wanted
to return to national politics, preferring, he said, to make a
difference on the world stage.
His decade serving
as UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) from 2005 to 2015 was
seen in Portugal as an obvious fit for his personality: socially
engaged but seeking common ground.
Guterres – who
speaks Portuguese, English, French and Spanish and is now remarried
to Catarina Vaz Pinto, who works at Lisbon city hall – was known in
political circles for enthusiastic, cultured conversations on
everything from ancient Greece to Middle Eastern culture, opera to
geography.
Whenever he had free
time during visits to Washington as UNHCR chief, he would get the
organisation’s regional representative, Michel Gabaudan, to take
him to Politics & Prose or another of the city’s bookshops.
“He’s an avid
reader of history, and his pleasure was, if we had an hour, to go to
a bookshop, so we would have access to books in English that weren’t
easy to get in Geneva,” said Gabaudan, now president of Refugees
International. “I’m sure this immense knowledge of past and
ancient history did inform his political judgment.”
Guterres also took a
broad approach to the UNHCR’s responsibilities. The organisation
grew dramatically under his management, and not just because the
number of the world’s refugees soared in the 21st century. He
broadened the categories of people the UNHCR would seek to protect,
including internally displaced people and migrants forced from their
homes by natural disasters and climate change. He preferred the
all-encompassing phrase “people on the move”.
He managed to
persuade donors to fund the expansion by retaining their confidence
that the money was well spent, and to do that he cut overheads.
Guterres, then UN
high commissioner for refugees, visits Ikafe camp for Sudanese
refugees in northern Uganda in June 2005. Photograph: Radu
Sigheti/Reuters
“Like all UN
organisations, as the organisation had grown up, it had become a
little bit top-heavy and one of his first actions was really to slim
down headquarters fairly substantially. He sent people back to the
field and he put some of the services in much cheaper places than
Geneva,” Gabaudan said.
“He never thought
the details of finance were just for the technicians. I saw him
looking at spreadsheets faster than his financial officer, spotting
the line or column where we had a problem. So he was really as much
hands-on about how the organisation worked as he was the top
political figure and spokesman for refugees.”
When Justin Forsyth
was chief executive of Save the Children UK, he travelled with
Guterres to refugee camps in Lebanon, and recalled Guterres meeting a
group of children. “The thing that struck me was him cross-legged
on the floor of a tent talking to children. He really listens and he
asks questions and he’s very moved by what he hears. He gets his
hands dirty,” said Forsyth, the new deputy executive director of
Unicef, the UN children’s charity.
Guterres’s tenure
as high commissioner has attracted some criticism. Some former
officials said he should have spoken out more strongly in defence of
refugee rights enshrined in the 1951 refugee convention. “His
record is very mixed, particularly on protection. His tenure was a
rough time for the protection of refugees,” a former senior UN
official said. He pointed to Thailand forcibly repatriating ethnic
Uighurs to China despite the risk they would face persecution.
He argued that a
tripartite agreement the UNHCR made with Kenya and Somalia on the
voluntary return of Somali refugees had paved the way for the
reported forced repatriations now under way in Kenya aimed at
emptying its biggest camp, at Dadaab.
The former official
said the EU’s deal with Turkey to repatriate refugees, also widely
seen as a violation of basic principles of refugee protection, was
largely negotiated while Guterres was at the helm, even if it was
only signed in March this year, three months after he left.
“His style is to
make general statements on the issue but not to directly challenge
governments on their actions,” the former official said. “It
raises concerns on what he would be like as secretary general.”
Jeff Crisp, who was
head of UNHCR policy development and evaluation under Guterres and is
now a research associate at the University of Oxford’s Refugee
Studies Centre, said not all the criticisms could be pointed at the
secretary general designate.
He said the UNHCR
did push back against infringements of refugee rights by European
states and had been strongly critical of the EU-Turkey deal. And he
argued the tendency to address abuses by authoritarian states by
behind-the-scenes persuasion had historically been the “institutional
approach” taken by the UNHCR, before and after Guterres.
“I think you have
to understand that UNHCR’s public criticism of states is very
carefully calibrated and in general the more liberal a state is, the
more publicly the UNHCR will criticise it,” Crisp said.
Adaptable,
consensual, affable, intellectual, Guterres is perhaps better
qualified than any of his nine predecessors for the world’s most
demanding job. But one of his deftest skills he learned not from the
hurly burly of Portuguese politics, nor from the harrowing years at
the UNHCR, but from his first wife.
At a Guardian event
last June in which he debated with rivals for the secretary general
job, he said her psychoanalytical insights were highly valuable. “She
taught me something that was extremely useful for all my political
activities. When two people are together, they are not two but six.
What each one is, what each one thinks he or she is and what each one
thinks the other is,” he said.
“And what is true
for people is also true for countries and organisations. One of the
roles of the secretary general when dealing with the different key
actors in each scenario is to bring these six into two. That the
misunderstandings disappear and the false perceptions disappear.
Perceptions are essential in politics.”
Donald Trump says it is 'unfair' to blame Russia for election interference
Donald
Trump says it is 'unfair' to blame Russia for election interference
President-elect
warns reporters on New Year’s Eve against being quick to pin blame
on Moscow for the hacking of Democratic Party emails
Guardian staff and
agencies
Sunday 1 January
2017 03.12 GMT
Donald Trump has
expressed continued skepticism over whether Russia was responsible
for computer hacks of Democratic Party officials.
In remarks to
reporters upon entering a New Year’s Eve celebration at his
Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump warned against being quick to pin the blame
on Russia for the hacking of US emails.
“I just want them
to be sure, because it’s a pretty serious charge,” he said.
“And if you look
at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they
were wrong.”
The Washington Post
also reported on Friday that Moscow could be behind intrusion into a
laptop owned by a Vermont electricity utility.
US intelligence
officials have said that they are confident Russia was behind the US
election hacks, which could have played a role in Trump’s defeat
over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“I think it’s
unfair if we don’t know. It could be somebody else. I also know
things that other people don’t know so we cannot be sure,” Trump
said on Saturday.
Asked what that
information included, the president-elect said, “You will find out
on Tuesday or Wednesday.” He did not elaborate.
He went on to warn
that “no computer is safe” from hacking and suggest that using a
pen and paper was the most effective way of exchanging information.
“If you have
something really important, write it out and have it delivered by
courier, the old fashioned way because I’ll tell you what, no
computer is safe,” he said.
“I have a boy
who’s ten years old, he can do anything with a computer. You want
something to really go without detection, write it out and have it
sent by courier.”
Trump also left open
the possibility of meeting with Taiwan’s president if she visits
the United States after he is sworn in on 20 January.
“We’ll see,”
he said when pressed on whether he would meet Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s
president if she were to be in the United States at any point after
he becomes president.
Taiwan’s president
will be in transit in Houston on 7 January and again will be in
transit in San Francisco on 13 January.
Beijing bristled
when Trump, shortly after his 8 November victory, accepted a
congratulatory telephone call from the Taiwan leader and has warned
against steps that would upset the “one-China” policy China and
the United States have maintained for decades.
Talk of a stop-over
in the United States by the Taiwan president has further rattled
Washington-Beijing relations.
Trump spoke to
reporters for four minutes before entering the New Year’s party.
Earlier in the day he ditched his press pool to play golf at one of
his clubs.
He has not held a
formal press conference since July.
Reuters contributed
to this report
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