“To get to UK levels, we’d need to reduce gun deaths by over 98 percent. Even if we wanted to reach the same levels as Switzerland — the country with the third-highest rate of gun deaths in the OECD grouping of developed nations, after Mexico and the US — we’d need to drop from 106.4 deaths per million to 30.1, more than a 71 percent reduction.
Just how much of an outlier is the US? Look at this chart by Josh Tewksbury:
The issue confronting the US is not that it has more criminals. It is, rather, that its criminals have easier access to guns.
Spiegelthe US is engaging in a protectionist trade war has published a piece that highlights the increasing danger that . The focus of the piece is on the US willingness to weaken the dollar, which makes its exports cheaper and its imports more expensive. But the article also highlights the US actions restricting imports through tariffs and quotas. Protectionism only works if a country’s trade partners do not respond in kind. It is clear, however, that both Europe and China will respond to the US actions in kind. A trade war simply means higher prices and less economic activity for everyone.
South African President Jacob Zuma spoke in an interview with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and indicated in that interview that he had no intention of resigning. In the interview Zuma said:
“And of course, I asked as to what was the problem. Why must I be persuaded to resign, have I done anything wrong? And of course, the officials couldn’t provide what I have done.”
Fortunately, Zuma has decided to resign. Zuma’s party, the African National Congress, has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid and recently elected a new leader, Cyril Ramaphosa, who is now the country’s President. The calls for Zuma’s resignation were based upon widespread claims of rampant corruption in the government. They were also based on the horrendous economic situation in South Africa. His decision to resign makes a new path for South Africa.
Cyril Ramaphosa
US airstrikes in Syria have killed an unknown number of Russian mercenaries (some sources are alleging that “hundreds” were killed). The Russians have used non-government forces (or perhaps government forces not wearing official uniforms or insignia) in Ukraine as a way of disguising official Russian government participation in Ukraine. The technique also diminishes the political effect of casualties in foreign areas in the domestic politics of Russia. Apparently, the US was in contact with “official” Russian military units in the general area in order to avoid a direct conflict. But the event signals a troubling escalation of the great power conflicts in Syria. The city of Deir ez-Zor is emerging as a central focus over who controls the oil fields nearby.
Israeli police have recommended the indictment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over bribery charges. Concerns over these charges have been swirling around for months and it could take months for the Israeli Attorney General to decide whether to press charges. The Prime Minister has adamantly denied the charges. Netanyahu is currently serving his fourth term as Prime Minister but he leads a coalition in the Knesset that only has a majority of one vote. It is hard to say where these charges will lead, but they clearly weaken Netanyahu over the short term.
The Tax Justice Network has published its annual list of tax havens in the world. As usual, Switzerland tops the list but the US ranks the 2nd friendliest place to hide one’s money from the tax collectors, just ahead of the Cayman Islands. According to the Network:
“An estimated $21 to $32 trillion of private financial wealth is located, untaxed or lightly taxed, in secrecy jurisdictions around the world. Secrecy jurisdictions – a term we often use as an alternative to the more widely used term tax havens – use secrecy to attract illicit and illegitimate or abusive financial flows.”
The result is not surprising, but it is interesting to note that in all the discussion about “tax reform” in the US over the last few months, there was no discussion of trying to plug the holes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. The US is the place where almost a quarter of all global disguised wealth is hidden.
Rank
Jurisdiction
Secrecy Score (out of 100)
Share of global offshore market
1
Switzerland
76.45
4.50%
2
USA
59.83
22.30%
3
Cayman Islands
72.28
3.79%
4
Hong Kong
71.05
4.17%
5
Singapore
67.13
4.58%
6
Luxembourg
58.20
12.13%
7
Germany
59.10
5.17%
8
Taiwan
75.75
0.50%
9
United Arab Emirates (Dubai)
83.85
0.14%
10
Guernsey
72.45
0.52%
Robots are displacing workers all over the world, raising the question of what jobs will be available in the future as robot technology and artificial intelligence improves. Job displacement is a highly political issue and it is one of the main sources of the populist impulse that we see all over the world today. There is an interesting metric to measure the extent of the process of robotization: the number of robots per workers. According to the International Federation of Robotics:
“The automation of production is accelerating around the world: 74 robot units per 10,000 employees is the new average of global robot density in the manufacturing industries (2015: 66 units). By regions, the average robot density in Europe is 99 units, in the Americas 84 and in Asia 63 units.”
