“Global annually averaged surface air temperature has increased by about 1.8°F (1.0°C) over the last 115 years (1901–2016). This period is now the warmest in the history of modern civilization. The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, and the last three years have been the warmest years on record for the globe. These trends are expected to continue over climate timescales.
“This assessment concludes, based on extensive evidence, that it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.
“In addition to warming, many other aspects of global climate are changing, primarily in response to human activities. Thousands of studies conducted by researchers around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric, and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; diminishing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea levels; ocean acidification; and increasing atmospheric water vapor.”
Most importantly, the report concludes that “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. Over the last century, there are no convincing alternative explanations supported by the extent of the observational evidence”. In another report, The Guardian found that
“Data from the Climate Central group of scientists analysed by Guardian journalists shows that 3C of global warming would ultimately lock in irreversible sea-level rises of perhaps two metres. Cities from Shanghai to Alexandria, and Rio to Osaka are among the worst affected. Miami would be inundated – as would the entire bottom third of the US state of Florida.”
The Guardian article has graphics shown the devastating effects of sea level rise to several major metropolitan areas of the world. The graphics are truly shocking.
“On the contrary, North Korea appears to have dismissed the credibility of President Trump’s pronouncements of military action against North Korea, particularly in light of alternate and corroborative views. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have both acknowledged a preference for diplomatic solutions, not military ones. For an intelligence analyst, whether North Korean or American, assessing the probability of military action rests on the sum credibility of such individuals. Additional factors, like the assurances of American interlocutors engaged in Track II diplomacy, can bolster such assessments when they are consistent with official statements.”
This conclusion is somewhat reassuring but difficult to assess with certainty. But it does suggest that a single inflammatory statement by Mr. Trump about North Korea does not necessarily mean that the North Koreans will act precipitously.
“Venezuela’s government and state enterprises like PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A.–the Venezuelan Oil Company) collectively owe around US$143 billion in foreign debt…. PDVSA alone has around US$1.6 billion in debt payments due by the end of the year, and another US$9 billion on bond servicing set to fall in 2018.”
Venezuela will try hard to not default on these loans, but outside financing has been scarce and the Venezuelan currency–the Bolivar–has depreciated by 99% on the black market since President Maduro took office in November 2013.
Smile Time
Mount Roraima (triple border point of Venezuela (85% of its territory), Guyana (10%) and Brazil (5%–5°12′08″N60°44′07″W))
The Republican Party in the US has released its initial plan for tax reform and we can expect the debate on the plan to be contentious and deliberately obscure. One likely defense of the bill will be that US citizens are some of the highest taxed countries in the world. The Washington Post published some graphs to root this debate in evidence.
Another argument is that the US corporate tax rate is the highest in the world. This assertion is true in what we call nominal terms–the published rate is higher than many other countries. But most corporations also have tax deductions that reduce the corporate tax rate in effective terms to about half the published rate. According to the US Treasury:
“The average effective “actual” federal corporate tax rate (ATR) provides a comprehensive measure of the average tax rate actually paid by corporations…..the U.S. ATR on income earned by profitable corporations with over $10 million in assets was 22 percent (when averaged over all firms in all years), well below the top statutory rate of 35 percent.”
It is also clear that corporations are paying less over time as a source of revenue for the Federal Government. This decline persists even though all corporations benefit from government spending on roads, bridges, communications infrastructure, police and fire security, and having access to an educated population.
Today it the 100th anniversary of what is known as the Balfour Declaration, a document that asserts that the British Government supports the creation of a Jewish homeland in the British Mandate of Palestine. The document is used by both Israelis and Palestinians to assert certain rights in what ultimately becomes the state of Israel in 1948.
The actual meaning of the Declaration is quite muddy. Some regard the note as a simple ploy to secure support from Jews in the US and Russia to support Britain in World War I. According to The Washington Post:
“Balfour said at a cabinet meeting that appealing to Jewish nationalism would serve as ‘extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and in America’ — two countries with significant Jewish populations and whose contributions were necessary to winning World War I. After the declaration was announced, British leaflets were dropped over Jewish communities in German and Austrian territory pointing to the good deeds done for the ‘people of Israel.’”
