Talking Points
- The first all-civilian crew to enter orbit blasted off on a SpaceX rocket
- Apple warned of a software vulnerability to 'zero-click' attacks
- California's Gov Gavin Newsom handily beat a recall vote
- Trinidadian rapper Nikki Minaj caused a Covid vaccine scare
- Britain signalled a possible return to imperial measurements!!!
- French socialist Anne Hidalgo began her tilt at the Élysée Palace
- Italy was stunned by the kidnapping of the cable-car catastrophe child
- North and South Korea flexed with long-range missile tests
- Rodrigo Duterte spurned the ICC's probe into his drug war
- Protests widened as Chinese developer Evergrande teetered
Dive deeper
A pair of cases in Beijing and Washington reveal the uneven path the #MeToo movement treads across the world. This week we look to Zhou Xiaoxuan and Simone Biles, just two women among the legion demanding to be heard.
Life after Angela
In 2018, the nascent #MeToo movement was showing signs of going global . It emerged from America's entertainment industry in a whirlwind and was intensified by every new piece of testimony. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, its genesis in one of the most privileged quarters of the United States, it was reproduced all over the world. The particulars were different but the blueprint was, and sadly still remains, universal. A woman, often young and early in her career, was explicitly or implicitly told that her career depended on accepting the sexual advances and abuses of a man, often older and in a position of authority.
In China, women have had to press against the grain of a conservative culture and a trigger-happy censor to even have their stories heard. One such story has risen to particular prominence. Zhu Jun, a presenter of unparalleled renown in China, was accused of groping and kissing an intern several decades his junior. It's hard to overstate Zhu's position: he hosts the Spring Festival Gala on CCTV, a broadcast that reached just shy of 1.3b people last year. The intern, Zhou Xiaoxuan, was bringing a case against one of the most popular (and powerful) men in the world. In December of last year, the matter was sent to the Haidian district court in Beijing. Before several hundred supporters, a tearful Zhou told the world , "We may be joyous or we may run into setbacks. But please don't take my setbacks to heart. We have to believe that even if history repeats itself, things will definitely progress."
On Tuesday, the judge dismissed Zhou's case on the grounds of insufficient evidence . An exhausted Zhou decried the court for not allowing the admission of inculpatory evidence, specifically surveillance footage.
After years of waiting, it's still unclear whether the turning point has arrived for women in China. On one hand, the Canadian-Chinese pop star Kris Wu was arrested on suspicion of rape of at least one, and possibly as many as 24 young women and girls. But in the same month, a senior Alibaba manager accused of rape was freed after just 15 days detention because an investigation failed to find grounds for a criminal offence in his actions.
As for Zhou – the police who took her complaint warned her that pursuing it would damage the reputation of the national broadcaster and hurt the feelings of Zhu's fans.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
By now you'll know the case of Larry Nassar – it slightly predated the #MeToo movement and helped stoke it. The former team doctor for USA Gymnastics, and sports medicine physician at Michigan State University, committed countless acts of sexual assault on minors under his care. Nassar abused hundreds of girls o ver several decades as the top of the country's gymnastics program. Among his victims are names most regularly associated with podia adorned with five interlocking rings: Raisman, Douglas, Biles, Maroney. For once there is no chance for absolution, no escape from justice. When handing down a 175-year term, the sentencing judge told Nassar, "I just signed your death warrant."
But Nassar was not just a 'bad apple'. As is too often the case, his abuses were enabled by a culture of secrecy and deference. This week, testimony before the United States Senate shone a fearsome torch on that culture. Here's Simone Biles , arguably the greatest competitive gymnast in history, "the scars of this horrific abuse continue to live with all of us... To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse. USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge".
