Changing global market dynamics have led to an increasing demand for lithium. A critical field of ongoing development is battery power storage technology, which is vital to everything from mobile devices to electric vehicles. Lithium batteries are lightweight and can store energy efficiently. These batteries will be critical in the transition to green energy. Thus, the price of lithium has rocketed.

Chile possesses large quantities of lithium, with the northern Andes region holding significant deposits. In fact, the country boasts, over one-third of the world total.

One cost-effective technique for extracting the metal involves evaporating brine. Northern Chile’s Atacama Salt Flat accounts for of global output in terms of lithium extracted from brines.

The changing dynamics of Chile’s copper industry

This is not the first time Chile has been a mining powerhouse. Throughout its modern history, Chile has relied on a sizeable copper mining industry, which spurred Chile to become the middle-income economy it is today. Chile now produces nearly a quarter of the world’s copper, and the industry contributes around 10% of the country’s GDP. in the Atacama Desert is one of the world’s largest open-pit copper mines.

The National Copper of Chile (CODELCO), founded in 1976, oversaw the mining boom. CODELCO is still a state-owned copper company today.

Chile’s copper industry has witnessed a recent decline in production due to aging mines, declining ore grades and increasing production costs. Despite dominating the national economy and world supply, the copper industry does not provide a suitable environment for foreign investment.

The national lithium strategy

Lithium is now replacing copper as the most attractive investment destination in Chile.

Chile has been keen to take full advantage of its natural resources and has accordingly prepared a. The Chilean government website describes the strategy “to incorporate capital, technology, sustainability and value addition, in harmony with local communities.” At the moment, production is concentrated in the hands of limited companies, but the state is looking forward to expanding the sector.

The strategy aims to focus on public-private partnership, allowing a newly formed to guarantee a stake for the state whilst allowing private companies to contribute technological know-how and expertise.

The National Lithium Company will eventually retain control over all projects in the country, but there is plenty of space for private sector actors to work with them and reap the rewards. State copper company and state mining company will be interim state representatives while the National Lithium Company is created. Although copper remains largely controlled by the state, Santiago will allow more private competition in the lithium market.

Downstream benefits

Abundant lithium in Chile, makes it well placed to benefit from all the tech opportunities at its doorstep. The country has a solid manufacturing base that could pivot towards either battery production or electric vehicle assembly. It has incredible potential for both photovoltaic solar and wind energy, due to near-constant sunny conditions in northern Chile and plenty of elevated areas with significantly windy conditions. This means that increased battery production in-country can be immediately put to good use.

The country has an excellent educational system by regional standards and a highly innovative business environment. Chile has a strong pool of engineers and skilled workers. Chile’s number of graduates exceeds the number of job openings, resulting in a competitively priced workforce.

What happens next?

The future of the Chilean market appears bright. The country is blessed with an enormous reserve of the world’s third most in-demand metal. Lithium industries in Chile are growing rapidly as a diversification option to provide extra security for the economy. The industry will not only have robust exports but also incubate new sectors and energy supplies.

For canny investors with an eye to the future, the lithium sector in Chile is deemed to be profitable in the future. Rewards are practically guaranteed in the short to medium term. Longer-term prospects also look extremely reliable. The experience and continuing success of CODELCO indicates how the state will behave in the lithium sector. The government looks to retain control over the direction and environment of the sector while allowing private enterprises to invest, compete and profit.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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At the end of 2019, months of social protest and days of violence across Chile gripped the country. At the time, mainstream political forces and President Sebastian Pinera’s government managed to appease the protesters and halt social upheaval. In return, he gave in to growing calls for a vote on whether or not Chile should get a new constitution.

Joe Biden Faces Many Challenges in Latin America

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Almost a year later, in October 2020, Chileans voted in a national referendum and chose to abandon their current constitution, which was inherited from the era of General Augusto Pinochet. Now, the people have elected an assembly that is in charge of writing and proposing a new charter.

Tectonic Shift

In a race that represented a political earthquake, 155 constituents were to form a Constitutional Convention. Chile’s traditional political elite lost significant ground to independent candidates, political influencers and social movements.

Center-right and center-left parties, which led the transition to democracy in the 1990s, took the hit. Chile Vamos, a center-right coalition led by the president, failed to reach the one-third of seats it expected. Pinera has led the country since 2018 and had previously governed between 2010 and 2014. The loss means Chile Vamos cannot veto reforms perceived as too left leaning.

Apruebo Dignidad, a new, more militant left-wing coalition, outperformed the traditional center left, known simply as Apruebo. Now, Apruebo Dignidad has senior-partner status and a more favorable position within the Constitutional Convention than the Apruebo coalition. A faction of the Apruebo Dignidad coalition, known as the Frente Amplio, first entered the political stage in 2017, emerging from student movements with a militant agenda.

Independent candidates are the biggest winners. The convention is controlled by 64% of constituents who do not belong to a political party — only 36% of them are party militants, excluding the 17 seats reserved for indigenous peoples. However, it is fair to say that most of these independent constituents have left-leaning affinities.

The next step in the country’s constitutional process includes the swearing-in of the convention, which will be on July 4. This will be followed by nine months of discussions and the drafting of the new magna carta. Once the new constitution is ready, a national plebiscite or referendum will be held in which Chileans will vote on whether to adopt it.

Participation and Abstention

During the referendum in 2020, 79% of voters a new constitution. Despite this, electoral participation has been weak throughout the entire process. In 2012, Chile abandoned compulsory voting. Since then, the fact that many Chileans choose not to vote might become an issue in the mid-to-long term. This could have an impact on how representative the Constitutional Convention is of public sentiment. The highest rate of voter participation throughout the constitutional review process was achieved during the initial referendum in 2020, in which 50.8% of registered voters took part.

Last month, just of the 15 million registered voters cast their ballot, representing just over 6 million in a country of around 19 million people. Taking into account the number of null-and-void votes and blank ballot papers, only 38.3% of registered voters chose their preferred candidates for the composition of the Constitutional Convention. The numbers were even worse in the election of governors, which took place on June 13, in which only 19.6% of voters participated. This was the worst rate ever recorded in Chile.

A conducted two days after the May elections found that people did not vote for four main reasons. Some Chileans cited transportation problems to reach a voting site, while others mentioned election fatigue due to the number of votes that have taken place lately. Some were not sure who to vote for. Others said they had a general lack of interest in politics or in these polls. Election fatigue was compounded by the fact that the vote for the convention was held at the same time as regional and local elections — the latter of which were part of the regular electoral schedule.

Short-Term Fallout

Only after the May election did important developments take place. On May 19, three days after polls closed, parties had to register their candidates for the presidential primaries, which will be held in July. The primaries will determine who runs in the general election in November. Whoever wins that contest would be in charge of implementing Chile‘s constitutional transition.

Thus, the last few weeks have represented a political earthquake for traditional coalitions. In particular, the historically dominant center left dropped several presidential candidates for November’s contest. It also broke historical alliances and failed to reach broad agreements to nominate a single coalition candidate for the general election. Only the center-right Chile Vamos and the left-wing Apruebo Dignidadregistered their candidates for the primaries on July 18. To the surprise and concern of many, communist candidate Daniel Jadue will, according to the latest polling, make it to the presidential election’s runoff.

Meanwhile, the June election for the 16 governors of Chile’s regions, which is an early indicator for the presidential race, shifted territorial power to the moderate left.

The outcome of the presidential and parliamentary elections will be significant in the short term as it will determine the checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government. This, in turn, will affect the practical workings of the Constitutional Convention. It will also have an impact on whether Chile’s political shift to the left is structural or temporary.

The End of the Chicago Boys

With this in mind, it is currently difficult to predict the makeup of Chile’s next government. The question is whether it will be dominated by left-wing forces or if the Chile Vamos coalition manages to distance itself from the Pinera and secure another term in office. Nevertheless, as the work of the Constitutional Convention gets underway, it is evident that the resulting charter will represent a much more socioeconomically progressive framework than what Chile has had since its transition to democracy in 1990.

Chile’s new constitution will undoubtedly turn the page on the country’s laissez-faire orthodoxy inherited from the “,” who shaped the country’s economy under Pinochet. The constitution will likely also have an impact on other issues, including gender equality, the recognition of indigenous peoples, the social safety net and environmental concerns.

It remains to be seen whether Chile’s constitutional revisions will set it on a path of more equitable growth or one of uncontrolled state spending. But one thing is clear: Chile’s post-Pinochet model has become unsustainable. It is now up to the statespersons of South America’s most prosperous and advanced economy to ensure that this chapter does not go down in history as a missed opportunity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Will American Democracy Perish Like Rome’s?

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The most famous was instituted by South Africa’s 1995 Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. The goal of the new TRC was to uncover the truth about human rights violations during decades of apartheid. The emphasis was on finding the truth from both victims and perpetrators, not on prosecuting individuals for past crimes. In this regard, it differed from the Nuremberg trials that prosecuted Nazis for their crimes.

Societal Schism

The events of January 6 have exposed societal schism to the world. Now, the US needs actions, not words, to form a fully representative, multi-party equivalent of the South African TRC to deal with enduring injustices across the nation. The current American social problem is complex, multi-generational and multi-dimensional. As such, it is not likely to be easily or speedily ameliorated. However, admitting the problem in the style of alcoholics anonymous is a necessary first step to avoiding a looming cultural and economic civil war.

The fundamental problem in America is its broken education system. According to Pew Research Center, a large percentage of Americans still reject the theory of . As per the National Center for Educational Statistics, 21% (43 million) of American adults are functionally — e.g., lacking the basic ability to use reading, writing and calculation skills for their own and the community’s development. The US may be the world superpower, but its poorly educated citizens often lack critical thinking and judgment. Seduced by demagogues, they have drifted into warring camps.