Many Palestinians point to the last sentence of the Declaration which asserts that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. Further, Palestinians assert that British control over Palestine, secured secretly after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Sykes-Picot Treaty in 1916 was itself illegitimate. Needless to say, while the Balfour Declaration is an important document in the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, it is unlikely that it would ever serve to end that debate.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has published a new report on global emissions of greenhouse gases. The report is a cautious interpretation of the global effort to reduce these emissions. On the one hand, the report says that:
“Global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are likely to be at the high end of the range of the scenarios consistent with the 2°C and 1.5°C goals respectively, making it increasingly difficult to be on track to meet the 2030 emission goals.”
On the other hand, it also asserts that:
“Global CO2 emissions from energy and industry have remained stable since 2014, but overall greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise slowly.”
Interestingly, the media interprets the report in radically different ways. National Geographic ran an article on the report entitled “Current Climate Pledges Aren’t Enough to Stop Severe Warming”. On the other hand, Reuters suggests that the report indicates that “there are signs of a move away from fossil fuels that not even U.S. President Donald Trump can stop, the United Nations said on Tuesday.”
The Pew Research Center has released a report on income and wealth inequality in the US since the Great Recession of 2007-09. The overarching conclusion of the report is that “Wealth gaps between upper-income families and lower- and middle-income families are at the highest levels recorded.” The details are incredibly depressing:
“Although lower- and middle-income families overall experienced gains in wealth in recent years, they were not large enough to make up for the losses these families sustained during the recession. Thus, in 2016, the median wealth of lower-income families was 42% less than in 2007 and the median wealth of middle-income families was 33% lower. Indeed, the net worth of these families in 2016 – $10,800 for lower-income families and $110,100 for middle-income families – was comparable to 1989 levels.
“The experience of upper-income families is markedly different. Their losses in the recession were smaller and their recovery was stronger. By 2016, upper-income families had a median wealth of $810,800, 10% more than prior to the recession in 2007. Moreover, the median wealth of upper-income families is at the highest level since the Federal Reserve started collecting these data in 1983. Consequently, the recession drove wealth inequality between upper-income families and lower- and middle-income families to the highest levels recorded. In 2016, the median wealth of upper-income families was seven times that of middle-income families, a ratio that has doubled since 1983. Upper-income families also had 75 times the wealth of lower-income families in 2016, compared with 28 times the wealth in 1983.”
The report also breaks down the trends in terms of race and the results are similarly depressing, but consistent with the overall trends. The report is a very bleak picture of the economic health of American society.
Provocatively, another Pew report indicates that most Americans believe that the American Dream is still vibrant although achieving wealth does not seem to be critical to that aspiration.
On 18 September 2001, the US Congress approved Public Law 107–40, commonly known as the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), in response to the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001. The most relevant part of the law reads as follows:
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Authorization for Use of Military Force’’.
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) IN GENERAL.—That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
(b) WAR POWERS RESOLUTION REQUIREMENTS.
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION.—Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
Since the law was passed it has been used by Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump to justify the use of armed force in a variety of circumstances without direct oversight by the Congress. There is a growing sense that this law has institutionalized war powers in the Presidency that exceed the traditional powers inherent in the constitutional authority of Commander-in-Chief. Last month, the US Senate rejected a bill, 61-36, sponsored by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to limit the AUMF to a six month period. In hearings before Congress, US Secretary of State Tillerson and US Secretary of Defense Mattis, argued that President Trump does not need a new AUMF and that the old law gives him the power to continue using military force against any organization–even those not at all involved, or even extant at the time, in the attacks of 11 September 2001–that uses terrorism as a tactic. In his testimony, Secretary Tillerson argued that any new AUMF should not have any geographical or time limits. Those conditions are essentially a blank check and should be rejected. That interpretation of a 16-year old law suggests that there really are no limits on a US President to use military force abroad.
