The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-07)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, December 7, 2020 |A

WORLD NEWS

2020 from 10% last year, the

worst performance in 20

years. The government expects

as many as 2.5 million jobs

could be lost in the fast-grow-

ing textiles industry after

travel restrictions and declin-

ing foreign demand combined

to worsen an unemployment

rate that is more than 40%.

Tourism and business

travel, another fast-growing

sector in a country that has in-

vested billions to become a re-

gional transport hub, have

been hit especially hard. Daniel

Berhanu, manager of the Addis

Ababa Hotel Owners Associa-

tion, said nearly 80% of hotels

in Addis Ababa had closed af-

ter the Covid-19 restrictions,

and the war is hurting the re-

covery. “We are fighting for

our very existence,” he said.

Ethiopia’s government says

its economy has responded well

to the challenges and predic-

tions of a prolonged insurgency

are wrong. Many businesses in

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s bus-

tling highland capital, see eco-

nomic momentum returning

rapidly. Shopping malls, restau-

rants and hotels are busy after

authorities lifted social-dis-

tancing rules in the summer.

Aubrey Hruby, a senior fel-

low at the Washington-based

Atlantic Council, said even if

an insurgency rumbles, the

overall investment story in

Ethiopia should remain at-

tractive for a country that has

successfully courted foreign

investment in textiles, energy

and tourism and has plans to

further liberalize telecoms,

banking and insurance.

WORLD WATCH

CHINA

Arms Industry Ranks

Second Behind U.S.

China has boasted the world’s
second-largest arms-manufactur-
ing industry for the past five
years, ranking behind the U.S. in
sales but outstripping Russia
and the top European nations,
according to a report released
Sunday by a Swedish think tank.
In its annual study of arms
sales, the Stockholm Interna-
tional Peace Research Institute
for the first time released fig-
ures for individual Chinese de-
fense firms. It found that sales
of arms and military services by
the global sector’s 25 largest
companies for which data are
available totaled $361 billion last
year, an 8.5% increase over 2018.
Among those companies, four
are Chinese and 12 are Ameri-
can. Those Chinese companies
had combined sales of $56.7 bil-
lion in 2019, compared with
$221.2 billion from the U.S. com-
panies. Two of the top 25 firms
are Russian, with combined
sales of $13.9 billion.
—Brett Forrest

MEXICO

President Wants to

Restrict U.S. Agents

Mexico’s President Andrés

Manuel López Obrador has

tossed another hot potato to U.S.

President-elect Joe Biden with a

proposal that would restrict U.S.

agents in Mexico and remove

their diplomatic immunity.

The proposal would require

Drug Enforcement Administration

agents to hand over all informa-

tion they collect to the Mexican

government, and require any

Mexican officials they contact to

submit a full report to Mexico’s

Foreign Relations Department.

“The proposal is that foreign

agents will not have any immu-

nity,” according to a summary of

the president’s proposal to the

Mexican Senate.

Mike Vigil, the DEA’s former

chief of international operations,

said of the handover of all infor-

mation, “That is not going to

happen,” adding, “Sadly, there is

endemic corruption within the

[Mexican] government. It’s going

to be leaked.”

—Associated Press

BELARUS

Over 300 Detained

In Protests in Minsk

More than 300 people were

held in the Belarusian capital,

where crowds took to the

streets for the 18th consecutive

weekend, demanding the ouster

of the country’s authoritarian

leader who won a sixth term in

office in an election widely seen

as rigged.

Thousands of people on Sun-

day took part in dozens of small

rallies scattered across Minsk, a

new tactic the opposition em-

ployed instead of one large

gathering to make it harder for

security forces to target the pro-

testers. Several people wore

Santa Claus costumes and

masks depicting President Alex-

ander Lukashenko. “Give Belaru-

sians a gift: go away,” a banner

they carried read.

Police in Minsk said they de-

tained more than 300 people.

The Viasna human-rights group

released the names of 215 people

held in Minsk and other cities,

where rallies also took place.

—Associated Press

A man stands near the site of a massacre on the outskirts of Mai Kadra, Ethiopia. A monthlong civil war has been raging in the north.

EDUARDO SOTERAS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

in decades after locusts de-

stroyed some 200,000 hect-

ares of farmland, leaving more

than eight million people in

need of food assistance.

The fighting has closed two

of the busiest border crossings

between Ethiopia and Sudan,

hobbling the trade of com-

modities from grains to cook-

ing oil. Across swaths of Tig-

ray, towns have emptied of

people and farmers have aban-

doned vast tracts of land.

Economic growth is ex-

pected to slump to 1.9% in

this year, suppressing purchas-

ing power across a nation

where millions of people are al-

ready dependent on food aid.

Foreign companies have

been caught in the crossfire.

Production at three textile fac-

tories in Tigray that sup-

ply Swedish fashion chain H&M

has been halted. China has

evacuated 500 of its nationals

who were working in Tigray.

“This conflict will leave last-

ing damage on Ethiopia’s

economy,” said Alex de Waal,

executive director of the Mas-

sachusetts-based World Peace

Foundation.

The country’s state-led

model of development helped

expand the economy from $

billion in 2004 to nearly

$100 billion last year. For most

of that period, the TPLF were

the country’s dominant political

force, until Mr. Ahmed came to

power in 2018 on a promise to

liberalize politics and the state-

controlled economy. Tensions

between Mr. Ahmed’s govern-

ment and the TPLF exploded

into armed conflict last month.