Many thoughtful Americans are worried about divisions in society. The December 2019 issue of was a special report titled “How to Stop a Civil War.” It examined “a nation coming apart.” The magazine brought together the nation’s best writers to confront questions of American unity and fracture. That issue has proved to be prescient.

Since the 2020 elections, the rhetoric in the US became increasingly toxic. Disinformation was rife, calls for insurrection came right from the top and the pot of anger boiled over on January 6. It may not be , but disunity reigns in the United States. A TRC that digs out the truth might be exactly what America needs in a post-truth world.

Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

There have been three significant TRCs since 1990 in South Africa, Chile and Canada. The results of these appear to be mixed. In balance, they seem to have had a positive impact on the arc of the history of their respective societies.

The story of South Africa’s TRC is too well known to be told in full here. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, investigated crimes during apartheid to record the truth. The TRC offered amnesty to perpetrators of many crimes and rehabilitation as well as reparations to the victims. It might be fair to say that the work of the TRC allowed South Africa to make a peaceful transition from a horrendously unjust apartheid regime to a plural, democratic society.

Chile’s TRC the South African one. It operated from May 1990 to February 1991. The mandate of the Rettig Commission, as Chile’s TRC has come to be known, was to document human rights abuses that resulted in death or disappearance during the years of military rule from September 11, 1973, to March 11, 1990. Notably, investigating torture and abuses that did not result in death did not form part of the mandate of the Rettig Commission. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument to be made why Chile’s TRC was the first step that led to last year’s in which Chileans voted to rewrite the military-era constitution.

Canada’s TRC the Chilean and South African ones. Between 2007 and 2015, it provided those directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian residential school system with an opportunity to share their stories and experiences. The TRC spent six years traveling to all parts of Canada and recorded experiences of 6,500 witnesses. It recorded the history and legacy of the numerous injustices perpetrated by the residential school system to the indigenous peoples. Its six-volume report with 94 “calls to action” has been accepted by the Canadian government and marks a watershed in the country’s history.

An American Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Unlike South Africa, Chile and Canada, America’s injustices and even its divisions are messier. There is no equivalent of an apartheid or military regime to investigate. Investigating only the injustices against the indigenous Native Americans or formerly enslaved African Americans would be too narrow a remit to renew the American social fabric.

America’s schisms include, but are not limited to, those in education, culture, geography, politics, religious beliefs, skin color and immigration. Just as Catholics and different Protestant sects interpret the Bible in various ways, Americans have radically different interpretations of the Constitution and its amendments. Like many reports, articles and documentaries have now recorded, social media has exacerbated the fractures in American society. Truth itself is in question and distrust in institutions is dangerously high.

The purpose of establishing an American TRC is to slow down, and potentially reverse, the steady rupturing of a fundamentally decent society espousing equal opportunity for all. To avoid the growing risk of a dystopian cultural war, the US needs to identify the problems it faces. If social media is exacerbating divisions, how exactly is it doing so? Is polarization in America based on resentment of the white working class against metropolitan elites, or is it the rural versus urban divide? If so many Americans are functionally illiterate, what exactly is going wrong in the education system? If is now below that in my home country of the UK, why is that so?

For a truth and reconciliation commission to be credible, it must not only identify problems but also provide solutions. Like its Canadian counterpart, it could come up with “calls to action.” Members of an American TRC must come from all walks of life, different political, cultural and religious philosophies, and have a reputation for integrity. In a partisan democracy with tribal political loyalties, they must not belong to any political party. Their core task must be to diagnose what ails America and what can heal it. Only then can this nation, which I have made my home, can be restored to its much-hallowed promise.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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Will Chile Listen to Its People?

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Due to the coronavirus pandemic, a referendum scheduled for April 2020 had to be postponed. But on October 25, Chileans will finally go to the ballot box to vote on whether they want a new constitution and, if so, how it should be drawn up. If the option of constitutional change wins, elections will be called for April 2021, with the goal of establishing an assembly that would write a new constitution within a maximum of 12 months.

Other countries have faced similar challenges in their republican life. Chile’s political party system has hit an impasse, following in the footsteps of Colombia and Venezuela in the 1980s or Ecuador and Bolivia in the 1990s. As outlined in the , “the Chilean party system has become increasingly fragmented and polarized in recent years, and is in a period of transition in which new actors are vying with powerful incumbents against a background of low public trust in political parties.”

Recent protests came against a backdrop of a political elite that was entrenched in their positions of power, an increase in corruption scandals, falling popular trust in the system and a decrease in .

The social uprising in Chile was sparked by people’s high levels of personal debt and their sense of prevailing social injustice. An often-repeated rallying cry since 2019 has been that “Chile woke up,” although, in reality, progressive social activism dates from the mid-2000s.

An Anti-Elite Uprising

Inequality is not the only factor behind the recent protests in Chile. As in all of Latin America, socioeconomic inequality has been a constant variable for several decades. Protesters took aim at the powerful elites, voicing criticism at abuses of power in the spheres of politics, business, religion and the military. Over the past decade, price fixing among large private companies took place in pharmacies and supermarkets, altering the cost of toilet paper and a long list of other basic products.

In addition, there was evidence of illegal financing of political campaigns, involving the majority of Chile’s political leaders. While crimes such as petty theft were punishable by jail, white collar crimes were punished with small fines or ridiculous penalties such as attending “ethics classes.”

For decades, Chile, along with Uruguay and Costa Rica, stood out from the rest of Latin America because of the institutional strength of its government. But now, Chile is facing the progressive collapse of the traditional political party system.

Widespread Calls for Reform

In recent years, Chile’s political center has lost its hold. The left is highly fragmented, the right is more radical and there is a sharp drop in voter turnout, with less than 50% of eligible voters participating in presidential elections and less than 40% in municipal ones. The increased polarization of the elite has created a climate of confrontation. Political parties have stopped fulfilling their role as intermediaries, meaning that the protests are practically the only form of expressing social discontent.

Faced with the crowds demonstrating on the streets, politicians kickstarted plans for the October referendum. Hopes for change are running high among many Chileans. A recent  that 64% of the respondents are planning to vote and 74% support the idea of changing the constitution.

Chile is likely to enter an intense period of change, encompassing the next presidential elections — in November 2021 — and the drafting of a new constitution. This offers scope for the elite to reconnect with citizens, who are tracking the process with both hope and suspicion. The next two years will likely involve uncertainty but also renewed politicization. As happened in Colombia in 1991, Chileans, facing a series of social crises, look set to opt to deepen democracy and to overturn their old constitutional guidelines.

There is already evidence of change. After the October 2019 social uprising, for example, the political elite agreed to review fundamental aspects of the constitutional rule relating to indigenous people and social rights. If October’s ballot opens the door to a new constitution, it will likely include new rules on equality and reserved seats for indigenous peoples. For many Chileans, such a move is long overdue.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

The post A Ballot That Could Redefine the Rules of Chile’s Democracy appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

enforce a program for the arts, as they do for all other domains of human life. The divergent regimes of  — who governed  between 1973-90 with a right wing military government that introduced neo-liberal reforms and used a repressive strategy to impose it — and Nicolae Ceaucescu in Romania (1965-1989), who controlled all realms of life through party and state institutions, used comparable strategies to control the arts.

Dissimilar strategies that sometimes used analogous mechanisms meant to alter the way citizens conceived their societies. An initial difference between the two cases is that the Ceaucescu regime found the political space already molded by the first communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej (1948-65), whereas Pinochet had to completely annul the socialist reforms of the previous government of Salvador Allende (1970-73), in order to introduce the market oriented model of society his regime supported. The two opposed models are that of a state that controls society and dictates the program to be followed by artists and artistic institutions based on an ideological project in Romania, while the other case observed an art world dominated by the free market, in which the state plays a minor, if not an absent, role.

Eliminate and Erase

One of the first decisions a dictatorship takes, as the Pinochet regime showed, is to eliminate and erase all traces of the previous configuration, sanitizing the public space, and dismantling the preceding institutional model, especially the one consolidated by the Unidad Popular government. This primary assignment included both physical and psychological repression of artists, the elimination of cultural goods contrary to the new ideology, and the dismantlement of artistic institutions or their monopolization by the new regime through the nomination of representatives of the military.

The same sequence of actions was seen in Romania, at the end of the 1940s, with the difference that party activists and not military men assumed the control of art. Repression was an important tool in the initial process of purges of the public space and in Chile it took various forms, “the most terrible one” being “.” Many actors, musicians such as Victor Jara, the icon of Nueva Canción, killing in the Estadio Nacional remains emblematic, painters such as Hugo Riveros Gómez, were killed or arrested. Other awful forms of terror used were persecution ending in disappearance, imprisonment and torture, and/or exile to a remote area or exile tout court.

In Romania, the establishment of the model also meant the unleashing of physical (arrests, killings, institutional purges) and psychological repression (terror, corruption, compromise) along with public “unveilings” of those who did not submit to the new official dogma through media-campaigns and which were followed by a process of auto-critique of the designated “.”

Smells Like Socialism

At the beginning of the Pinochet regime, a wild pursuit was launched against Marxist books, music, films, and posters, a definition that was very broad — “” — and that led to the public ˛ąłÜłŮ´Ç»ĺ˛ą´ÚĂ©˛ő transmitted live on television. This is one of the strongest images that led to the consideration of the Pinochet regime as an essentially anti-cultural, anti-artistic regime that was only meant to destroy. This image functioned as an example for the rest of the population leading people to burn their own books or, as recalls, to burry their libraries in hope for better times.