Krishnadev Calamur has written a very well-informed essay for The Atlantic on how the Syrian civil war has been transformed into a regional conflict and threatens to evolve into an international conflict. The dangers are clear:
“In the last few weeks alone, Turkey has clashed with Syrian Kurds and threatened a U.S.-controlled town in Syria; an Israeli fighter jet that was part of a response to an incursion into Israeli territory by an Iranian drone launched from Syria took Syrian anti-aircraft fire, forcing its two pilots to eject and parachute into Israeli territory; and U.S. forces repelled an attack by Russian fighters, killing an unknown number of them that reportssuggest could be in the hundreds.
“Taken individually, each one of the clashes has the potential to turn into something more dangerous. Taken together, they suggest the reasons why even after the defeat of ISIS, Syria cannot hope for stability to return soon—and why the next chapter could be even worse. ‘The issues have been out there: Kurdish-Turkish-American tensions; Iran-Syria-Israel tensions,’ Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, told me. ‘But … we’ve gotten to a level not reached before, and it’s all coming at once.’”
All these pressures have been present in Syria for a number of years, but things seem to be escalating without any coherence or deliberation. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any interest on the part of the great powers to contain and diminish these tendencies. It’s not clear that things will explode, but there clearly is not the will to assure that they do not.
“At the current rate, the world’s oceans on average will be at least 2 feet (61 centimeters) higher by the end of the century compared to today, according to researchers who published in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
“Sea level rise is caused by warming of the ocean and melting from glaciers and ice sheets. The research, based on 25 years of satellite data, shows that pace has quickened, mainly from the melting of massive ice sheets. It confirms scientists’ computer simulations and is in line with predictions from the United Nations, which releases regular climate change reports.”
These estimates are likely conservative. A rise of two feet can be managed by the richer coastal cities, but the costs will be significant. Coastal cities in poor countries will probably be dramatically altered. But, in all cases, a two-foot rise along with a storm surge is not really manageable for any major city. Averting climate change is a more intelligent way to address this future problem.
Get ready for the Year of the Dog. The Chinese follow a lunar calendar and this year the New Year falls on 16 February. But it is not a single day event: “Traditionally, the celebrations span 16 days, from a family feast on New Year’s Eve through to the Lantern Festival on day 15.” All Chinese people try to get home for this holiday and the trips constitute the largest yearly human migration. This year, however, many who are traveling home will not be able to return to the cities where they once worked. The Chinese government is cracking down on who can live in Beijing as it tries to create less crowded conditions in the capital city.
The African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party in South Africa, has given its leader, Jacob Zuma, 48 hours to resign as head of state. Zuma’s rule has been plagued by scandals and the leader of the ANC, Cyril Ramaphosa, delivered the decision of the party to Zuma after an extended meeting of the Executive Committee of the ANC. Zuma’s term as President runs until mid-2019 and there are fears that he may refuse to resign, a decision that would precipitate a serious political crisis in South Africa. Today is the 28th anniversary of the day that Nelson Mandela was freed from prison to lead the country out of the misery of apartheid, a system of institutionalized racism that officially governed the country from 1949 to 1991, although racial segregation dominated the country throughout the entire colonial period. We will have to see how Zuma responds.
Israel is tweaking the US, apparently trying to embarrass it into taking a more aggressive role in the Syrian conflict. Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, made a rather pointed comment about the US “inaction” in Syria in Bloomberg:
“The American part of the equation is to back us up,” but the U.S. currently “has almost no leverage on the ground,” Michael Oren, Netanyahu’s deputy minister for public diplomacy and a former ambassador to Washington, said in a phone interview Sunday. “America did not ante up in Syria. It’s not in the game.”
