The Question
How is the Amazon faring?
Talking Points
- A Twitter whistle-blower revealed awful infosec
- Biden forgave $10k of student debt
- An unvaccinated Djokovic bowed out of the US
- Finland’s PM is still cooler than yours
- Spain passed a no-brainer consent law
- US forces struck Iran-backed militias in Syria
- Mozambican rebels launched a new offensive
- A siege in Mogadishu left 20 dead and 117 wounded
- Daniel Ricciardo and McLaren parted ways
- Japan considered the once-unthinkable: more nuclear energy
Deep Dive
In Ukraine we found a long-running disaster and an immediate one. If anything can be gleaned from the conflict right now it's that we shouldn't hold our breath for a resolution.
In lieu of a victory parade
On Wednesday, Ukraine marked 31 years of independence from Russia and six months of defensive war. Expecting a volley of missiles from Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his countryfolk to stay away from public spaces on the day. Some red-blooded patriots threw caution to the wind and enjoyed the day out in Kyiv. The centrepiece of the celebration was a parade of scorched and mangled Russian tanks. People clambered atop the wreckages; continuing a tradition that stretches back to the rostrum of ancient Rome. Calm did not reign beyond the city. In his nightly address, President Zelenskyy reported 22 deaths and as many injuries when Russian shells hit a train station in Dnipropetrovsk oblast. The war goes on.
No anniversary simply gazes backwards. Any moment marked in time is also a question about the future. After six months of gruelling conflict, with losses on both sides running towards six figures, what comes next? Neither side appears even remotely serious about negotiations, which suggests that both are committed to the tempo of losses. Russia does not have the capacity to break through to Odesa, and the downscaled Donbas offensive has stalled. To that end, the Kremlin has announced plans to recruit another 137,000 for the armed forces. Ukraine meanwhile has neither the manpower not the materiel to succeed in its much-hyped push towards Kherson. The 2,400km front-line is, while static, brimming with violence.
As Russians dig in for the winter , and the Ukrainian drone pilots tell us they most assiduously have, the war will slow further. So we are looking at months of skirmishes, with both sides using drones and artillery to pick off each other's armour. It makes for good propaganda clips on social media and is doing wonders for Bayraktar's sales but will not break the stalemate.
Please don't shoot the nuclear power station
Nuclear fission is the process of smashing a neutron into an atom in order to split it. This is desirable because it turns out that cleaving the fundamental building blocks of the universe produces a spectacular amount of heat. You get the rest: heat, water, steam, turbine, electricity. The thing with splitting atoms though, is that it can get dicey. Given all that heat and radiation, nuclear power plants require sophisticated cooling and protective mechanisms with multiple fail-safe power sources. Otherwise a controlled fission reaction can quickly become uncontrolled, spark a chain reaction, and cause a reactor meltdown.
The Ukrainian nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia on the Dnieper has had all of its redundancy plans tested. It has three sets of power lines running to the grid, a back-up line to a nearby coal plant, and emergency diesel generators. Two of the primary lines were knocked out early in the war, and this week the third was broken on two occasions by shelling . It was reconnected swiftly but it brought Europe's largest nuclear power plant within one more disrupted power line and a few days' diesel fuel of becoming Chernobyl.
Now, you don't need to be Sun Tzu reincarnate to know that shelling a nuclear power station doesn't sit flush with successful military doctrine. And yet shells keep landing in and around Zaporizhzhia. Zelenskyy blamed Russian artillery. The funny thing is that the bank of the Dnieper in question is firmly under Russian control. And they probably aren't shelling themselves. So, if any of you have a direct line to whoever is commanding Ukraine's counter-battery artillery units on the other side of the river in Nikopol, feel free to pass on their details.
Worldlywise
Is he coming or going?
This week let's do a rapid fire round of embattled, embroiled, and beleaguered leaders...
Since being turfed as Pakistan’s prime minister in a no-confidence vote earlier in the year Khan has gone to the mattresses. The former cricket star has used a series of huge rallies to raise pressure on the establishment that toppled him. This isn’t a polite insurgency; Khan has used the opportunity to launch tirades at the real power that keeps Pakistan’s politics in check — the army. Some of his comments about the judiciary and police saw him slapped with anti-terror charges. The courts saw the writing on the wall and preemptively granted him bail . If he is arrested you can expect his followers to follow through on their threat to “take over Islamabad”. Imran Khan is coming. In Malaysia, the former PM Najib Razak has failed in his bid to have his graft conviction (and attendant 12 year jail term) overturned. It’s a good result because he is up to his neck in 1MDB shenanigans and guilty as sin. Najib Razak is going.
And in Thailand, the transition from coup-leader to civilian politician was never going to be an easy one for Prayut Chan-o-cha . After the country’s 2013-14 constitutional crisis, and the incessant Yellow- and Red-shirt protests, Prayut did as army chief’s are wont to do - he took the government for himself. He then managed to hang on in the disputed 2019 election, but not without raising a stink for claiming his eight-year term in office started then, rather than when he assumed office five years earlier. This week the country’s constitutional court suspended him from office while it mulls over the legalities of it all. Oddly it looks like he is going along with it. It’s too early to say whether Prayut Chan-o-cha is coming or going.