In Romania, the establishment of the communist regime was accompanied by the interdiction of works that were contrary to the new ideology. Between 1944-48, lists of forbidden volumes were published. estimates that in this period 8,779 works were banned, together with the interdiction of the “complete works” of authors that found themselves on the lists of forbidden writers such as the poet Vasile Alecsandri. Equally so, films, music, and theater works were submitted to the control of the new  — this included both contemporary works and works that had passed previous censorship.

A third aspect that characterizes the repression phase is institutional repression: Military and party activists were nominated in charge of culture instead of artists that were evicted. In Chile, public institutions were purged of any left militant or (presumed) sympathizer after the military occupation of the most important artistic institutions such as the QuimantĂş editing house, Chile Films, and the Museums of Fine Arts and of Contemporary Art, as well as the National Television (Navarro-Ceardi). The military not only controled these institutions, but also universities, such as the School of Theater of the University of Chile or the Technical University, radio stations and the .

Once the communist regime was established in Romania it also entailed institutional purging and replacement of artists with party activists. Intellectuals were equally dismissed from their posts whether in the high-education system or the private sphere, such as directors of magazines that had been nationalized. Romanian authorities verified the “” so as to expel professors and students from universities and to deny their entry thereafter, as well as refuse them any other revenue. Furthermore, the Romanian regime used a double policy of reward/punish: It attracted intellectuals and rewarded them for their allegiance, but it also penalized (menaced or/and evicted) those that did not.

New Cultural Models

A modern dictatorship cannot only erase the past, but also censor it, that is, re-interpret and thus re-write history by choosing specific artists or intellectuals — at different times — that suit its political goals. For example, in Chile the films created before the military coup were forbidden for public projection, as were the films realized in exile. In Romania too, art exhibitions also sought to create a new perception on the “art of the past” and the only classical works selected were meant to emphasize the life of misery that preceded the communist regime.

There are no criteria so you have to decide how much you are prepared to risk. That’s why there is no censorship. If there was, you could study the guidelines before doing a production. But this arrangement allows them to say that we don’t have censorship. They decide if it is cultural or not.

— Hector Noguera

Once dictatorships were established, the past erased, and the new cultural model imposed, preventive censorship, so as to censor the future, was set in place and specific mechanisms were imagined to deploy it.

Above all, as observed for the Romania case, the defining element of censorship was its arbitrary character, the “permanent redefinition of the censorship apparatus.” This randomness creates the sentiment of omnipresence and indisputably brings about the sentiment of terror, of overwhelming control.

Self-censorship was the result of the ubiquitous censorship and the uncertainty of the exact censors – in Chile, and in Romania after its official dismantlement in 1977. “The fear of sanction generates … the reflex of repression of the desire of free expression called auto-censorship,” and self-censorship was the manifestation of a high “psychological cost supposed by the free expression in the public .” “Each one of us had a [policeman in the communist period] inside his brain,” said a Romanian writer in the 1980s, suggesting how censorship begins with the author who anticipates the official reaction since the inception of his creation.

There are different types of censorship according to the artistic medium and to the mechanisms the regimes use. In Romania, censorship — especially before 1977, which marks its official dismantlement — was highly specialized, with different censors for each domain, as “different types of specialized censors supervised publishing houses, film houses, audio recordings, theaters, philharmonics and operas … and in radio and television these were the most .”

Cinematographic censorship was quite different from theater and literary censorship. The regimes can choose to openly forbid certain contents (preventive censorship), to alter the artistic message (mutilating it so as to allow its circulation) or to allow its transmission (semi-censorship) by rendering it inaccessible (or accessible to a limited public) whether by an exorbitant price (unaffordable), a limited time-span (unattainable). Furthermore, censorship can act , when an artistic work has been already released, sliding between the pre-established requirements. In Romania a posteriori censorship was also applied to artists, and writers once they emigrated and whose works were thereafter from collective memory — their works simply disappeared.

We Don’t Have Censorship

In a first phase, that of establishment of the dictatorial regimes, repression meant primarily exclusion – negation of what was there before. Artists (together with the rest of intellectuals) were eliminated physically (killed, imprisoned, sent into exile) and institutionally (through persecution). This series of eliminations aimed at individuals was accompanied by the nuisance of censorship of their works, which differs accordingly, to each artistic expression. In Chile, while only literary and cinematographic censorship was codified, political control was doubled by a strong economic punishment through the imposition of high taxes — around 20% for books, theater shows and cinema.

The arbitrariness of the dictatorial regimes is perhaps best described by the words of the Chilean actor : “There are no criteria so you have to decide how much you are prepared to risk. That’s why there is no censorship. If there was, you could study the guidelines before doing a production. But this arrangement allows them to say that we don’t have censorship. They decide if it is cultural or not.”

The regimes use isolated severe punishments (Pintilie’s play, the burning of the theater of La Feria, the exile of Aleph) as a warning to the rest of the artistic world – they do not have to do it repeatedly as the example prevents the others from acting. Increasingly, self-censorship eases the tasks of the censors as artists themselves become their own censors, anticipating what could be erased, forbidden or what could make the work of art “pass.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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This week, researchers found a large reservoir of melt water under Greenland ice “.” The melting of ice has been causing a rise in sea levels for the past century. The implications of this discovery are still unclear, but it has put into focus global warming and rising sea levels. How 7 billion manage their relationship with the environment is going to determine the future of the planet. Already, we are facing an with dozens of species going extinct every day. Something has to change before we run out of time.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the US responded with a quest for security. It waged two wars, engaged in torture, and started eavesdropping on conversations around the world. Americans never had an honest debate about the tradeoff between liberty and security for two reasons.

First, they were going through a paroxysm of patriotism under former President George W. Bush. Second, they were unaware of the extent of surveillance that they were being subjected to. That debate is now finally taking place.

In a damning , Federal District Judge Richard Leon called the methods of the National Security Agency (NSA) “arbitrary invasion” that was “almost Orwellian.” The case was brought forth by Larry Klayman, a conservative activist, and another case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is being heard in New York. Both the right and the left are uniting to protect the that guarantees citizens “their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” A presidential advisory panel recommended scaling back some NSA surveillance because fundamental values such as the protection of privacy and civil liberties “.” In his final press conference for 2013, President Barack Obama promised a review of NSA surveillance. The issue is already under review by Congress.

The focus on the issue will bring technology giants into the spotlight as well. Companies like Google and Facebook are in possession of an incredible amount of data pertaining to individuals around the world. The presidential panel has already called for a focus on personal privacy. Under the current economic system, the fiduciary duty of executives of any company is to maximize profits for their shareholders. Citizens’ right to privacy is not their primary concern and that is where elected representatives are likely to step in to create stricter rules to protect privacy. Germany already has strict rules, Brazil is drafting similar regulations and, given current trends, such rules are inevitable in the US.

The US Federal Reserve (Fed) that starting January it “will add to its holdings of agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $35 billion per month rather than $40 billion per month, and will add to its holdings of longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $40 billion per month rather than $45 billion per month.” The Fed also promised to keep interest rates lower for longer than expected. Both Dow Jones and S&P 500 indices rose to record highs. The Taper, as this measure is called, will reduce the flood of money into the economy and mitigate the building up of bubbles whether in housing, technology or emerging economies. The Fed is in a tricky situation because it is trying to stimulate a still weak economy while avoiding the kind of bubbles that led to the Great Recession which began towards the end of 2007. The Taper was overdue and it signals the start of the normalization of US monetary policy.

In a landmark ruling, the Canadian Supreme Court struck down bans on brothels, street solicitation, and living on the earnings of prostitution in a unanimous 9-0 decision. It gave the Canadian government one year to change the country’s prostitution laws. Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada has drifted to the right but this ruling is momentous and pushes the country in a progressive direction. Now, Canada will have to engage in a messy and complex debate as to how to regulate prostitution.

As widely predicted, Michelle Bachelet won the second round of elections to become Chile’s president. She was the country’s first female president who was in office from 2006 to 2010. Evelyn Matthei, her defeated rival, had voted for a continuation of military rule under General Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite. Furthermore, unlike Bachelet’s father, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Pinochet regime, Matthei’s father was a loyal member of the junta.

As leader of the Socialist Party, Bachelet is promising free, universal and non-profit education. She also promises more equality and a replacement of Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution. Bachelet received 62% of the vote and becomes the first person to be voted in as president for a second time. The fact that barely 42% of the electorate turned up to vote took the gloss off her otherwise impressive victory. Bachelet is a pragmatist and Chile is likely to continue to do well economically while making social progress.

Brazil’s unemployment rate to a mere 4.6%. The seemingly positive change disguises one key fact: fewer Brazilians are working and even fewer are looking for work. The unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for work as a percentage of the labor force. So the statistic is misleading. What is more revealing is that the Brazilian economy shrank by 0.5% in the third quarter. With an inflation rate of , Brazil is in no position to adopt the quantitative easing of the US to devalue its currency. The alternative is structural reforms such as reducing red tape, curbing corruption, and improving infrastructure. These are hard to achieve and Brazil’s political leadership has yet to display enough appetite for tough reforms. As of now, Brazil is headed for a period of economic weakness.

Sweden’s Saab won a $4.5 billion deal to supply 36 fighter jets to Brazil. Boeing suffered because Brazil was miffed by revelations that the NSA was spying on President Dilma Rousseff. Rousseff was inclined towards the Boeing deal and expected to announce the agreement during her visit to Washington DC. Both the visit and the deal fell through. In the cost-benefit analysis, NSA spying was probably not worth it. Dassault Aviation was unable to profit from Boeing’s troubles despite French President Francois Hollande’s visit to Brazil. Saab’s shares have jumped 30% after the deal and the Brazil contract has ensured its arrival among the big league of fighter jet manufacturers.

