Pakistan is rapidly building its arsenal of nuclear weapons and is on track to become the third largest holder of nuclear weapons, after the US and Russia. Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent is aimed at India which is not increasing its number of nuclear weapons at a commensurate rate. The disparity is based on the relative strength of the conventional arsenals available to both: India has a much larger conventional army and Pakistan seeks to compensate for that inequality with nuclear weapons. That strategy is obviously a high-risk one, since, if Pakistan is on the losing end of a conventional war with India, the resort to nuclear weapons as a deterrent has incredible risks for both countries.
China’s economic slowdown has world markets on edge. But it is difficult to assess how dramatic the slowdown may be because many analysts do not believe the Chinese government’s official figures. Economic statistics are invariably dodgy: keeping track of highly complex economic transactions is very difficult and those difficulties are multiplied in a country as large as China. The suspicion, however, that China’s figures are also shaded by political considerations make analysis of the Chinese economy very problematic. The range is incredible. China asserts that its GDP rose 7%; one investment house, Evercore, asserts that Chinese GDP was actually -1.1%
The New York Times has an important story on the difficulties migrants to Europe are facing. The article does a great job of articulating the reasons for migration and the extraordinary obstacles faced by the migrants as they try to enter Europe for a better and safer life.
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