The comment comes after Israel launched serious attacks on Iranian targets in Syria. Israel has made several overtures to Russia to persuade it to temper the Iranian role in Syria, but its efforts thus far have not succeeded. But it seems clear that Israel is playing a “Russia” card in the balance of power game in Syria.
“Jahangir co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in 1987 and in 2010 she became the first woman to serve as President of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Bar Association. She also served as U.N. special rapporteur for freedom of religion from 2004 to 2010.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has slowly worked out an arrangement with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) that has preserved a governing coalition to assure her a fourth Chancellorship. But the price of that coalition was to cede the Finance Ministry to the SPD which does not share her party’s views on fiscal discipline. That concession has angered some in the Christian Democratic Party and could lead to serious problems in the future. But the SPD membership had clearly soured on continuing the relationship with Merkel believing that the SPD had lost its political soul. So a high price was demanded and expected. The concession has undoubtedly weakened Merkel and governing Germany and its relations with the EU will be very difficult for the coalition.
Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo Jong, is representing North Korea at the Winter Olympics, the first official representative from North Korea to set foot on South Korean territory (that we know of). She is scheduled to meet with South Korean President Moon. The planned meeting has raised apprehensions among some that South Korea will not maintain the hard-line against North Korea that is favored by the US and Japan. US Vice-President Pence is representing the US and he has called for the denuclearization of North Korea, a position that is unlikely to ever be embraced by North Korea under any conceivable circumstances. It would be great if a stronger dialogue between North and South Korea could begin and tensions could be ratcheted down. It would also be interesting to see if there are any US-North Korean contacts during the Olympics, although it is unlikely that Pence would be involved in such contacts.
Right now, the US does not have an Ambassador to South Korea, and it is unlikely that one will be found any time soon. Victor Cha, a highly regarded analyst of Korean affairs, was dropped from consideration even after he passed all the security checks becuase he wrote an op-ed that suggested he did not favor a preventive war with North Korea. Ralph Cossa, a respected analyst of East Asian affairs, wrote an op-ed for the South China Morning Post indicating that finding a decent Ambassador will likely be impossible for the Trump Administration:
“But if a candidate meets the qualifications that have thus far seemingly been put forth by the White House – a belief that preventive war is a good idea, as distinguished from a pre-emptive strike in the face of imminent danger; that North Korea cannot be otherwise deterred (despite deterrence having worked for decades); that the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement is a bad one that should be scrapped (despite the potential harm it will do to the US economy, not to mention US credibility as a trade partner); and that a non-combatant evacuation during peacetime would not cause mass panic and disruption and potentially undermine the South Korea-US alliance – he or she is probably not qualified to take the job in the first place”.
Meanwhile, the North Korean attempt to restore better relations with South Korea proceeds apace, Much to the chagrin of US officials. North Korea has invited the South Korean President to visit North Korea for the first such meeting in 10 years. That possibility delays any possible US action against North Korea far beyond the current lull brought about by the Olympics. US Vice-President Pence skipped a formal dinner hosted by the South Koreans in order to avoid being seen with North Korean officials, a show of pique that was considered highly rude by South Korean officials. The decision to send Mr. Pence to the Olympics due to the absence of a US Ambassador to South Korea is unquestionably harming US-South Korean relations.
There has been a dramatic escalation in another conflict area in the world: an Israeli fighter jet was shot down while conducting an attack against targets in Syrian. The Israeli jet attacked a military base in Syria which also was manned by Russian troops and the Russians reacted angrily to the risk to its soldiers. Israel has conducted hundreds of such raids over the last few months, but the jet was apparently shot down by Syrian anti-aircraft fire, raising the prospect of a new vulnerability to Israeli security. Israel did not act kindly to the incident and responded to it by conducting a “large scale” aerial assault on Syrian targets. The Israelis were targeting suspected Iranian positions in Syria which will undoubtedly initiate a response from both Iran and its ally, Hezbollah.