Raul Castro, brother of Fidel and current Cuban president, followed up his handshake with President Obama with a call for “civilized relations” with the US. He called for improved relations and asked the US to drop its demand of regime change. He revealed that Cuban and American officials have been meeting over the last year to discuss immigration and the reestablishment of a postal service. Since taking over from his brother, Castro has inaugurated economic reforms. Now, small-scale, private businesses in nearly 200 fields have been legalized. This week, Cuba loosened restrictions on buying foreign-made cars. Citizens, entrepreneurs and investors will keep a close eye on one of the last remaining old-school communist economies for emerging opportunities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned and released the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky after ten years in prison for fraud and tax evasion. At the time of his arrest, Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man and he has since been Russia’s most famous prisoner. In a deal brokered by Germany, Khodorkovsky asked for a presidential pardon for family reasons and Putin granted him clemency on humanitarian grounds. After release, he was flown to Berlin where he astutely chose the Berlin Wall museum at Checkpoint Charlie, the former crossing point between East and West Berlin, as the venue for his press conference. He declared that he will be working for the release of all political prisoners throughout the world.

Analysts are reading many meanings into Khodorkovsky’s release. Some believe this is Putin’s ploy to improve Russia’s image and attract foreign investment. The release will reduce the heat on Russia for its poor human rights records and for targeting homosexuals. It would lead to a less eventful Olympics at Sochi. Some think that Putin aims to take away the martyr status of Khodorkovsky and reduce him to a relatively insignificant exile. Others like Maria Alyokhina, a member of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, and Greenpeace activists are also being released under an amnesty law signed by parliament. Still, others believe that the former oligarch has been released because he is not much of a threat. Most Russian people detest Khodorkovsky because he built his fortune on ill-gotten gains that were stolen from the state as the Soviet Union collapsed.

This has been a busy week for Putin. Earlier, he promised Ukrainian President $15 billion and lowered the price of gas from $400 to $268 per thousand cubic meters to draw Ukraine closer to Russia. Joint industrial projects and increased trade are also on the agenda. While pro-EU Ukrainian protesters continue to throng Kiev’s Independence Square, numbers are now dwindling. Previous rallies drew as many as 500,000 people, but this Sunday the number fell to 100,000. Despite the protests, Ukraine will now move into the Russian arc of influence. It is Russia’s biggest foreign policy coup since the end of the Cold War. This is probably Putin’s finest hour in the Kremlin. After the triumph in Syria comes the victory over Ukraine. Also, Putin is winning via checkbook diplomacy that had so far been the forte of the US and the EU. Yet given the fragility of both Ukrainian and Russian economies, this victory might by Pyrrhic.

Xenophobia is on the rise in Europe. On January 1, nine countries, including Germany, Britain, France and the Netherlands, will lift all remaining curbs on immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania. A wave of fear of being swamped by poor immigrants has taken hold. People are worried about immigrants overwhelming their schools and social security systems. British tabloids, long the bastion of prejudice and hatred, have termed the immigrants “benefit tourists.”

Not all is bleak in Europe, however. In Sweden, thousands of people demonstrated against racism and Nazism, a week after a neo-Nazi attack on a similar protest.

In Egypt, former President Hosni Mubarak’s sons, Gamal and Alaa, were cleared of any wrongdoing as was Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister under Mubarak. At the same time, former President Mohammed Morsi and 35 other top Islamists were charged with conspiring with foreign groups to commit terrorist acts. The “terrorist plan” was said to date to 2005 and involve the Palestinian group Hamas, the Shi’ite Islamist government of Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.

The episode demonstrates that the military rulers of Egypt are using the judicial system to conduct a vendetta against Islamists and strengthen their hold on power. Since the coup of July 2013, hundreds of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have been killed. The organization has been driven underground. Protests have been curbed and a new constitution is being drafted that will ban all religious parties. The Egyptian military seems to be taking a leaf out of the Algerian military’s suppression of Islamists in 1991 that led to a decade-long civil war. So far, the Brotherhood is sticking to peaceful resistance but it remains to be seen how it continues to behave as the military tightens the screws. Egypt is headed for hard times.

As Islamists in Syria, the US and other Western powers are getting lukewarm in their support for the opposition. This week, the international community indicated that they might accept the continuation in power of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This has created a rift between Western powers and its Sunni allies led by Saudi Arabia. Fearing that Syria could become a center for global jihad, the US is sympathetic to the Russian idea that the Alawites, with their experience of five decades in the army and security, are the best bet against Islamists.

While the US is mellowing its position on Syria, so is Hezbollah. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has for the first time accepted the possibility of peace with Uncle Sam. This is a big change from Hezbollah’s earlier position of absolute hostility. Nasrallah has signaled to the US that there is no sacred or existential war, and that they could do business together. He went on to declare that “Hezbollah believes in the finality of the Lebanese entity” and that Lebanon was the home of all its people.

After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah is now a . As the sands shift in the Middle East and the US countenances a new life with both Assad and Iran, new rapprochements are in order. Hezbollah is demonstrating that it is politically astute enough to adapt to changing times.

Meanwhile, Iran has declared that its nuclear talks with world powers are making slow progress. After a hiccup earlier this month when talks were suspended because the US expanded a sanctions blacklist, negotiations are back on track. In his final press conference of the year, Obama promised to veto any sanctions that the Congress might propose in the New Year to give peace a chance. It is early days yet but, so far, there is cause for hope.

South Sudan is experiencing full-blown conflict. President Salva Kiir and former South Sudanese Deputy President Riek Machar are engaging in a bloody power struggle. Machar’s troops have captured Bentiu, the capital city of Unity state. The death toll from a week of violence has crossed 1,000 and the number of internal refugees has crossed 100,000.

South Sudan became independent only in 2011 after a 22-year civil war. It has over 200 ethnic groups with the Dinkas and the Nuers as the largest among them. About 98% of the country’s budget comes from oil revenue. State formation in Africa has often been a battle for power and patronage. Rival tribes end up jostling with each other whether it is Nigeria, Kenya or Zimbabwe. Unless outsiders can mediate some ceasefire or compromise, South Sudan will suffer yet another civil war.

In Nigeria, attacks by Boko Haram Islamists have killed more than 1,200 people since May. The US has already declared Boko Haram a terrorist organization and announced a $7 million bounty for Abubakr Shekau. President Goodluck Jonathan has sent thousands of troops aided by air cover to crush the four-year uprising. Mobile networks have been switched off, making news about what is going on hard to get. Many suspect the government of human rights abuses, civilian killings, and dishonesty about its own fatalities.

The US ambassador to the UN visited the Central African Republic where grotesque violence persists despite the presence of French and American troops. Religious hatred is compounding ethnic divisions in the country. After Christian militia slaughtered 60 Muslims, Islamic Séléka Coalition rebels killed almost 1,000 people in two days. This violence is likely to continue because no major power has the will to deploy troops in the country and French soldiers will not be enough.

The drama surrounding the trial of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta at the International Criminal Court (ICC) continues. The prosecutor asked for a delay in the trial because a key witness was not willing to testify, while another one confessed to giving false evidence. The trial has proved deeply divisive and, in an , the author discussed how some believed that the court was imperial while others thought that it was the last recourse to justice. That debate will die down because it seems unlikely that the ICC will be able to put together enough evidence to convict Kenyatta.

Even by African standards, Uganda set new standards for draconian laws against homosexuality. Its parliament has passed a bill that punishes certain acts of homosexuality with life sentences. Anyone caught counseling, reaching out or providing services to homosexuals can now be packed off to prison, too.

There are three knock-on effects of the law. First, state persecution will rise. Second, people will practice their sexuality under the radar, increasing risky behavior and HIV infections. Finally, organizations working with high-risk groups will effectively be barred from helping them. One hopes that other African states do not adopt such discriminatory and counter-productive legislation.

Radical Islamist groups are growing in strength in Tajikistan. Repression is backfiring in a country characterized by chronic poverty, high unemployment, and widespread corruption. A 2009 law criminalizes any religious activity not registered with the state, bans private religious education, and limits the number and size of mosques. A 2011 law bans minors from attending organized religious events, effectively ensuring that under-18s cannot enter mosques. This is turning frustrated youths to secret radical groups.

Bangladesh continues to remain in turmoil as old historic wounds are opened. , Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was executed for war crimes committed in 1971. Bangladesh was ruled by Pakistan till 1971 and was subjected to discrimination, repression, rape, murder, and other human rights abuses by Pakistani troops and their collaborators.

Pakistan’s National Assembly passed a resolution condemning Mollah’s execution. The resolution also demanded that Bangladesh stop reopening the 1971 cases and that it drops charges against Jamaat-e-Islami leaders with a spirit of reconciliation. Pakistan’s behavior demonstrates that it has still not gotten over the loss of its former colony. Its attempt to interfere in Bangladesh’s internal matters has provoked backlash, while protesters in Dhaka are calling for a severance of ties with Pakistan. Bangladesh has also summoned Pakistan’s top envoy to register its protest. Tensions between the two countries will continue to simmer.

While Bangladeshis protest against Pakistan, Pakistanis are protesting against the US for its drone strikes in their country. The risks on the overland route for convoys have increased to such a degree that the US is considering the much more expensive options of using the northern Uzbekistan supply route or even flying supplies in.

Like Pakistan, India is also involved in a spat with the US, except it is for an inconsequential issue. An for suspicion of exploiting her maid by underpaying her while making her work excessively. More importantly, she is suspected of creating and lying to US officials.