China included its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) in its revision of its constitution at the most recent Communist Party Conference. The move suggests that the initiative is far more than an economic policy–it suggests that the initiative is a critical part of China’s vision of its global economic role. Alek Chance sheds an interesting light on Chinese ambitions, indicating that China does not aspire to be the “leader” of globalization as the US moves away from its central role in supporting the international liberal economic order. Nonetheless, the Chinese wish to demonstrate that this next phase of globalization will have a “center of gravity”. The difference is nuanced, but diplomatically important.
Getting reliable information about world politics is not an easy task, and the task is getting even more difficult because of propaganda easily insinuated into social media. Facebook is going to report to the US Congress that “roughly 126 million users in the United States may have seen posts, stories or other content created by Russian government-backed trolls around Election Day”. Google and Twitter are going to report similar false content on their pages. Public opinion is a vitally important aspect of political decision-making, but we have apparently allowed the dissemination of propaganda to a greater extent than anyone ever could have expected. Protecting ourselves against such propaganda needs to be an absolute priority.
“Globally averaged concentrations of CO2 reached 403.3 parts per million in 2016, up from 400.00 ppm in 2015 because of a combination of human activities and a strong El Niño event. Concentrations of CO2 are now 145% of pre-industrial (before 1750) levels, according to the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin….The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago, the temperature was 2-3°C warmer and sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now.”
Despite strong growth in many renewable energies, it seems clear that the emissions of CO2 have not slowed appreciably. Every year, it becomes more difficult to avoid a seriously difficult outcome.
One of the more interesting aspects of the indictments of Paul Manafort and Richard Gates, people associated with the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, is that they were able to funnel an extraordinary amount of money through various banks in states such as Cyprus in order to avoid paying taxes. Using shell companies in countries with very lax banking regulations is not itself illegal; using those companies to avoid paying taxes is. But the behavior of Manafort and Gates is hardly unusual: tax havens such as Cyprus have become well institutionalized in the global economy to the detriment of governments strapped for revenues. According to Krishnadev Calamur in The Atlantic:
“Gabriel Zucman, the author of The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens, estimates that $7.6 trillion is stashed in tax havens around the world. That accounts for about 8 percent of the world’s personal financial wealth. This hidden money, he argues, amounts to about an additional $200 million in global tax revenue each year. But as my colleague Uri Friedman previously reported : ‘Other experts claim that the amount of private offshore wealth may be two to four times as high as Zucman’s figure of $7.6 trillion. Needless to say, measuring the size of an industry whose purpose, in part, is to obscure its size isn’t easy or precise’”.
It is very hard to understand why governments allow such easy access to tax evading opportunities other than to assume that those governments are acting specifically to help the very rich avoid paying taxes.
Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani has announced that he will step down after it has become clear that the Kurds cannot implement their plans for independence within Iraq. Barzani has been the de facto leader of the Kurdish Autonomous Region within Iraq since 2005. But Barzani overplayed his hand in the bid for independence. His principal ally, the US, refused to back the move, and the Kurdish inability to retain control over the city of Kirkuk made clear that despite the undoubted strength of the Kurdish Peshmerga, the Kurds lacked the ability to sustain an independent state. We should now look to see if Iraq maintains a concilatory policy toward Kurdish autonomy or if it clamps down on Kurdish freedoms.
Masoud Barzani
The continuing stand-off between the US and North Korea is weakening the willingness of several states in East and Southeast Asia to remain nuclear weapons-free. The erosion is most obvious in South Korean and Japan which have both long relied on the US nuclear deterrent for defense. The situation is a major test of the sturdiness of the non-proliferation regime which has been in place since 1968. Both Japan and South Korea have been running peaceful nuclear reactors for many years and each has plenty of fuel that could be processed to produce thousands of nuclear weapons. Japan remains staunchly pacifist, but Prime Minister Abe has the necessary votes to amend the Japanese constitution which prohibits offensive military capabilities. Public sentiment in South Korea seems to be shifting in support of a nuclear deterrent given the huge casualties likely in a conventional war with North Korea.