Perhaps the most serious problem humanity faces in the near future is the likely transformation of work. Robots and developments in artificial intelligence are taking on new roles and, in that process, are displacing large numbers of workers. That number of displaced workers will only increase, According to Subhash Kak:
“A November 2017 report from global management consulting firm McKinsey on the effects of automation on jobs, skills and wages for the period ending in 2030 estimates that fully 50% of current work activities are automatable by technologies that have already been tested and found effective. The report predicts that in 60 percent of occupations, at least one-third of activities could be automated. The report expects 400 million to 800 million people could be displaced by automation in the next 12 years, creating a challenge potentially greater than past historic shifts, at least in the modern era.”
In previous transformations, such as the Industrial Revolution, there were many displaced workers but the new technologies also generated large numbers of jobs that ultimately brought many of those workers back into the workforce. For example, the introduction of the internal combustion engine displaced many workers who serviced animals for transportation, but those workers were able (if they could move) to find new jobs in the automobile factories. The current transformation will also generate many jobs, but most of those jobs will not soak up many unskilled or semi-skilled workers. This transformation will affect both high- and low-wage countries: no human can compete with machines that require no wages at all. For example, self-driving cars are being developed rapidly in China where many work as truckers and haulers.
“The recent incident once again shows that the United States’ illegal military presence in Syria is actually aimed at taking control of the country’s economic assets and not at fighting against the ISIL international terror group.”
The US claims that the attack was in response to an earlier attack on the SDF forces in what was defined as a “de-conflict” zone. That claim may indeed be accurate but attacking government forces in a civil war is a more problematic act than a government attacking what it considers to be a rebel force. We will wait to see what the Russian response to the escalation might be.
The Director of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, made the following comment in an interview:
“We know humans have most flourished during times of what, warming trends. So I think there’s assumptions made that because the climate is warming, that that necessarily is a bad thing. Do we really know what the ideal surface temperature should be in the year 2100, in the year 2018? That’s fairly arrogant for us to think that we know exactly what it should be in 2100. There are very important questions around the climate issue that folks really don’t get to. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve talked about having an honest, open, transparent debate about what do we know, what don’t we know, so the American people can be informed and they can make decisions on their own with respect to these issues.”
There’s been much less attention this year on the Chinese build-up of various reefs in the South China Sea for military purposes. The lack of attention, however, does not mean that the Chinese have throttled back the enterprise. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies has published some very striking photographs of the installations and they are seemingly quite robust and extensive. Now the Philippine Daily Inquirer has published some even more detailed photographs and they suggest that the Chinese have strong military ambitions. The Philippines won a legal victory over the Chinese claims to the South China Sea from a tribunal at The Hague, but it never followed up on that success and it may be too late to stop the Chinese. According to the Inquirer:
“If the Philippines does not assert its legal victory, it stands to lose 80 percent of its EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) in the South China Sea, covering 381,000 square kilometers of maritime space, including the entire Recto Bank, or Reed Bank, and part of the Malampaya gas field off Palawan, as well as all of the fishery, oil and gas and mineral resources there.”
New research has found yet another anticipated consequence of climate change. Researchers have determined that there are huge deposits of mercury in the Arctic permafrost that might be released if the permafrost melts because of global warming. According to the report:
“The study found approximately 793 gigagrams, or more than 15 million gallons, of mercury is frozen in northern permafrost soil. That is roughly 10 times the amount of all human-caused mercury emissions over the last 30 years, based on emissions estimates from 2016.
“The study also found all frozen and unfrozen soil in northern permafrost regions contains a combined 1,656 gigagrams of mercury, making it the largest known reservoir of mercury on the planet. This pool houses nearly twice as much mercury as soils outside of the northern permafrost region, the ocean and the atmosphere combined.”