The diplomat is the daughter of a senior Indian official and has a reputation for . Instead of raising more substantive issues, the Indian elite is indulging in gratuitous faux patriotism and painting this issue in patriotic colors. US Secretary of State John Kerry has called to express regret but India is still acting in a juvenile fashion, not behooving a country with aspirations to great power status.

The more substantive development in India was the formation of government in Delhi by the populist anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), with the support of the corrupt Congress. It remains to be seen if this will inaugurate a new era in Indian politics or prove to be yet another failure like the Janata Party of the late 1970s that failed to govern despite its good intentions.

In Nepal, the Maoists have refused to join the coalition government but have agreed to enter the constituent assembly to draft a new constitution, raising hopes for peace.

The machismo in East Asia is increasing every week. Japan approved its first-ever national security strategy. It is a rollback of Japan’s peacetime constitution drafted after World War II and announces an expensive five-year military build-up. Following a draconian bill curtailing transparency that the author , this nationalist step is unwise for an aging Japan with an ailing economy.

In China, Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo told the state-run People’s Daily that the US can sail freely but not interfere with China’s freedom to sail. If it does so, Yin has declared that “we will block you.”

This issue comes to the fore after an incident when a US missile carrying cruiser almost collided with a Chinese ship when it was observing the maiden voyage of China’s new aircraft carrier. The statement might be more for internal consumption, but it demonstrates the increased nationalism coursing through East Asia. For peace to persist, the US has to accommodate the rising aspirations of a growing China, while China has to demonstrate more responsibility as it grows in power.

The most dramatic development in China is the downfall of Zhou Yongkang, a supporter of disgraced leader Bo Xilai. Zhou was a member of the 17^th Politburo and a leader of the “petroleum mafia” of China, the state-owned oil giants. He also had a massive power base in his home province of Sichuan. By acting against Zhou, President Xi Jinping has demonstrated that he is China’s most powerful leader since Deng Xiaopeng. Zhou is being tried for corruption but observers are skeptical if this is part of Xi’s campaign to clean up the Chinese government. Instead of a fight against graft, most believe this to be a .

For the first time, eight municipal governments in northeast Liaoning province have been fined $8.9 million for falling short of air quality standards. This is the first time a provincial government has imposed financial penalties on lower-level governments for pollution. Pollution has reached toxic levels in China and is increasingly an issue that both governments and people care about. Fines alone will not make China cleaner, however. The country will need to start factoring in costs to its environment while making economic decisions.

Meanwhile, Apple has signed a deal with China Mobile to supply iPhones. The world’s biggest phone company with the highest number of users will now offer its customers the most desirable phone. China now has another big corporate ally to lobby the Congress on its behalf.

In Thailand protests are proving ineffective as candidates sign up to contest elections. As mentioned in an , protesters are behaving irresponsibly and trying to block elections by using the power of the mob. This is not succeeding and 2014 will be the year of yet another election in Thailand.

In Cambodia, protests have broken out as well. Thousands have gathered in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park to demand new elections or the resignation of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has held power for more than 28 years. Here, they have good cause because a change in Cambodia is long overdue.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Make Sense of the World: Weekly Report appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

This week, researchers found a large reservoir of melt water under Greenland ice "." The melting of ice has been causing a rise in sea levels for the past century. Already, we are facing an with dozens of species going extinct every day. Something has to change before we run out of time.

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the US responded with a quest for security. It waged two wars, engaged in torture, and started eavesdropping on conversations around the world. Americans never had an honest debate about the tradeoff between liberty and security for two reasons.

First, they were going through a paroxysm of patriotism under former President George W. Bush. Second, they were unaware of the extent of surveillance that they were being subjected to. That debate is now finally taking place.

In a damning , Federal District Judge Richard Leon called the methods of the National Security Agency (NSA) "arbitrary invasion" that was "almost Orwellian." The case was brought forth by Larry Klayman, a conservative activist, and another case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is being heard in New York. Both the right and the left are uniting to protect the that guarantees citizens "their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

As widely predicted, Michelle Bachelet won the second round of elections to become Chile’s president. She was the country’s first female president who was in office from 2006 to 2010. Evelyn Matthei, her defeated rival, had voted for a continuation of military rule under General Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite. Furthermore, unlike Bachelet’s father, who was imprisoned and tortured by the Pinochet regime, Matthei’s father was a loyal member of the junta.

Brazil’s unemployment rate to a mere 4.6%. The seemingly positive change disguises one key fact: fewer Brazilians are working and even fewer are looking for work. The unemployment rate measures the number of people actively looking for work as a percentage of the labor force. So the statistic is misleading. What is more revealing is that the Brazilian economy shrank by 0.5% in the third quarter. With an inflation rate of , Brazil is in no position to adopt the quantitative easing of the US to devalue its currency. The alternative is structural reforms such as reducing red tape, curbing corruption, and improving infrastructure. These are hard to achieve and Brazil’s political leadership has yet to display enough appetite for tough reforms. As of now, Brazil is headed for a period of economic weakness.

Sweden’s Saab won a $4.5 billion deal to supply 36 fighter jets to Brazil. Boeing suffered because Brazil was miffed by revelations that the NSA was spying on President Dilma Rousseff.

Raul Castro, brother of Fidel and current Cuban president, followed up his handshake with President Obama with a call for "civilized relations" with the US.

Russian President Vladimir Putin pardoned and released the former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky after ten years in prison for fraud and tax evasion. At the time of his arrest, Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man and he has since been Russia’s most famous prisoner. In a deal brokered by Germany, Khodorkovsky asked for a presidential pardon for family reasons and Putin granted him clemency on humanitarian grounds. After release, he was flown to Berlin where he astutely chose the Berlin Wall museum at Checkpoint Charlie, the former crossing point between East and West Berlin, as the venue for his press conference. He declared that he will be working for the release of all political prisoners throughout the world.

This has been a busy week for Putin. Earlier, he promised Ukrainian President $15 billion and lowered the price of gas from $400 to $268 per thousand cubic meters to draw Ukraine closer to Russia.

In Egypt, former President Hosni Mubarak’s sons, Gamal and Alaa, were cleared of any wrongdoing as was Ahmed Shafiq, a former prime minister under Mubarak. At the same time, former President Mohammed Morsi and 35 other top Islamists were charged with conspiring with foreign groups to commit terrorist acts. The "terrorist plan" was said to date to 2005 and involve the Palestinian group Hamas, the Shi'ite Islamist government of Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.

As Islamists in Syria, the US and other Western powers are getting lukewarm in their support for the opposition. This week, the international community indicated that they might accept the continuation in power of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This has created a rift between Western powers and its Sunni allies led by Saudi Arabia. Fearing that Syria could become a center for global jihad, the US is sympathetic to the Russian idea that the Alawites, with their experience of five decades in the army and security, are the best bet against Islamists.

South Sudan is experiencing full-blown conflict. President Salva Kiir and former South Sudanese Deputy President Riek Machar are engaging in a bloody power struggle. Machar’s troops have captured Bentiu, the capital city of Unity state. The death toll from a week of violence has crossed 1,000 and the number of internal refugees has crossed 100,000.

In Nigeria, attacks by Boko Haram Islamists have killed more than 1,200 people since May. The US has already declared Boko Haram a terrorist organization and announced a $7 million bounty for Abubakr Shekau. President Goodluck Jonathan has sent thousands of troops aided by air cover to crush the four-year uprising. Mobile networks have been switched off, making news about what is going on hard to get. Many suspect the government of human rights abuses, civilian killings, and dishonesty about its own fatalities.

The US ambassador to the UN visited the Central African Republic where grotesque violence persists despite the presence of French and American troops. Religious hatred is compounding ethnic divisions in the country. After Christian militia slaughtered 60 Muslims, Islamic Séléka Coalition rebels killed almost 1,000 people in two days. This violence is likely to continue because no major power has the will to deploy troops in the country and French soldiers will not be enough.

Radical Islamist groups are growing in strength in Tajikistan. Repression is backfiring in a country characterized by chronic poverty, high unemployment, and widespread corruption. A 2009 law criminalizes any religious activity not registered with the state, bans private religious education, and limits the number and size of mosques. A 2011 law bans minors from attending organized religious events, effectively ensuring that under-18s cannot enter mosques. This is turning frustrated youths to secret radical groups.

Bangladesh continues to remain in turmoil as old historic wounds are opened. , Abdul Quader Mollah, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was executed for war crimes committed in 1971. Bangladesh was ruled by Pakistan till 1971 and was subjected to discrimination, repression, rape, murder, and other human rights abuses by Pakistani troops and their collaborators.

While Bangladeshis protest against Pakistan, Pakistanis are protesting against the US for its drone strikes in their country. The risks on the overland route for convoys have increased to such a degree that the US is considering the much more expensive options of using the northern Uzbekistan supply route or even flying supplies in.

Like Pakistan, India is also involved in a spat with the US, except it is for an inconsequential issue. An for suspicion of exploiting her maid by underpaying her while making her work excessively. More importantly, she is suspected of creating and lying to US officials.

The machismo in East Asia is increasing every week. Japan approved its first-ever national security strategy. It is a rollback of Japan’s peacetime constitution drafted after World War II and announces an expensive five-year military build-up. Following a draconian bill curtailing transparency that the author , this nationalist step is unwise for an aging Japan with an ailing economy.

In China, Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo told the state-run People’s Daily that the US can sail freely but not interfere with China’s freedom to sail. If it does so, Yin has declared that "we will block you."

Meanwhile, Apple has signed a deal with China Mobile to supply iPhones. The world’s biggest phone company with the highest number of users will now offer its customers the most desirable phone. China now has another big corporate ally to lobby the Congress on its behalf.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Make Sense of the World: Weekly Roundup appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

This is the second weekly commentary on key developments across the globe titled “Make Sense of the World: Weekly Report.” We will pick out the most important events, trends and issues for the week and explain them to you with clarity and brevity.

