Middle – Page 2 – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

The International Monetary Fund has revised its growth forecast for the Middle East and North Africa region upwards as the countries recover from the coronavirus crisis that began in 2020.

Real GDP in the MENA region is now projected to grow 4% in 2021, compared to the fund’s October forecast of 3.2%.

However, the outlook will vary significantly from country to country depending on factors such as vaccine adoption, exposure to tourism, and policies in place, the IMF said in its latest regional economic report released on Sunday.

Vaccine is an important variable this year, and speeding up vaccination could add almost an additional percent of GDP in 2022.

Jihad Azour

Director of the IMF for the Middle East and Central Asia

Jihad Azour, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia division, said the recovery was “different between countries and uneven between different segments of the population”.

He told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble that growth will be mainly driven by oil exporting countries, which will benefit from the acceleration in vaccination programs and the relative strength of oil prices.

Vaccines an “important variable”

Azour said each country’s ability to recover in 2021 will be “very different”.

“Vaccine is an important variable this year, and accelerating vaccination could add almost an additional percent of GDP in 2022,” he said.

Some countries in the region – such as the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Kazakhstan and Morocco – started their vaccinations early and should be able to vaccinate a significant portion of their population by the end of 2021, the IMF said.

Other nations, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, have been classified as “slow vaccines” that are likely to vaccinate a large proportion of their residents by mid-2022.

Shoppers in protective masks walk near the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, January 27, 2021.

Christopher Pike | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The last group – the “late vaccinators” – are not expected to “achieve full vaccination until 2023 at the earliest,” the report said.

It added that early vaccines are expected to hit 2019 GDP levels in 2022, but countries in the two slower categories will recover to pre-pandemic levels between 2022 and 2023.

looking ahead

Azour said innovative guidelines have helped speed the recovery, but it is “very important to do better”.

This could include measures to improve the economy, attract investment, strengthen regional cooperation and tackle the scars of the Covid crisis.

“All of these elements are silver linings that can help accelerate the recovery and bring the region’s economy to levels of growth that existed before the Covid-19 shock,” he said.

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon said Sunday it had ordered the aircraft carrier Nimitz to remain in the Middle East over Iranian threats against President Trump and other American officials, just three days after the warship was sent home to ease mounting tensions Tehran.

Acting Secretary of Defense, Christopher C. Miller, abruptly overturned his previous order to reinstate the Nimitz, which he had done against the objections of his top military advisers. The military had been preoccupied with a muscle-building strategy for weeks to prevent Iran from attacking American personnel in the Persian Gulf.

“Due to the recent threats by Iranian leaders against President Trump and other US government officials, I have ordered the USS Nimitz to cease its routine redeployment,” Miller said in a statement on Sunday evening.

United States intelligence agencies have noted for months that Iran is attempting to target senior American military officers and civilian leaders in order to assassinate the death in an American of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, commander of Iran’s elite quds force in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps avenge drone attack a year ago.

However, it was unclear what the new urgency of these threats led Mr. Miller to cancel his previous order to send the Nimitz home. In the past few days, Iranian officials have been stepping up their fiery news against the United States. The head of Iran’s judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, said that anyone involved in the assassination of General Suleimani would not be able to “escape from law and justice” even if they were an American president.

It was unclear last week whether Mr. Trump was aware of Mr. Miller’s order to send the Nimitz to its homeport in Bremerton, Washington, after a longer than usual 10 month deployment.

Some Trump administration officials suggested on Sunday that with a controversial political week – the Georgia Senate runoff on Tuesday and the House and Senate meeting on Wednesday to win President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. confirm – the look of the aircraft carriers steaming from the Middle East did not match the White House.

Whatever the reason, the mixed news surrounding the aviation company’s movements is raising new questions about coordination and communication between an inexperienced Pentagon leadership and the White House in the dwindling days of the Trump administration.

Some current and former Pentagon officials have criticized the decision-making process at the Pentagon since Mr. Trump sacked Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper and several of his top advisors in November and replaced them with Mr. Miller, a former counter-terrorism adviser to the White House. and several Trump loyalists.

Officials said Friday that Mr Miller ordered the redeployment of the Nimitz in part as a “de-escalation” signal to Tehran to avoid falling into a crisis at the end of Mr Trump’s administration that would land in Mr Biden’s lap in office.

In the past few weeks, Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran on Twitter, and in November senior national security aides advised the president against launching a pre-emptive strike against an Iranian nuclear facility.

The Central Command of the Pentagon had published several violent demonstrations for weeks to warn Tehran of the consequences of an attack on American troops or diplomats.

The Nimitz and other warships arrived to protect American forces withdrawing from Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia. The Air Force dispatched B-52 bombers three times to fly within 60 miles of the Iranian coast. And the Navy announced for the first time in nearly a decade that it had commanded a cruise missile submarine into the Persian Gulf.

American intelligence reports indicated that Iran and its deputies may have been preparing a strike last weekend to avenge the deaths of General Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, head of the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah, who was last seen Killed in the same United States drone strike in Baghdad on January 1st.

American intelligence analysts have discovered Iranian air defenses, naval forces and other security units on high alert in the past few days. They also noted that Iran brought more short-range missiles and drones into Iraq.

But senior Defense Department officials admit they cannot say whether Iran or its Shiite proxies in Iraq are ready to beat American troops or prepare defensive measures if Mr Trump orders a pre-emptive attack against them.