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| Israel bombs a Gaza television station. PHOTO: AFP |
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- Fighting erupted after Israel broke ceasefire with Gaza assassinations
- A report about dirty PR tactics by Facebook raised fresh concerns
- Boeing faced mounting scrutiny over the Lion Air crash
- Alibaba smashed its 2017 record with $30.8b in sales on Singles Day
- Police in Australia caught the infamous 'strawberry needler'
- Western nations grappled with Beijing's influence at APEC
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Amazon announced HQ2 locations - Northern Virginia and NYC
- More high drama in Sri Lanka as the new PM was dismissed
- A week of brutal car bombings in Mogadishu left 41 dead
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Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man and other superheros, died aged 95
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| A township, no longer. PHOTO: NBC |
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A pair of fires has ravaged California. The Butte County 'Camp Fire' incinerated the town of Paradise, killing 56 people. It's the deadliest and most destructive fire in California's history; with 130 still missing, the death toll is expected to rise. To the South, the Woolsey Fire reduced to ash a vast swath of land from Malibu to the West Hills.
Paradise Lost
At 6:30am on November 8th, a full 7 miles from Paradise, the first reports of the fire started to come in. It was a windy day and the fire had already spread up the heavily forested ridges and spurs that a dry autumn had left bone-dry. The evacuation order for the east side of town was given at 8am as the first properties were threatened.
Paradise fire chiefs had known for years how vulnerable the township was to fire, but nothing could have prepared them for the speed at which their defences were overrun. The town sits atop a hill surrounded by deep ravines with only four winding roads out, so authorities had to stagger evacuation orders to avoid clogging them. As the fire swept through Paradise, it swallowed more than 8,000 buildings. And many people, possibly as many as 180, never made it out. A week later, its edges continue to burn and it likely won't be fully contained for weeks.
The recriminations will come later (emergency phone warning systems proved ineffective). Sombre tasks must be attended first. Right now cadaver dogs are scouring what's left of the town. Alongside them are the specialist DNA-detection teams, the sort used in war-zones to identify the victims of bombings.
Utility belted
It must be stressed that the cause of the Camp Fire is - at the time of publishing - not yet certain. But that hasn’t stopped people from laying blame at the feet of the Pacific Gas and Electricity Company (PG&E). The utility had reported a transmission line failure just minutes before the fire was reported in the same area. And several Paradise residents have already filed negligence suits against the company. If a powerline did cause the fire, it certainly wouldn’t be the first one. Butte County records show that powerlines caused 191 fires in the area between 2004-20015. It's estimated that PG&E could face up to $15b in liabilities from the Camp Fire alone - a figure that far exceeds its insurance and cash reserves. And that’s on top of the fact that the company was already on the hook for billions after last year’s devastating wine country fires. Little wonder then that PG&E shares have dropped more than 60% in the last week.
The long dry
While some have expressed alarm over fires burning well into autumn, this is actually not altogether uncommon for California. Thanks to its unique climate the dry months of September and October have historically been the most dangerous for the state. Which is not to say that global warming hasn't exacerbated the situation. 15 of the 20 biggest wildfires in Californian history have occurred since 2000. As the weather gets drier the conditions for fires naturally worsen: Paradise, for example, received just 1/5th of its average rainfall this October.
President Donald Trump ignited controversy by blaming the fire on California's forest management tactics. Ignoring the fact that 60% of California's forests are under federal management, he was correct that California's forests are overgrown and that this does increase the risk of wildfire. But, like most things, the complexity of the issue is far greater than gets communicated in a tweet. Native American controlled-burning practices once helped thin out forests, a practice that was lost with the arrival of Europeans. The decline of the logging industry in Northern California has also compounded this problem. Lastly, and somewhat surprisingly - rapidly improved firefighting techniques are also part of the equation because secluded forests are simply not exposed to fire as often as they used to be, and therefore grow more dense.
Prisoner or private?
To the South and closer to Los Angeles, the Woolsey fire has also claimed three lives and burned 40,000 hectares of parks and prized property. The famed beaches of Malibu turned into temporary encampments as residents fled the conflagration. This fire too spread quickly, to the North and East, setting ablaze entire mountainsides overlooking LA. The impacted region included the lofty, quiet heights of West Hills and Calabasas that many Hollywood A-listers call home.
But not everyone was affected equally by the fire. Kim and Kanye West for instance, had their $50m home protected by a squadron of private firefighters. Such private firefighters are usually owned by major insurers: right now one has deployed 53 engines and crews to protect just 1000 of their customers’ homes in California. it seems that as with most things, the ultra-wealthy will weather the vicissitudes of climate change better than the rest will.
And while the millionaires were having their mansions doused with water cannons, everyone else was relying on the bonded labour of prisoners. Teams of trained inmates were deployed to supplement firefighters, but unlike the firefighters the prisoners earned just a handful of dollars each day for risking their lives.
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| May's day or mayday? PHOTO: Wiktor Syzmanowicz |
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Backstops and backstabs
Britain and the United Kingdom this week finalised the first draft of their divorce papers. The farewell was outlined at great length (585 pages) and in the finest legalese. And as expected, it was met with howls of outrage and disappointment. Announcing the draft deal, Theresa May said, “When you strip away the detail, the choice before us is clear, this deal … or leave with no deal, or no Brexit at all.” After hearing it repeated ad nauseam that 'Brexit means Brexit', it turns out that Brexit may actually mean something else entirely.