The US considered launching a pre-emptive military strike on the People’s Republic of China in order to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, a situation roughly reminiscent of the current position of the US vis-a-vis North Korea (one should not forget that North Korea alreadyFranz-Stefan Gady describes the decision-making process has nuclear weapons so the situation is also dramatically different). But the opinion of Mao Zedong as “irrational” seems to be the judgment of some US policymakers about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Fortunately, the US did not launch the attack and and how the US State Department exercised the necessary leverage to commit the US to the policy of deterrence instead.
US Defense Secretary Mattis warned that North Korea’s capability to hit US territory with nuclear weapons is “accelerating”. In a speech given in Seoul, South Korea, Mattis asserted that “I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power”. The speech was given a week before US President rump was scheduled to visit South Korea as well. I am not sure what Mattis means when he says that the US would not accept North Korea as a nuclear power since North Korea is already a nuclear power having successfully tested six nuclear weapons. Mattis must be well aware that there is no way that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons. The Congressional Research Service has completed a report that argues that even a conventional war between North and South Korea would be devastating: even if the conflict was limited to “conventional munitions, estimates range from between 30,000 and 300,000 dead in the first days of fighting”.
Despite US President Trump’s announcement that the US will leave the Paris Agreement on climate change, the actual truth is that the US cannot formally leave the agreement until 2020. The agreement, which was signed by the US, stipulates that no state can leave the agreement until November 2020. Thus, the US will attend the next conference on the agreement which will be held in Germany between 6-17 November. The purpose of the conference is to develop the rules on the proposed shift away from fossil fuels. There is a fear among some of the parties that the Trump Administration might play the role of spoiler in articulating the rules given Mr. Trump’s desire to reinvigorate the coal industry in the US.
Somalia has been wracked by violence ever since the overthrow of the dictator Siad Barre in 1991. The violence has taken a serious toll: “An estimated 2.5 million Somalis were displaced with about 1 million leaving the country. Up to 1.5 million died as a result of the conflict, mostly civilians”. There really is no central government at all–the territory is carved up by a number of clans that fund themselves by demanding protection money from everyone. Al Shabaab is perhaps the largest and most well organized of all these groups and its espousal of radical measures to enforce its interpretation of Islam has made all efforts at reconciliation impossible. Spiegel has an article that describes what life is like under these conditions: life is apparently cheap and terror is a lucrative business.
The concentration of wealth in the world now mimics the degree of concentration in the early 20th Century and that dynamic is ushering in a Second Gilded Age. According to The Guardian:
“The world’s super-rich hold the greatest concentration of wealth since the US Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century, when families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts controlled vast fortunes.
“Billionaires increased their combined global wealth by almost a fifth last year to a record $6tn (£4.5tn) – more than twice the GDP of the UK. There are now 1,542 dollar billionaires across the world, after 145 multi-millionaires saw their wealth tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year”.
The First Gilded Age induced a strong political backlash against the wealthy, led primarily by journalists such as Ida Tarbell who were labeled “muckrakers”. But the concentration of wealth in the early 20th century also created the conditions of underconsumption which ultimately led to the Great Depression.
Anti-Capitalism Poster of the Gilded Age
The Catalonian Parliament voted for independence and immediately thereafter the Spanish Government took control over the regional government. The Spanish Senate easily passed legislation to invoke Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution which allows the central government “to remove the Catalan regional president, suspend his ministers and assume authority over the region’s public media, police and finances.” The Catalonian vote to declare independence was 70-10, but 55 legislators refused to vote. The large number of abstentions shows the deep ambivalence about independence which will undoubtedly factor into the decisions of both sides about their next moves. The response of other European governments (and the US) was decidedly in favor of the Spanish government so it is unlikely that many states will recognize the newly declared independent state.