Visual Capitalist has a stunning video on the growth of human population over time. The video quite dramatically demonstrates how unusual the growth rate over the last 200 years has been. And also how unsustainable that rate is.
Coal is one of the dirtiest fossil fuels we use in the world. Its primary use right now is to produce electricity and it is both cheap and reliable as a source of energy. Many countries are choosing to phase out their coal-fueled sources and to replace them with either renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, nuclear energy, or natural gas. But many countries continue to use coal and the pattern of usage is quite striking in Europe. Many of the countries that used to be behind what we once called the “Iron Curtain” because they were allied with the former Soviet Union. Some of these countries, such as Poland, have made it clear that they have no ambitious intentions to phase out coal and the effects of these decisions are apparent in the air quality of Europe as the map below indicates.
“Once in effect, it will essentially ban accusations that some Poles were complicit in Nazi crimes committed on Polish soil, including in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where more than 1.1 million people died. Germany operated six camps in Poland where Jews and others whom the Nazis considered enemies were killed. Once the legislation is enacted, anyone convicted under the law will face fines or up to three years in jail.”
The law is truly extraordinary. Not only does it violate the right of free speech guaranteed by Polish membership in the European Union, it also engages in historical denial of basic facts. Poland did not, in fact, have a collaborationist government that worked with the Nazis and there was an active resistance to the German occupation of Poland. But there are numerous documented cases of Poles rounding up Jews and working with the Nazis.
US President Trump accused Democrats of “treason” and being “un-American” for not clapping during his recent State of the Union address. Aides insisted that Mr. Trump was “joking”, but after watching the video of his comments in Cincinnati I really cannot tell. Treason, however, is not a joking matter–the penalty for the crime is death–and un-American has the odious stench of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. There actually was a House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) from 1938 to 1975 in Congress (renamed the Internal Security Committee in 1969). The description of the Committee is ugly:
“Individuals who refused to answer the committee’s questions or to provide names could be indicted for contempt of Congress and sent to prison. Subjects of HUAC investigations had the option of invoking their right to avoid self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment, but “pleading the Fifth” created the impression that they were guilty of a crime. In addition, those who refused to cooperate were often blacklisted by their employers. They lost their jobs and were effectively prevented from working in their chosen industry.”
But perhaps the most chilling aspect of Mr. Trump’s charge was the parallel to his current bête noire, Kim Jong-un. In December on 2013, Kim had his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, the second most powerful person in the North Korean regime at the time, executed for “clapping half-heartedly” during one of his speeches. As Nietzsche pointed out: “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
The Winter Olympics has provided an opportunity for a pause in the contretemps over the North Korean nuclear program, but it appears as if both sides are testing the lull as much as possible. North Korea has just finished a military parade and apparently intends to hold another displaying its missiles. US Vice-President Pence is going to attend the opening ceremony with the father of Otto Warmbier who died after brutal treatment in a North Korean prison. South Korea is rightfully concerned that Pence may complicate the tenuous relationship that South Korea is trying to nurture with the North.
The Turkish invasion of Syrian territory to prevent Syrian Kurds from holding land that they regard as a possible autonomous region of Syria or perhaps even as the basis for an independent Kurdish state does no seem to be going well. The invasion pits two American allies–Turkey and the Kurds–against each other and places the US in an impossible position. For the moment, Russia is supporting the Turkish move, but ultimately Russia will support Syrian control over the region no matter who holds it. Iran, another member of the alliance to support Assad in Syria, also demanded that Turkey halt its offensive, placing Iran and the US in support of the same position. There is, however, a more overarching issue in the current Syrian offensive against the Kurds and that is that Kurds control great swathes of Syrian territory other than the northwestern areas currently being battled over. The Kurds are calling this huge area in eastern Syria “Rojava” and are intent on holding it for the Kurdish people in Syria. Right now, that control is not being contested actively by any of the interested parties, including the Syrian government.
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