We are still in the experimental stage and figuring out the right format. Please give us feedback to help us serve you better. You can email this directly to atul.singh@fairobserver.com, and we look forward to hearing from you.

This is an extended report and you can click for the summary version.

The big news in Asia Pacific was the third plenum of the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. has a good summary of the main points of the ł¦´ÇłľłľłÜ˛Ôľ±±çłÜĂ© issued by China’s leaders after the plenum, the most significant in the post-Deng Xiaopeng era. There is the usual bureaucratic jargon along with some major changes.

First, markets have been called upon to play a “decisive” role in the allocation of resources. This could mean major reforms because earlier markets were only meant to play a “basic” role. Asian markets still fell despite this declaration as there was no mention of financial reforms. Second, a “State Security Committee” will be set up. The Chinese leadership believes the Soviet security system had become weak, corrupt and ineffective. It wants to avoid that mistake and emulate the US by creating its version of the National Security Council. Third, President Xi Jinping has emerged as the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng. Fourth, the one-child policy has been relaxed and a baby bonanza of a million extra births per year is expected. Fifth, education reforms are also on the horizon to develop more-rounded students and foster creativity. Sixth, the dreaded labor camps will be abolished as part of a reform of the justice system. Finally, those who cause environmental damage will be held “criminally responsible” and there will be a tax on the use of almost every natural resource.

While Chinese leaders were meeting at their plenum, China celebrated November 11 by shopping. This day is marketed as “Singles Day” and shoppers spent $5.7 billion buying online. This is thrice what American shoppers spend on Cyber Monday. It demonstrates three things:

1. The one child policy combined with the Chinese preference for sons has led to selective abortion, leading to a massive gender imbalance. Millions of Chinese men are not likely to find love, adding another incentive to splurge on this day.
2. E-commerce is growing exponentially in China.
3. The rise of consumerism among single children born after 1980, the “Little Emperors,” is changing the country beyond recognition. China’s leaders are only bowing to the inevitable by giving markets a “decisive” role, given that its next generation is one of compulsive shoppers.

Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, the Philippine government has botched the relief effort. Floods and landslides in Vietnam have wreaked havoc. The trouble over the amnesty bill has receded in Thailand as the government has retreated. Economic worries are surfacing about Southeast Asia. Many worry that the bubble might be about to burst. Debt-funded consumer and government spending has grown in the region and, in particular, in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

India is in electoral circus mode. Accusations are flying on a daily basis. The Congress-led government has declined to grant autonomy to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), making independent investigation of any case with political ramifications impossible.

There was hype and hoopla over the retirement of a cricketing god, named Sachin Tendulkar. While he is a fine player, awarding India’s highest honor to him was a classic case of the country’s fixation with actors and cricketers. This national award can be given posthumously and the politicians award it to celebrity figures to gain electoral advantage or to reward political fealty. Many suspect that the ruling party is trying to use Tendulkar as a totem for upcoming elections.

The more important issue that India has to confront is the way it treats Africans. After independence, India emerged as a leader of the developing world. In the 1950s, it led the Non-Aligned Movement and supported independence of African colonies.

That era is over. Today, India is in a row with Nigeria over the murder of a Nigerian in Goa. Large parts of the state have been run-over by foreigners. Mandrem and Morjim are Russian localities and Arambol is home to Israelis. Drug use is common and many foreigners are involved in drug trade. The murder was a result of the gang war between two drug gangs, which led to Nigerian protests. While some Nigerians are involved in drug trade, at the heart of the row is Indian racism towards Africans. Goa is ruled by the BJP, a party challenging the ruling Congress Party in New Delhi. One of its ministers declared that Nigerians are “like cancer” — an irresponsible comment at best and a xenophobic one at worst.

In neighboring Pakistan, the Nawaz Sharif government is going to put former President Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason. Musharraf was a military general who deposed Sharif in a coup, and he will become the first military leader to be tried for treason in Pakistan’s 66-year history.

Pakistan is beset by turmoil of all kinds. On the day of Ashura, Shi’a-Sunni violence erupted in Rawalpindi, which remains under curfew since. Earlier in the week, Dr. Nasiruddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of Haqqani Network, was gunned down in Islamabad. He was responsible for fundraising, logistics and political affairs of the Haqqani Network; his death is arguably more important than Hakimullah Mesud’s, who was killed just days ago in a US drone strike.

Afghanistan and the US have agreed upon a draft of the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) that has been sent to Loya Jirga, the Afghan assembly of tribal leaders for their consent. The BSA will extend US military presence in Afghanistan for an indefinite period. It also gives the US exclusive legal jurisdiction over its military and civil personnel.

As tribal leaders gathered to vote on the BSA, a powerful suicide attack a few hundred yards away killed at least ten people. This was followed by the beheading of six security contractors in southern Afghanistan.

While violence continues, Afghan opium production has reached a record high. The area under poppy cultivation has risen to 209,000 hectares, up from 154,000 in 2012 and the 2007 peak figure of 193,000.

Saudi Arabia, with its massive oil wealth, has decided to clamp down on foreign workers. It has an estimated 9 million workers serving a population of 19 million. Foreign workers are often from poorer countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan.

An unfair visa sponsorship system means that their sponsors often demand an annual fee for bringing them into the country. Workers are underpaid, subjected to abuse and treated with a racism that is among the most extreme in the world. In effect, an affluent Saudi society is being served by what The Economist calls “a pliant underclass with few rights.” The kingdom aims for a Saudization of the labor market to decrease its 13 percent unemployment rate. However, it remains to be seen whether cosseted Saudis will take up the jobs that have so far been done by poor immigrants.

It turns out that Saudi Arabia is not alone in mistreating immigrant workers. Amnesty International has for treating workers like animals and even referring to them as such. Dangerous working conditions, non-payment of wages and squalid living conditions are par for the course. Often, workers are threatened with penalty fines, deportation or loss of income if they do not show up to work, even when they are not being paid. Racism is rife, employers disregard basic human rights, and workers live in fear.

Civil war continues in Syria. A bomb attack on a government building near Damascus has killed 31 people, while two explosions occurred near the Iranian Embassy in neighboring Lebanon. Violence has been increasing in the Syrian capital with clashes between government forces and rebels intensifying in the suburbs.

In North Africa, Libya’s deputy intelligence chief has been kidnapped as the central government struggles to control powerful local militia. Clashes have occurred in Tripoli and the Misrata militia is to leave the city.

In Iraq, just as in Pakistan, Shi’a pilgrims have been targeted. Bomb blasts in Baquba killed at least 20 people and left many more wounded. According to the UN, “.” Sectarian violence has reached its highest level since 2008.

Meanwhile, Egypt is conducting talks with Russia. The parties are discussing an arms deal worth $2 billion. If it were to go through, US influence on Egypt would diminish. The US cut defense aid when the Egyptian military ousted former President Mohammed Morsi. Now, Egyptian generals are striking back.

In neighboring Gaza, Hamas is feeling the pressure from the generals who have destroyed 90 percent of the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt. Gaza has no power, sewage is flowing untreated, and inflation is rampant. Hamas is under immense pressure and is cracking down on dissent.

As the situation turns desperate, Hamas has appointed its first spokeswoman. Isra al-Modallal is a divorced young woman of 23 and it is heartening to see the Islamist group — with a patchy record on women’s rights — move in the right direction. In Turkey, women can now wear trousers in parliament, relaxing a regulation that only allowed them to wear suits.

Finally, Boeing has emerged as a big winner of the Dubai Airshow, netting $100 billion of orders from the four big carriers of the Gulf: Etihad, Qatar Airways, Emirates and flydubai.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) rejected a proposal to suspend the trials of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, for a year at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The proposal was put forth by Rwanda and supported by other African states.

Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of crimes against humanity for the role they played in the ethnic bloodshed that swept across Kenya in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. More than 1,100 people were killed, 3,500 injured, and up to 600,000 forcibly displaced as a result of the violence.

Seven of the 15 UNSC members, including Russia and China, voted for the draft resolution while the others abstained. A UNSC resolution needs nine votes to succeed, assuming none of the five permanent members veto it.

Kenyatta now becomes the first serving head of state to be tried by the ICC. At heart is a deeper issue about global governance. African leaders believe they are being unfairly targeted by the ICC, which is based in The Hague and which they believe to be racist as well as neo-colonial. All of the are against Africans, who point out that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has not attracted any attention for his role in the Iraq War.

The issue is the fact that African leaders believe they are not being treated like everybody else. Global powers such as the United States, China and Russia have not signed up for the ICC. Regional powers such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India and North Korea have not done so either. Others believe that given poor governance structures, lack of rule of law and an independent judiciary in much of Africa, the ICC is the last resort for Africans for justice and the best way to change the culture of impunity that has long existed in the continent.

A French hostage held for nearly a year escaped in Nigeria but Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group, claimed that it had kidnapped another Frenchman: a priest working in northern Cameroon. The kidnapping occurred soon after the US designated Boko Haram and its splinter group, Ansaru, as “foreign terrorist organizations” on the grounds that they have established links with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and in Somalia.

To combat al-Shabab, the UNSC authorized an increase of 4,000 peacekeepers in Somalia. This increase has come on the heels of a US military raid to capture one of the group’s leaders. While the focus has been on the Philippines, the northern self-governing Puntland region of Somalia has suffered from a cyclone that has killed over 100 people, swept away livestock and destroyed homes.

As per the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 460,000 people have been displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2013. This figure is higher than the combined figure for 2011 and 2012. OCHA states that this is “a result of inter-tribal fighting and clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and armed movements.”