The merge
We'll be the first to admit that the crypto industry (insofar that it is one) has received short shrift in this column. After all, it is a techno-dystopia built by an avaricious god in which survival is predicated on stealing (or at least destroying) the life-savings of gullible people... but that doesn't mean that some developers aren't trying to bring cryptocurrencies into the light. The merge is one prominent example.
If the prices of unregulated assets is your measure then Ether (ETH) is a poor cousin to Bitcoin (BTC). But Ethereum is a far grander project; not just a model for decentralised payments but a secure receptacle for code on which smart contracts and new applications can be developed. It has always operated on the same proof-of-work system : a set of complex mathematical equations that computers on the network must complete to validate transactions and mine new coins. Security and consensus comes at the cost of efficiency — proof-of-work is by nature duplicative and wasteful. The computation power required has metastasized to the equivalent of Argentina's electricity consumption .
This, as you will have grasped, is not particularly scalable. Which is why Ethereum has been planning a move to a new proof-of-stake consensus engine for years. This system replaces consensus with trust. Validators 'stake' some of their cryptocurrency holdings for the opportunity to validate transactions (and thus earn more cryptocurrency). If they mess up the authentication or try to pull a swift one they'll lose their stake. By killing off the mining, Ethereum is expecting a 99.5% drop in electricity consumption across the network. In cryptocurrency circles (aside from all the Bitcoin maximalists out there) 'the merge' is spoken about in awed tones. And after a few dry-runs, it's happening in several steps across the next three weeks .
The Best Of Times
Sitting in traffic (fume-free)
California has banned the sale of gasoline-powered cars from 2035 . Great news on the emissions front. Now for the love of God just build a functional public transport system.
Another nuclear deal is close
Four years after Donald Trump withdrew America from the Iran Nuclear Deal there are encouraging signs that the agreement could be restored within weeks . This has been a delicate, sensible process of reengagement by the Americans. If it's successful, most of the praise should be heaped on the Iranians for returning to the table. And on European negotiators for their persistence. But save some also for the Americans who stared down the spittle-flecked outrage-mongers. Anyone who is even remotely serious about a peaceful region supports the deal.
The Worst Of Times
The cover up
On the 26th of September, 2014, a group of students at one of Mexico's more radical teachers' colleges was intercepted en route to a protest. Local police, acting on the orders of Iguala's mayor, marched all 43 off the bus and into thin air. Nothing but the bone fragments of three students was ever found. Then-Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam blamed local police and a murderous drug gang. This week Karam was arrested by investigators of his former office; accused of covering up the involvement of the military as well as state and federal politicians.
The death of the dugong
These divine, reserved creatures have been labelled officially extinct in China's contaminated waterways. An avoidable tragedy.
Highlights
The Image
Jair Bolsonaro cradles the embalmed heart of the Portuguese monarch who created an independent Brazil. The preserved organ was flown from Porto to Brasilia for the 200th anniversary of Dom Pedro I's declaration on September 7, 1822. Let's see if this surreal prop (which has more than a hint of the continent's famed literary tradition of magic realism) gets Bolsonaro over the line in October. Photo supplied by Reuters .
The Quote
"The jury is out. But if I become prime minister I would judge him on deeds not words."
– Britain's would-be PM Liz Truss shows off some of that famed diplomatic nous when asked whether Emmanuel Macron is a friend or foe. To the untrained eye it sounds like Truss has impugned the character of one of Britain's closest and most important allies for the sake of a few extra hoots in the crowd. But her second line contains a hidden message to Macron: please don't judge me on the words coming out of my mouth — I just want this job .
The Numbers
£400,000,000 worth of anti-capitalist art
- American private equity giant Blackstone is buying Pink Floyd's back catalogue for £400m. Here are some lyrics from the 1973 hit Money, posted without comment...
Money, it's a hit
Don't give me that do goody-good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first-class travelling set
And I think I need a Learjet
53% say no
- A slim majority of respondents to one Japanese poll do not want assassinated former leader Shinzo Abe to receive a state funeral . It turns out that plenty of people weren't too pleased with the cosy relationship between Abe's Liberal Democratic Party and the shady Unification church . If you'd like to do further reading here is some compelling material on the Moonies , Japanese fascists, and a three-letter agency based in Langley, Virginia.
The Headlines
"Texas church issues apology for unauthorised 'Christian' Hamilton that rewrote bawdy raps" — The Guardian
"Chinese film censors 'alter ending of Minions: The Rise of Gru'" — The Independent
The Special Mention
Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to hog the limelight when it comes to steering the United Kingdom to its logical conclusion. That's why our Special Mention this week goes to proud Welshman Jon Scriven . The Plaid Cymru councillor for Penyrheol, Caerphilly has opted for a substantially less finicky process than an independence referendum. Scriven is in a bit of strife for standing on the bank of the Bristol Channel with a rifle "stopping any English people trying to cross".
The Best Long Reads
- Businessweek swallows a magic mushroom pill
- The Atlantic blows the whistle on whistleblowers
- Foreign Affairs fathoms China's dire drought
The Answer...
Just the 3,358 fires were burning on Monday.