McKayla Maroney slammed the 2015 investigation that failed to get off the ground. The lawmakers gathered heard, "not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said." The former Olympic team captain is understandably disgusted, "we are still fighting for the most basic answers and accountability over six years later". And here's the kicker: when girls and women report abuse they do so to authorities that have a disgraceful track record of taking them seriously. To wit, the Department of Justice reported that the FBI, America's peak investigative apparatus, had "mishandled" the case. They dragged their feet on the case and extraordinarily didn't even get in touch with all the gymnasts who had volunteered to be interviewed. As Aly Raisman pointed out, that mishandling allowed Nassar to abuse more girls.
What's clear from all these stories is that we live in a society that has yet to slip the bonds of a patriarchal world view. But hopefully, as Zhou says, things will progress.
Worldlywise
That sinking feeling
This week US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison further tightened their countries' military partnership. A new AUKUS treaty would share cyber-warfare, AI, and most-importantly, nuclear-submarine propulsion technology. Of course, the US and UK are already nuclear states with sophisticated nuclear-powered submarine programs. But for Australia, a military minnow, this is a chance to get its hands on some highly-sophisticated pieces of naval hardware. The rub is that it will take up to two decades to build said submarines . In the meantime, the announcement has tee'd off both Paris and Beijing .
The reality is that an arms-race is underway in the Indo-Pacific . Countries are increasingly being pulled between the American and Chinese spheres of influence. India too is investing heavily in a naval defensive screen to face off any threat exiting the Malacca Straits (or the planned Kra Isthmus Canal). Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are all mass-producing ballistic missiles which, given their range, look less and less like anti-access/area denial weapons. Smaller countries, many that have been loathe to be partisan, are also now stockpiling long-range missiles.
The problem is that China has already won the arms race. It has spent lavishly to modernise its navy. New carriers, new nuclear submarines, and a whole sweep of fortified positions throughout the South China Sea. Considering that, by most projections, China's economy will eclipse America's in the next few years, there is simply no way to keep up with China's defence spending.
Australia has entered this arms race late, and in typically novitiate fashion. In other words, it has rocked up to a knife fight with the threat of a gun that will be completed in a decade or two.
An old naval adage holds that there are only two types of vessels; submarines and targets. In this regard, Australia appears to have made a prudent decision . But in the context of frantic tension with its biggest trading partner, a partner that also happens to be the rising regional power, things are less clear. One might argue that in getting these subs Australia has in fact just made itself a target.
Good intentions pave what again?
Simply put: everyone is using Canva. And that includes the social media and marketing teams of PayPal, Zoom, and Marriott International, to name a few. It's a comprehensive and intuitive tool that allows your technologically illiterate relatives to whip up a wedding invitation that doesn't look, well, you know. Hitting both the professional and novice market is a rare thing, and naturally investors are lining up to show the colour of their money. Canva has just raised USD$200m and at a valuation of $40bn , catapulting itself into the top-5 most-valuable startups. Founders Melanie Perkins and Cliff Olbrecht are sitting pretty. But they've pledged to give it all away .
The couple intend to move the "vast majority" of their stake into the Canva Foundation. Its first project will distribute $7 million in mobile payments to impoverished people in Southern Africa through the non-profit GiveDirectly. It's a small step, but in the right direction. That said, Perkins and Olbrecht would do well to look to some Americans for cautionary wisdom: Bill and Melinda Gates.
The foundation that bears the name of the recently-divorced pair is a major backer of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an NGO dedicated to addressing chronic hunger and poverty. Since 2006, AGRA has disbursed $1.4bn in the pursuit of two ambitious goals: to reduce food insecurity by half, and to double yields and income for 30 million subsistence farmers. How's it all going? Analysis from Tufts University researchers found that farm production is growing by the same rate as it was before AGRA’s intervention. The research found that farmers are not taking up AGRA’s offer of high-yield seeds and synthetic fertilisers because they’re expensive and, well, don’t produce high-enough yields. In some cases, these interventions might be doing more harm than good by reducing crop and diet diversity, thus making farmers less resilient to natural disasters and climate change.
