It is difficult to imagine the destructiveness of modern war. Russiaworks is a Russian media outlet affiliated with Russian state broadcaster VGTRK and has captured video shots by drones of various battle scenes. It has uploaded a video of the destruction of the district of Daraya in the city of Damascus in Syria, and the footage is unbelievably dramatic. It is hard to imagine how the people of Syria have managed to survive such total destruction. Equally unimaginable is how impotent the world community has been is stopping the devastation.
The US has again sailed a destroyer within 12 miles of an island claimed by the Chinese as part of its national territory but considered international waters by the traditional definitions of international law. The US is acting not only to protect its own self-interest in the traditional definition of open seas, but also because it has been encouraged to protect the maritime interests of other states in the region, notably Vietnam and the Philippines.
In a desperate effort to finally restart the Japanese economy, the Bank of Japan has introduced negative interest rates which forces some bank depositors to pay banks to hold their money in savings accounts. All other efforts to stimulate the Japanese economy over the last 20 years have failed and the absence of growth in the world’s third largest economy (after the US and China) is a cause of great concern. The logic of the move is clear: the Bank of Japan hopes that the interest rate charges will force some savers to spend their money rather than keep it in a bank account. Such spending will presumably stimulate more economic activity. Other countries such as Sweden and Denmark, as well as the European Central Bank, have tried the measure, but there is no convincing evidence that the action had any significant effect.
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