The conflict is the latest in

a series of economic shocks to

Ethiopia. The agriculture sec-

tor, which accounts for nearly

half the Ethiopian economy,

has recorded its worst harvest

For the past decade Ethio-
pia has boasted of one of the
world’s fastest-growing econo-
mies, welcoming billions of
dollars in foreign direct invest-
ment from the U.S. and China
and lifting more than 20 mil-
lion people out of poverty.
Now, a monthlong civil war,
coronavirus lockdowns and
historic locust infestations
have left the once-golden
economy stumbling, as it grap-
ples with one of Africa’s most
perilous debt loads, soaring
inflation and the risk of a pro-
tracted insurgency.
Fighting between govern-
ment forces and the rebel Tig-
ray People’s Liberation Front
has paralyzed much of northern
Ethiopia, shaking a nation of
110 million people long seen as
a symbol of stability in a vola-
tile region. Prime Minister Abiy
Ahmed has claimed victory af-
ter taking the rebel stronghold
of Mekelle, but TPLF fighters
have retreated into remote
mountainous regions and vow
to continue fighting.
Roads, bridges, a power plant
and a sugar mill have been de-
stroyed. The Ethiopian currency
has sunk 20% against the dollar

BYNICHOLASBARIYO
ANDJOEPARKINSON

Golden Economy

Is Tarnished as

Ethiopia Reels

grabbed as much as 2 pounds

of material from the asteroid

Bennu, with return to Earth

scheduled in 2023.

Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe

blasted off six years ago on its

journey to Ryugu, a miniplanet

about a half-mile across that

circles the sun mostly between

the orbits of Earth and Mars.

Last year, the probe collected

two samples from the asteroid,

including one from beneath the

surface after firing a projectile

to create an artificial crater.

After a journey of more

than 3.2 billion miles, Haya-

busa 2 flew by Earth this

weekend and released a cap-

sule that Japanese officials

hope will contain at least 0.

gram of asteroid material, the

equivalent of a few grains of

rice. The capsule sped through

Earth’s atmosphere at 7 miles

a second before extending a

parachute that allowed it to

glide down in Australia.

Asteroids such as Ryugu,

which is carbon-rich and in-

cludes water-containing min-

erals, are thought to retain the

same materials that existed

some 4.6 billion years ago

when the solar system first

coalesced from a cloud of gas

and dust.

The Earth and other planets

formed when such materials

melted, cooled and solidified,

erasing evidence of what they

were originally like.

“Even if you study a larger

planet like the Earth, you can-

not obtain information about

the substances that existed 4.

billion years ago,” said Haya-

busa 2 mission manager Ma-

koto Yoshikawa. “However,

when it comes to smaller plan-

ets or smaller asteroids, these

substances were not melted.”

TOKYO—Japan’s space
agency on Sunday successfully
retrieved a capsule of asteroid
dust dropped off by the space
probe Hayabusa 2, with hopes
it will carry hints about how
life started on Earth.
The retrieval in the Austra-
lian outback was the latest feat
in a competition among the
world’s major scientific powers,
including the U.S. and China, to
bring back samples from extra-
terrestrial bodies. In addition
to scientific research, one goal
is to figure out what kind of
places might be suitable some-
day for mineral extraction.
On Dec. 1, China said it
landed a probe on the moon in
humanity’s first bid since the
1970s to return lunar rocks to
the Earth. The U.S. has its own
asteroid mission that recently

BYPETERLANDERS

Japan Hopes Asteroid Dust

Provides Origin-of-Life Clues

ister Benjamin Netanyahu se-

cretly met Saudi Crown Prince

Mohammed bin Salman to

seek assurances that a normal-

ization deal between the long-

time rivals was in reach. Saudi

Arabia has denied the meeting

took place, but Israel hasn’t.

In a fiery address at the Ma-

nama Dialogue in Bahrain, for-

mer Saudi intelligence chief

Prince Turki al-Faisal con-

demned Israel as the last

Western colonizer of the Mid-

dle East. He disparaged its

claims of upholding human

rights and enumerated decades

of crimes committed against

the Palestinians. “They’re de-

molishing homes as they wish

and they assassinate whom-

ever they want, and yet the Is-

raeli Knesset passed a law that

defines the citizenship of Israel

as exclusively Jewish, denying

the non-Jewish inhabitants of

Israel of equal rights under the

law,” Prince Turki said. “What

kind of democracy is that?”

He prefaced his remarks by

saying they represented his

personal view, but as a senior

prince who advises the Saudi

king, his comments are closely

monitored as a policy bell-

wether. Following criticism of

Palestinian leaders by another

senior Saudi royal in October,

Prince Turki’s comments reveal

the divergent views at the top

echelons of the kingdom toward

warming relations with Israel.

The full-throated reasser-

tion of Saudi Arabia’s official

position of support for the Pal-

estinians was particularly jar-

ring at a forum that included

unprecedented participation by

Israeli officials as Bahrain and

the United Arab Emirates cele-

brate their diplomatic break-

throughs signed in September.

Israeli Foreign Minister

Gabi Ashkenazi, who spoke on

the same panel, expressed re-

gret at Prince Turki’s com-

ments. “I do not believe they

reflect the spirit and the

changes taking place in the

Middle East,” he said, describ-

ing a region more divided by

Iran than the Palestinian issue.

“We have a choice here,

whether to move forward or to

continue the old rhetoric.”

MANAMA, Bahrain—Saudi
and Israeli dignitaries traded
blunt remarks over longstand-
ing issues that divide them Sun-
day during a regional security
forum held against the backdrop
of U.S.-brokered normalization
deals between the Jewish state
and Gulf Arab neighbors.
The exchange comes two
weeks after Israeli Prime Min-

BYSTEPHENKALIN

Saudis, Israelis Clash Over Palestinian Rights

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