OCHA has also been describing the situation in the Central African Republic as “a tinderbox,” because Muslims and Christians are pitted against each other in a brutal civil war that has led to a complete breakdown of law and order.

In neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, peace talks between the government and the rebel M23 group have collapsed in Kampala. The rebel group had recently declared a ceasefire after military defeat.

Gambia broke its ties with Taiwan for “strategic national interest.” China will invest in Gambia and build infrastructure. China’s footprint in Africa continues to grow and now only Swaziland, Sao Tome, Principe and Burkina Faso retain ties with Taiwan.

Ethiopian workers returned from Saudi Arabia with tales of mistreatment involving beatings, robbery and incarceration.

Nigeria is involved in a diplomatic row with India after a Nigerian was murdered in Goa. This is covered in greater detail in the section on Asia.

Amnesty International has of misrepresenting the extent and the causes of pollution in the Niger delta. The company is apparently also failing to curb the devastation caused by oil spills.

Another company has announced that it will sever ties with suppliers who do not respect the land rights of local communities. This company is Coca-Cola and its operations in its two African hubs, Nigeria and South Africa, will be affected.

As more of the world falls in love with chocolate, cocoa processing is consolidating in the hands of two giants who will control over 60 percent of the world supply. Cargill is in the process of buying out Archer Daniels Midland’s cocoa business and Barry Callebaut scooped up the cocoa unit of Petra Foods.

Meanwhile, Forbes reported that the number of African billionaires surged to 27. In 2012, it was 16, reaching a remarkable increase of over two-thirds.

Ericsson declared that it expected mobile subscription in sub-Saharan Africa to reach 930 million by 2019. It estimates smartphones to reach 476 million and mobile data traffic to grow 17 times by that year.

The eurozone grew by an anemic 0.1 percent between July and September. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain — collectively referred to as PIGS — continue to remain mired in high unemployment, low productivity and poor public finances. Even Germany’s economy grew by a mere 0.3 percent and it is under scrutiny from Brussels for running persistent current account surpluses.

Many argue that Germany’s protection of its domestic services industry enables it to run massive surpluses, thereby skewing the eurozone economy. The truth is that an aging Europe with excessive regulation and little entrepreneurial energy is fast-losing its competitive edge in the new global economy.

Unemployment in parts of Europe has crossed the 50 percent mark. In France, unemployment has been over 10 percent since 1980 when Mitterand became president. The country has now suffered a credit ratings downgrade by Standard & Poor’s because of the disastrous performance of the Hollande government. Brussels has warned Spain and Italy over their debt and deficit levels. French and Dutch plans have barely passed muster. Eastern Europe is not doing much better and the Russian economy, despite its energy bonanza, is in a sorry state.

The economy is not the only thing in question in Europe. NATO launched a massive exercise in northern Poland, its biggest live wire exercise since 2006. At a time when its defense spending is falling fast, this exercise was supposed to be a signal to anyone intending to attack a NATO ally. Russia might have an increasing budget, but it has no intention of attacking a NATO ally; the exercise seems to have been carried out to reassure members looking for relevance in a post-Afghanistan era.

The far right in Europe is becoming more sophisticated. Dutch leader Geert Wilders and French leader Marine Le Pen held a conference in The Hague to announce cooperation in the next elections for the European Parliament to “fight the monster called Europe.” With Pew Research reporting just 41 percent of the French in favor of the EU, the ghosts of the wafer-thin approval of 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the 2005 rejection of the draft European constitution might be about to rise with renewed vigor in France.

In Germany, politicians seem close to a deal that would extend the right of dual citizenship to naturalized Germans and the children of immigrants. Former German President Christian Wulff has become the first German head of state to go on trial for a sum of €753.90 that equal $1,013. The sum is negligible but demonstrates that the principle of public propriety in Germany matters a great deal more than in other countries.

In the talks with Iran, France is taking the strongest line against Tehran. This is surprising because France is never going to play a major role in military action against Iran. French President Francois Hollande is in crisis at home and it seems he is compensating with an overly assertive foreign policy.

Already, the French have intervened in Mali and are stuck there with no end date in sight. On a visit to Israel, Hollande talked tough on Iran while completely omitting to mention Israeli settlements in the West Bank. US Secretary of State John Kerry has been much more even handed in comparison. A left-wing French government is incongruously more bellicose than the US or the UK on Iran and losing the goodwill that Jacques Chirac garnered for France by opposing the Iraq War.

Chile’s elections will go into the second round after Michelle Bachelet failed to achieve an outright majority. She received 47 percent of the vote; Evelyn Matthei, her main rival, got 25 percent. Bachelet is still expected to win.

Colombia has elections next year but is already gearing up for them. President Juan Manuel Santos will be competing with Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who has the backing of former President Alvaro Uribe.

Talks with FARC guerillas suffered a minor hiccup because of the discovery of a purported FARC plot to murder Uribe. Negotiations with the guerillas continue as President Santos presses for a change in drug policy that includes alternatives to prohibition.

The murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean rose by 11 percent in the first decade of the 21^st century. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates that 1 million people died as a result of criminal violence in the region. Poverty, unemployment, low wages, lack of schooling and family breakdown were said to be some of the contributing causes.

The rate of deforestation in the Amazon rose by 28 percent in Brazil over a year. In the last few years, while deforestation was proceeding apace, the rate of this phenomenon was declining. Environmentalists blame last year’s controversial reform of the forest protection law as the main reason for the rising rate. The change has reduced protected areas on farms and declared an amnesty for areas destroyed before 2008. A Brazilian banker involved in a major corruption scandal fled to Italy. Henrique Pizzoloto has an Italian passport and was avoiding jail terms. Brazil’s Supreme Court has sent 25 businessmen, bankers and politicians, including the chief of staff of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, to prison.

Brazil is also going through the painful process of coming to terms with its past. The remains of Joao Goulart, a former president, were exhumed so that the cause of his death could be ascertained. He was deposed by a military coup and died in Argentina in 1976 of a heart attack. It has long been suspected that he was murdered on the behest of Brazil’s military rulers.

Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, has been the focus of attention again. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), the legislation that enacted Obamacare, compels insurers to offer a more comprehensive coverage, making many policies void under the new law. This leaves many Americans facing cancelled policies and increased premiums. The numbers who signed up for Obamacare were far fewer than estimated and many Republican governors have refused to implement ACA. Bill Clinton, the former Democrat president, turned on Obama and asked him to fulfill his promise to let Americans keep the healthcare they liked. As the new website for healthcare exchanges malfunctioned, Obama eventually bowed to pressure and deferred the implementation of ACA by a year.

The fumbles over the launch of healthcare reform has infused new life into the political battle for the control of the country. Not too long ago, the US government shutdown had led to a loss of momentum for the Republicans. Democrats were hopeful about the midterms; now they are nervous. In fact, 39 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted for a Republican bill that would allow insurance companies to sell policies that did not comply with the minimum standards of the ACA, blowing a hole through Obamacare. Needless to say, the Senate would not pass this and Obama has promised to veto it.

The partisanship in US politics will ratchet up because the Republicans no longer feel chastised and have smelt blood again. Democrats will have to shore up support from their core loyalists for the next midterm. Until then, everyone will be campaigning, covertly if not overtly. Until the midterms are over, expect more bickering and gridlock in Washington, and little reform on immigration, taxation or anything else.

While political wrangling goes on, the White House declared that, for the first time in two decades, the US is importing less foreign oil than it is producing domestically. It crowed about better gas mileage, more biofuels, less pollution and greater energy independence.

There is some truth to these claims. Gas mileage or, as the rest of the world would say, fuel efficiency has certainly improved as a result of legislation. Greater production of oil and gas in the US has pushed down energy costs for American companies, giving them a competitive advantage ±ąľ±˛ő-Ă -±ąľ±˛ő Europe, which has to pay through its nose for Russian gas, and Japan, which will no longer be able to meet its green house gas reductions because of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Yet, the environmental costs of increased domestic production are yet to be quantified properly and the US is a long way from energy independence.

Snapchat, a hot Silicon Valley startup that began in Stanford, rejected a $3 billion offer from Facebook. Snapchat is a photo messaging platform. It allows people to send messages that disappear once they are viewed. Unlike Facebook or Twitter, people do not leave behind a permanent record. The platform is particularly popular with teenagers. It is said to be used for sexting, the practice of sending sexually explicit pictures that are often used for what teenagers call “hookups.”

Such a large amount of money in social media might indicate another Silicon Valley bubble. Snapchat and Twitter are clever tools for communication, but they are not based on hard science or cutting edge technology. For all the talk of being the technology center of the universe, travelling in Silicon Valley is increasingly a third world experience. Interminable traffic jams, pathetic public transport, and poor roads reveal that all is not right in this mythic land.

Three other developments are most interesting this week.

Sony sold over 1 million Playstation 4s in the first 24 hours. It is an indication of the new era we are living in where young people increasingly spend more time behind their screens than playing with each other.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is building a long-range anti-ship missile to counter China. Back in the day, DARPA came up with the Internet and had a string of successes to its name. China’s development of an anti-ship carrier missile has spooked US policymakers but it is also possible that the defense establishment might be playing up the Chinese threat to avoid sequester cuts of about $500 billion over a decade.

Finally, Google won its copyright battle against publishers and authors. Its scanning project will put more than 30 million works in a digital library. The court accepted Google’s argument that its project is “fair use” and provides “significant public benefits.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Make Sense of the World: Weekly Report appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

This is the second weekly commentary on key developments across the globe titled “Make Sense of the World: Weekly Roundup.” After much feedback, we are playing around with the format and please continue to send your feedback to atul.singh@fairobserver.com, with “Weekly Roundup” as the subject.

