Talking Points
- Burials and intense speculation followed the latest Indonesian crash
- The Tokyo Olympics was given the thumbs down... by Japan
- A year on from being ground zero Wuhan put forward a new face
- India's top court suspended Modi's controversial farm laws
- UN warned of massive famine after US placed Houthis on terror list
- Joe Biden outlined plans for a $15 minimum wage and more relief
- The CIA made public all of its files on UFOs
- The German economy shrunk by the most since the 2009 crisis
- Uganda voted in its most hotly-contested election in years
- Records showed 2020 was the hottest year in the hottest decade
Deep Dive
Isolated, and now twice impeached. Donald Trump's final week in office is looking macabre. And he can't even tweet about it.
Impeaches and screams
There was no beer hall in this putsch but it's still left everyone feeling distinctly hungover. What on Earth is happening? What constitutes a coup? What constitutes sedition? What makes a conspiracy? All these grasping questions have been supplanted at dizzying pace by actual changes on the ground in Washington. Donald J. Trump, an avowed fan of superlatives, can now claim to be the most-impeached president in American history. On January 13, with a square week left in his term, the 45th President of the United States was impeached for a second time by the House of Representatives (232-197). Even now, when there are almost no stakes whatsoever in the decision, all-but-ten House Republicans cast their votes with Trump.
The president, charged with "incitement of insurrection" against the United States government, now faces a trial in the Senate – though not until after Inauguration Day. His detractors hope success in the trial will preclude Trump from future attempts to run for office . But it's no longer clear whether Trump still has any intention of doing so. White House insiders say he was visibly more upset about the Trump National golf course in Bedminster being stripped of the 2022 PGA Championship than he was of being impeached again. It's been rumoured that Rudy Giuliani will head Trump's legal defence. Although it's also been reported that Trump has withheld payment of Giuliani's previous fees. In any case, given his shambolic form Giuliani will likely rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic in such a way that the furniture spells out a specific admission of his client's guilt.
Of course, four days is an eon in US Politics right now. In the meantime, the FBI is preparing for "significant threats" from armed protests across 50 cities on the 17th and 20th. Washington is crawling with soldiers. The National Monument has been closed to the public until after the Biden ascension. And authorities are already pursuing sedition charges against 25 of the individuals who stormed the Capitol Building on January 6.
The fifth estate
Since the clergy, the nobles, the peasantry and the press haven't had much success in safeguarding civil society in America, that onus has fallen on a fifth estate: its corporations. A spate of cancellations, bans, and service denials this week targeted Trump and his supporters. First out of the blocks, Twitter chirped up and permabanned @realDonaldTrump on Saturday . The president was found to have breached Twitter's 'Glorification of Violence' policy in a series of tweets following the Capitol Hill riot. The platform went to great lengths to stress that when placed in the context of the riots, his otherwise innocuous-looking messages constituted incitement. This was a watershed moment for Twitter given that its spokespeople usually tend to describe what happens on the platform as if it is distinct or adjacent to real world events. But we digress... back to the honour roll of 11th hour corporate activists.
Shopify killed off Trump's online store. Twitch, SnapChat, and YouTube deleted his channels. Amazon Web Services , the Apple Apple Store and the Google Play Store, pulled the pin on Parler (the right-wing social media site which had been billed as a safe place to utter racial slurs without censure). So too on Reddit, where the toxic r/The_Donald subreddit was extinguished. Airbnb cancelled reservations in DC ahead of January 20. Even Facebook muzzled the president (although it played coy about the permanency of the suspension). Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, appearing to draw a line underneath the last four (five? seven?) years, said that last week's riots were "largely organised on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate, don't have our standards, and don't have our transparency" (read: Parler and Gab). Leaving aside her injudicious application of the words 'standards' and 'transparency', Sandberg is categorically wrong. Much of the madness on Capitol Hill was strategised and promulgated in the fever-dream depths of MAGA and QAnon Facebook. They were then, and they still are now .
Is this a new era of corporations acting in the interest of regulating the political sphere? At best it's an unprecedented and forthright expression of corporate responsibility. A slightly more cynical reading of the situation might suggest that these companies are simply accommodating the incoming power and forthcoming regulation in Washington.
There is also another, even less rosy interpretation of the corporate action against Trump. Consider this: radical wealth inequality is the breeding ground for the kind of extremism we've watched burn America for the past five years. French economist Thomas Piketty posits that in the 2010s inequality in the US was quantitively as extreme as in Europe in the first decade of the last century. Now, the country is forfeiting more social and political power to the handmaidens of capitalism. Will doing so exacerbate, or ameliorate, that inequality and its attendant extremism? What good is silencing Trump if doing so buttresses the very system that created him?
Worldlywise
A jab in the dark
Our world is awash with vaccine misinformation, disinformation, and outright fantasy. The parlous state of public health education (in many countries) and shockingly inept communication from various authorities has created fertile ground for conspiracists and zealots. It's not just outright anti-vaxxers out there, we've been introduced to new shades of the vaccine-sceptical and vaccine-hesitant. Given all this, any communication about the efficacy of vaccines must be clear and unambiguous. Enter Sinovac Biotech.
The Chinese company has the dubious distinction of receiving four vastly different efficacy results. A Turkish trial found the Chinese vaccine had a boast-worthy 91.25% while Indonesia proffered a less than satisfactory 65%. Perhaps even more concerning was the fact that researchers in Brazil tabulated Sinovac's effectiveness at 78% in one week and then a measly 50.4% a week later! The São Paulo trial of 13,000 participants was the largest to date. There are manifold contributing factors for the varying results (first among them is the varying make-up of the groups being tested, and the apparent blending of results). But while you may take the time to find out that Brazil only recruited from a high-risk pool of healthcare workers for the trial, most people do not. As a result, headlines have sent tremors through countries like Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and dozens more where the Sinovac rollout is due to begin.