On he eve of US President Trump’s visit to China and other Asian states, China has strongly urged the US to deny Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen the right to transit US territory on her visit to Pacific states which recognize Taiwan as the Republic of China. After the Chinese Revolution in 1949, the US supported Taiwan as the legitimate representative of the Chinese people, a policy that remained in force until 1972 when the US recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole representative of the Chinese people. Since 1972, the US has supported a “One China” policy, but has also maintained commercial and military relations with Taiwan. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and any limited recognition of Taiwan’s former diplomatic status is a profound insult to Beijing. We will have to see if Mr. Trump makes the concession to Beijing by denying President Tsai transit rights over American territory.
As the world rushes headlong into advanced technology without even a whisper of a discussion about whether it should be managed only after a serious conversation involving most of the people affected, the global economy continues to shed jobs while at the same time increasing output of all sorts of things. Manufacturing is not “dead” in the global economy; only manufacturing jobs are dying. The chart below shows the discrepancy between manufacturing and manufacturing jobs. And in one of the more bizarre twists to the new age we are entering, Saudi Arabia is the first country to grant citizenship to a robot.
You can listen to Robot “Sophia” at the ceremony granting her Saudi citizenship.
The United Nations has found the Syrian Government responsible for the chemical weapons attack against civilians in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in April of 2017. The UN also found that Daesh (the Islamic State) was responsible for killing civilians with Mustard Gas in 2016. The Syrian Government has repeatedly denied that it used sarin gas, but these findings leave the government of Assad liable for war crimes. Sarin gas is a particularly nasty chemical weapon whose use is completely banned by international law.
Kenya’s rescheduled election was marred by low turnout and violence. The election was held because the earlier election in August was annulled by the Supreme Court. But the main opposition leader, Raila Odinga, bowed out of the rescheduled election, citing voting irregularities and the difficulties in holding a far election. Voting was postponed until Saturday in four voting areas because of violence and it remains to be seen whether those polling areas will be open. The current President, Uhuru Kenyatta, won the election, but it is hard to describe the process as legitimate and Kenyatta will find it difficult to rule.
Kenyan Police Prepare to Use Tear Gas Against Election Protesters.
I do not usually quote from Vice News, but Nick Turse is a very reliable reporter and he has published an article on US operations in Africa. As I indicated in a previous post, I was unaware of the US military operation In Niger, but Turse suggests that the US presence in Africa is massive. Turse says that the US is conducting “3,500 exercises, programs, and engagements” in Africa every year and that US Africa Command has increased the number of such operations by 1,900% since it was created a decade ago. Turse estimates that there are between 5,000 and 6,000 US troops currently deployed in African countries. This military commitment is substantial and has been conducted pretty much under the radar for most Americans.
Pandemics occur sporadically, but sometimes they are devastating. The bubonic plague decimated parts of the European population in the 14th century. In 1918, a flu virus, commonly called the Spanish Flu at the times, killed nearly 50 million people. In recent years, there have been outbreaks of unanticipated viruses, such as SARS and MERS, as well as outbreaks of known viruses, such as Ebola, in West Africa in 2014 which was the largest outbreak ever recorded. There are an unknown number of viruses in the world, but, fortunately, only a limited number can effect humans. We suspect that the next pandemic will occur at some point, undoubtedly accelerated by the ease of travel in a globalized world, but it is impossible to predict when it might occur. Experts are working on the problem of how to prepare for such pandemics, but the difficulties in responding are formidable.
The US now has three aircraft carriers and their associated strike groups in the Pacific region as US President Trump goes on an extended tour of Asian countries. The USS Theodore Roosevelt will join the USS Carl Nimitz and the USS Ronald Reagan the convergence is undoubtedly a signal to North Korea.in the 7th Fleet. It is unusual for the US to have three aircraft carrier groups in the same region, and it is likely that the deployment is meant to send a message other countries in the region as a symbol of the US commitment to the region. Nonetheless, the North Koreans remain committed to the development of their nuclear capablity. Speaking of the threat made earlier by the North Koean Foreign Minister to explode a Hydorgen Bomb, a North Korean senior diplomat, Ri Yong Pil, said that “The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally”.
World Politics News 