First, the Irish border backstop. Both the DUP and the Brexiteers are incensed by the threat of having to retain a 'single customs union' after the transition period, until the UK and EU enter a new trade agreement. Second, Britain would be able to throttle immigration from Europe but it would have to sacrifice a different type of sovereignty. Disputes relating to EU law would be adjudicated by European courts. Likewise the 'level playing field' clause kills off any chance for British industry to undercut their continental opposites during the highly likely event of both parties not reaching a comprehensive and final trade deal in the next two years.
But amongst all the unknowns there is now one certainty: the transition period will be finished some time this century. Without a hint of humour, the authors of the agreement agreed that the outer limit of the transition should be "December 31st 20XX". So at worst, we’re 2 years into Brexit with just another 82 years to go.
The agreement was a victory for Theresa May, though it may yet prove to be a pyrrhic one. Multiple cabinet ministers - including her Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab - have now resigned in protest. The perennial lurker Jacob Rees-Mogg delivered a letter of no confidence late in the week. During a live broadcast this week one noticeably exasperated BBC reporter let the mask slip, "To be quite honest looking at things right now, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what is going to happen in the coming weeks." Hear, hear.
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| 1MDB has given Malaysia’s anti-corruption watchdog a run. PHOTO: Bloomberg |
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Bankers behaving badly
The 1Malaysia Development Berhad was intended to channel direct foreign investment into the country. Industries like agribusiness, tourism and infrastructure were to flourish as steady hands guided much-needed capital into strategic initiatives. Under the watchful eye of the Finance Ministry - and aided by vaunted global groups like Goldman Sachs - 1MDB was to rejuvenate Malaysia. But so far the 1MDB scandal has delivered nothing but painful humiliation.
Back in 2015 the US Department of Justice alleged that a whopping $3.5b had been stolen from the fund. Money laundering, graft, corruption, the whole works. At the centre of attention is Mr. Jho Low, a shadowy figure who masterminded the illegal transfer of billions, seemingly in plain sight. Recent revelations show that in 2009 Low was drinking and partying his way through New York's most expensive bars, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars doing so.
At the same time he was meeting none other than Lloyd Blankfein, then-CEO of Goldman Sachs and perhaps the most powerful banker in the world. The other person at this crucial meeting was then-Malay PM Najib Razak who will soon be jailed for corruption linked to the 1MDB scandal. The presence of two corrupt men at a meeting does not automatically implicate the third, but it definitely doesn’t make for good optics.
Goldman worked closely with 1MDB, helping to underwrite billions in bond offerings (all for a charming fee of $600m). Now two Goldman bankers, Tim Leissner and Roger Ng, have been charged with helping Low launder billions stolen from the development fund. On top of that Malaysia's new leadership want their money back. Murky times lie ahead for one of the most prestigious investment banks in the world.
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| The statues just went up in value. PHOTO: Dylan Martinez / Reuters |
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Bronzed and buffed
In 2015 it was claimed that two bronze sculptures in the Rothschild collection were crafted by Michelangelo. It was a disputed claim, not least because they are unsigned and were never reported. However, a new study has found that the two statues (depicting men riding panthers) are in fact by the great Italian sculptor. How was this post-factum categorisation made? Through anatomically correct pubic hair and an '8-pack'. The researchers at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum argued that Michelangelo stood alone amongst his contemporaries in giving his brawny figures an extra set of abdominal muscles and having a fine eye for pubic hair.
Mounting a comeback
Just a decade ago the number of Central African mountain gorillas left in the wild had dwindled to 680. The two remaining habitats were hemmed in by human development, and poaching continued apace. But 10 years of beefed-up conservation work has reversed the decline. There are now over 1000 mountain gorillas and this week the International Union For the Conservation of Nature moved the species off the critically endangered list. It is a rare occurrence, and a cause for celebration.
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| In El Chapo's absence, his cartel has only grown. PHOTO: AP |
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Shorty in the big smoke
Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's trial promised to create waves, and the first week has definitely delivered. Prosecutors allege that El Chapo headed the globe-bestriding Sinaloa Cartel; a mammoth criminal organisation that ships vast quanitites of Colombian cocaine into the United States. Witnesses testified that Mexican state and federal police were on the payroll, as were prosecutors, governors, Interpol and even a president. It's not gone unnoticed that El Chapo is being tried in a city with the highest concentration of his customers.
An ethnocity in Georgia
Henry Country, a town in the US state of Georgia is trying to re-segregate itself (that's 're', not 'de'). A cluster of predominantly white neighbourhoods in Stockbridge has voted to secede from the majority-black suburbs surrounding it. The whites wanted to form a new city called 'Eagle's Landing'. Their reasoning? The exclusive locale would have a higher average income and therefore attract more up-market food chains. The vote - which relied on the acquiescence of black voters - obviously failed. Meanwhile, the Democratic challenger Stacey Abrams continues to refuse to concede to her Republican opponent who was formerly in charge of the voter roll and spent years purging black names from it.
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Quote of the week
"You shouldn’t be too sentimental about ducks" - Acclaimed novelist and amateur twitcher Jonathan Franzen is all too aware of male ducks’ propensity to rape.
Headline of the week
'Drunk' Chinese man's Singles' Day shopping frenzy ends with a live pig, peacock and salamander - South China Morning Post
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