Nor is Sinovac alone in this. Some of the shine came off the AstraZeneca vaccine in recent days after Australian scientists called for its rollout to be halted in favour of the Pfizer and BioNTech shot. Their results showed an efficacy rate above 60% but below 80% which, in the view of some professionals, won't be enough to achieve herd immunity in Australia.
Back in China, the World Health Organisation's investigation continues to be held up at every opportunity. Two members were denied entry to the country yesterday in the latest display of Beijing's insistence that it is time for the world to move on because there is nothing to see in Wuhan.
Bulk justice
Contrary to what Hollywood has to say on the matter; it's not La Cosa Nostra you need to worry about. For all the films waxing lyrical about the Sicilian mob, it's the 'Ndrangheta syndicate that has proven most tenacious: it turns over €61b per year (making it larger than Deutsche Bank and McDonald's combined). The Calabrian mob is ruled by a number of families that have been almost impossible to crack. 'Ndrangheta members, aware of the gory retribution, are known to wear sentences stretching into decades rather than turning on the family. That is, until Emanuele Mancuso, son of the crime boss Luni, accepted police protection.
A four-year investigation, aided by information from within the sanctum sanctorum culminated in a spectacular raid in December 2019 . 2,500 heavily-armed police swept across Calabria (and 10 other regions), pulling hundreds of mafioso from safe-houses, secret bunkers, elaborate escape tunnels, and luxury penthouses. And it wasn't just capos and foot-soldiers being netted. A former Italian senator, a town mayor, councillors, lawyers, accountants, police, and business leaders were among those arrested. As the prosecutor said, "their strength lies in the ability to connect the underworld to the upper world".
All in all over 350 people are being tried in a 'maxi-trial' that opened this week in the heart of 'Ndrangheta territory: Lamezia Terme. Over 900 witnesses have been called to testify against them. No one expected this to be an easy win for prosecutors, but the setbacks have already begun: three judges have recused themselves on procedural grounds. The procedures may be troubling but there are probably other concerns for the judges as well. Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, the two judges who led the 1986 Palermo 'maxi-trial' against La Cosa Nostra, were both assassinated with car-bombs in 1992.
The best of times
Preservation in a pandemic
Many of us may be rushing to forget 2020, but Unesco has created a list of things to cherish: the 29 traditions added to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list . The customs enshrined range from grass mowing in Bosnia, hawker culture in Singapore, pottery making in Serbia, and Nar Bayrami, a pomegranate festival in Azerbaijan. Of course, due to the pandemic, the entries were submitted remotely. But a preserved tradition is a tradition that perseveres .
Fossil to fuels to plastics to fuels
What if instead of burying, polluting, or even burning plastic, we turned it into fuel and wax ? That’s exactly what a team of scientists from Tohoku and Osaka City Universities are doing. The idea isn’t new, however, their method is more efficient: it uses temperatures below 500° kelvin, compared to the 570-1170° kelvin needed for other techniques. So, say goodbye to fuel which comes from fossils.
The worst of times
A sixth mass extinction
The insect world is suffering a slow burning extinction crisis. 1-2% of some species are dying off every year, says a report conducted by 56 scientists. The main contributors to the die-off are you and me, or more specifically, habitat loss, climate change, and land degradation. Even more alarmingly, the study had gaps in its data — meaning experts know little about the size of arthropods in places outside North America and Europe. Don’t forget: the planet needs insects.
An accelerating apocalypse
New research suggests we’ve severely underestimated the condition of the world’s natural state. 150 environmental studies were reviewed to get this holistic, albeit horrifying, view. Some of the stark findings include: 1,300 documented species extinctions in 500 years, a two-thirds decline in animal population sizes over the last 50 years, and an 85% loss of wetlands globally in 300 years. On top of that, the specialisation of scientists is hindering even them from getting a holistic view of the damage done to our planet.
Weekend Reading
The image
The quote
"And buy a hairband so that you don't look dishevelled after having the baby."
– An information pamphlet from Seoul's city administration was full of advice for pregnant women . Other tips included a suggestion to pre-cook meals before going into labour to relieve pressure on their husbands in the postpartum. There is no word yet on whether the author of the pamphlet has spoken to their mother about it.
The numbers
790%
- The increase in the number of part-time or full-time life coaches in the United States since 2001. This explains... just about everything.
43,000,000
- The total number of hectares of forest cut down in the 13 years to 2017 in the world's worst deforestation hotspots . That's two United Kingdoms worth of forest – razed.
The headline
"Bali’s thieving monkeys can spot high-value items to ransom" – The Guardian .
The special mention
A very deserving special mention this week goes to Stefan Thomas , a programmer from San Francisco who cannot access the $220m worth of Bitcoin on his digital wallet because he forgot the password. He’s had eight successful attempts at unlocking his hoard. At 10 incorrect guesses the wallet will lock him out permanently. The best jokes are the relatable ones, aren't they?
A few choice long-reads
- Roger Cox sued the Netherlands to force the country to abide by the greenhouse gas targets it had set. Can he do the same thing to entire fossil fuel industry? Financial Times investigates.
- Last decade the horrors of technology were realised in Facebook-fuelled pogroms and the dragnet surveillance of billions. The Economist makes the case for a new technological dawn in the 2020s.
- How many people do you know who display ‘dismissive positivity’ – a forced cheerfulness in the face of negative experiences? Bloomberg Businessweek investigates the fate optimism that is making things worse.
Tom Wharton @trwinwriting