At best, that's $1.4bn flushed down the toilet, at worst it's a net negative. All good food for thought for the newest crop of well-intending billionaires.
The best of times
A practice hundreds of millennia in the making
This week a team of researchers unveiled the oldest parietal art yet: five sets of foot and handprints. Found in the Tibetan plateau, the prints are believed to be between 169,000 and 226,000 years old. The find is also the earliest example of human presence in the Tibetan plateau. Due to their small size, they are thought to have been made by two children, aged seven and 12.
Moo loo
We can do more than ditch fossil fuels or fly less often, to combat climate change. Potty-training cows could help. This may sound like a joke, but it turns out cow urine can be quite harmful to the environment. Over time, cow urine breaks down into the airborne pollutant nitrous oxide. It also creates toxic nitrate that leeches into streams and rivers through soil. In 2019, nitrous oxide made up seven percent of all the US’ greenhouse gasses. And so, training cows to urinate in special pens can help reduce the amount of both substances entering the environment.
The worst of times
Profit and pollution
An estimated 2.1m Kenyans are facing starvation as a result of a punishing drought across half the country. The regions affected by the drought are already suffering food insecurity due to high levels of poverty. Of course, the pandemic is playing a part too. A smaller workforce and higher food demand means many are unable to afford food at higher prices. As both the pandemic and drought continue, the number of people facing starvation is expected to increase.
The woe zone
This year’s hole in the ozone layer has gotten bigger than Antarctica , a size unusual for this time in the season. Those monitoring the opening say it is among the largest ozone holes recorded since 1979. It follows last year’s hole, which peaked at three times the size of the continental US and didn’t close until Christmas. The pattern is worrying climate scientists who fear that the ozone layer’s recovery is under threat after years of damage from halocarbons.
Weekend Reading
The image
The quote
"At the end of the day, if it's really successful, they'll kill it... Because they have ways of killing it"
– Ray Dalio, founder Bridgewater Associates, gave his pronouncements in a wide-ranging interview this week. The choice cut was on Bitcoin: he revealed a modest holding of the cryptocurrency but warned that its success may be its undoing . Dalio had other helpful pearls, like "cash is trash" , which is the kind of statement that you'd expect from the boss of the world's largest hedge fund.
The numbers
A production to valuation ratio of 1:80,000,000,000
- The built-from-scratch EV manufacturer Rivian Automotive Inc. has unveiled the world's first electric pick-up truck (read: ute), the R1T. Machinists were joined by executives as the first one rolled off the production line in Normal, Illinois. Rivian has beaten the Detroit Three and Tesla to the punch, and has been rewarded handsomely on earning potential: at a valuation of $80bn it's bigger than General Motors.
$12,000,000,000,000
- This week the United Nations underlined the compounding effects of Covid on the world's poorest countries: they'll be $12tn worse off by 2025 . The deeply, shamefully, inequitable distribution of vaccines around the world (a point we've made regularly in this column) will drag on these economies for decades. A representative from the UN Conference on Trade and Development decried the status quo as "a full-blown rentier economy with global reach".
The headline
"Facebook tried to make its platform a healthier place. It got angrier instead." – Livemint .
The special mention
Vale, Norm Macdonald . All humour is subjective, but the inundation of praise for him shows that he touched something deeper. Norm was simply one of the funniest people to ever do it. In an era of changing social mores around comedy, he stuck firm to his belief that "bad comedians say things to make people clap, not laugh". He was never in any danger of making us clap.
A few choice long-reads
- If cash is trash, what does that make cryptocurrency? A fascinated look at the myth-making around crypto from The Economist.
- The modern state of Australia has been around for just over a century – a blink of the eye, historically speaking. Businessweek argues it may be facing the biggest crisis of its short life.
- Every foreign power that meddles in Afghanistan runs out of options. When will China? A timely piece from Foreign Affairs.
Tom Wharton @trwinwriting