As we explained last week, this roundup examines the deeper story behind the most important events, trends and issues for the week. This is a summary version and you can click for the full report.

The big news in Asia Pacific was the third plenum of the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. It signaled some major changes.

First, markets have been called upon to play a “decisive” role in the allocation of resources. Second, a “State Security Committee” will be set up. It will emulate the US National Security Council. Third, President Xi Jinping has emerged as the most powerful Chinese leader since Deng Xiaopeng. Fourth, the one-child policy has been relaxed and a baby bonanza of a million extra births per year is expected. Fifth, education reforms are also on the horizon to foster creativity and develop more rounded students. Sixth, the dreaded labor camps will be abolished as part of a reform of the justice system. Finally, those who cause environmental damage will be held “criminally responsible” and there will be a tax on the use of almost every natural resource.

On November 11, celebrated in China as “Singles Day,” shoppers spent $5.7 billion buying online. This is thrice what American shoppers spend on Cyber Monday.

Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, the Philippine government has botched the relief effort after last week’s typhoon.

Meanwhile, India is in electoral circus mode. Accusations are flying on a daily basis. The Congress-led government has declined to grant autonomy to India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), making any independent investigation impossible.

India is in a row with Nigeria over the murder of a Nigerian in Goa, and is in the spotlight for its racist treatment of Africans.

In neighboring Pakistan, the Nawaz Sharif government is going to put former President Pervez Musharraf on trial for treason. Shi'a-Sunni violence has erupted in Rawalpindi, which remains under curfew. Dr. Nasiruddin Haqqani, son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the founder of the Haqqani Network, was gunned down in Islamabad.

In Afghanistan, violence continues and opium production has reached a record high.

Saudi Arabia, with its massive oil wealth, has decided to clamp down on foreign workers. The kingdom aims for a Saudization of its labor market to decrease its 13 percent unemployment rate. However, it remains to be seen whether cosseted Saudis will take up the jobs so far done by poor immigrants.

It turns out that Saudi Arabia is not alone in mistreating immigrant workers. Amnesty International has Qatar for treating workers like animals and even referring to them as such.

Civil war continues in Syria. A bomb attack on a government building near Damascus has killed 31 people, while two explosions occurred near the Iranian Embassy in neighboring Lebanon.

Libya’s deputy intelligence chief has been kidnapped as the central government struggles to control powerful local militia.

In Iraq, just as in Pakistan, Shi'a pilgrims have been targeted. Bomb blasts in Baquba killed at least 20 people and left many more wounded. According to the UN, “.” Sectarian violence has reached its highest level since 2008.

Meanwhile, Egypt is conducting talks with Russia. The parties are discussing an arms deal worth $2 billion. If it were to go through, US influence on Egypt would diminish.

Hamas has appointed its first spokeswoman, while in Turkey, women can now wear trousers in parliament relaxing a regulation that only allowed them to wear suits.

Boeing has emerged as a big winner of the Dubai Airshow, netting $100 billion of orders from the four big carriers from the Gulf: Etihad, Qatar Airways, Emirates and flydubai.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) rejected a proposal to suspend the trials of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto, for a year at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The proposal was put forth by Rwanda and supported by other African states.

Kenyatta and Ruto are accused of crimes against humanity for the role they played in the ethnic bloodshed that swept across Kenya in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. More than 1,100 people were killed, 3,500 injured, and up to 600,000 forcibly displaced as a result of the violence.

A French hostage held for nearly a year escaped in Nigeria but Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist group, claimed that it had kidnapped a French priest in northern Cameroon. The kidnapping occurred soon after the US designated Boko Haram and its splinter group, Ansaru, as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

As per the UN, 460,000 people have been displaced in Sudan’s Darfur region in 2013. This figure is higher than the combined figure for 2011 and 2012.

Gambia broke its ties with Taiwan for “strategic national interest.”

Forbes reported that the number of African billionaires surged to 27. In 2012, it was 16, marking a remarkable increase of over two thirds.

Ericsson declared that it expected mobile subscription in sub-Saharan Africa to reach 930 million by 2019. It estimates smartphones to reach 476 million and mobile data traffic to grow 17 times by that year.

The eurozone grew by an anemic 0.1 percent between July and September. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain —collectively referred to as PIGS — continue to remain mired in high unemployment, low productivity and poor public finances. Even Germany’s economy grew by a mere 0.3 percent and it is under scrutiny from Brussels for running persistent current account surpluses.

Unemployment in parts of Europe has crossed the 50 percent mark. France has suffered a credit ratings downgrade by Standard & Poor’s because of the disastrous performance of the Hollande government. Brussels has warned Spain and Italy over their debt and deficit levels. French and Dutch plans have barely passed muster. Eastern Europe is not doing much better and the Russian economy, despite its energy bonanza, is in sorry state.

The far right in Europe is becoming more sophisticated. Dutch leader Geert Wilders and French leader Marine Le Pen held a conference in The Hague to announce cooperation in the next elections for the European Parliament to “fight the monster called Europe.”

Chile’s elections will go into the second round after Michelle Bachelet failed to achieve an outright majority. She received 47 percent of the vote and Evelyn Matthei got 25 percent. Bachelet is still expected to win.

Colombia has elections next year but is already gearing up for them. President Juan Manuel Santos will be competing with Oscar Ivan Zuluaga, who has the backing of former President Alvaro Uribe.

Talks with FARC guerillas suffered a minor hiccup because of the discovery of a purported FARC plot to murder Uribe. Negotiations with the guerillas continue as President Santos presses for a change in drug policy that includes alternatives to prohibition.

The murder rate in Latin America and the Caribbean rose by 11 percent in the first decade of the 21^st century.

The rate of deforestation in the Amazon rose by 28 percent in Brazil over a year. In the last few years, while deforestation was proceeding apace, the rate of this phenomenon was declining.

Meanwhile, a Brazilian banker involved in a major corruption scandal fled to Italy. Henrique Pizzoloto has an Italian passport and was avoiding jail terms like 25 businessmen, bankers and politicians, including the chief of staff of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The remains of Joao Goulart, a former Brazilian president, were exhumed so that the cause of his death could be ascertained. It is suspected that he was murdered by the military rulers who conducted a coup against him in 1976.

Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s healthcare reforms, has been the focus of attention again. Bill Clinton, the former Democrat president, turned on Obama and asked him to fulfill his promise to let Americans keep the healthcare they liked. As the new website for healthcare exchanges malfunctioned, Democrats facing reelection grew uneasy and turned on their president. Obama eventually bowed to pressure and deferred the implementation of his reforms by a year.

The White House declared that, for the first time in two decades, the US is importing less foreign oil than it is producing domestically.

Snapchat, a hot Silicon Valley startup that began in Stanford, rejected a $3 billion offer from Facebook. Snapchat is a photo messaging platform that allows people to send messages that disappear once they are viewed.

Sony sold over 1 million Playstation 4s in the first 24 hours.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is building a long-range anti-ship missile to counter China.

Finally, Google won its longstanding copyright battle against publishers and authors. Its scanning project will put more than 30 million works in a digital library. The court accepted Google’s argument that its project is “fair use” and provides “significant public benefits.”

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © . All Rights Reserved

The post Make Sense of the World: Weekly Roundup appeared first on 51łÔąĎ.

During the hot summer days of 2009, people in Iran who were demonstrating against the disputed reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were  an interesting slogan: "Seyed Ali Pinochet, Iran won't be like Chile." They substituted the name of the Iranian supreme leader for that of the former Chilean dictator to emphasize their demand that state oppression could not continue.

After two years of demonstrations, the Iranian government succeeded in cracking down on the 2009 uprising and imprisoned most of the opposition. But all of these limitations were not enough to control the entire society. Still, something was wrong outside Iran. After the uprising, broadcasts from , VOA Persian, and Free Europe Radio Persian became the most reliable news sources for Iranians inside the country. As  has shown, BBC Persian's audience in Iran almost doubled after 2009. The result was the attempt by the Iranian government to try and limit access to these satellite channels through jamming transmissions.

Iran: The News Factory

While censorship was not an effective long-term solution for controlling mass information, the Iranian government found a new trick to fix the problem in January 2013. Cyber activists linked to the regime  news, duplicated Facebook accounts, and spread false allegations of sexual misconduct by exiled journalists.

The fabrication of nonexistent facts is a step that goes beyond censorship. It is an attempt not only to control information, but also to impose a narrative that can be favorable to the government's agenda.

One of the most controversial cases of fake news creation during this year was a counterfeit website copying BBC Persian, using the same design as the original, that was  with domestic and foreign fabricated stories, which contained frames and angles in favor of the Iranian government.

Before that, the Iranian government  that they sent a monkey into space aboard an indigenous bio-capsule. After traveling to an altitude of 120km, Iranian National TV showed videos of the monkey arriving perfectly alive back to earth. But later,  was raised over the authenticity of the story. Many sources outside Iran admitted it was not just one monkey, but two: one was sent into space and probably  during the journey, while the other was waiting on earth to be paraded before an audience as the space explorer.

Five years before that event, on July 9, 2008, Iran’s state media broadcasted pictures and videos showing the test-fire of the Shahabe-3 missile that had a range of 2,000km — capable of reaching Israel. The news immediately sent oil prices into a steep . The image of four missiles being tested appeared on international websites and news networks, including the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, the Chicago Tribune, and  news sites. But later experts’ analysis revealed that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard added an extra missile to the picture, so the image was not real.

It is true that in the modern world, dictators cannot control information flow like the days before the internet era and satellite communications. But they can now also create their own alternative stories. This type of “censorship” was easier to conduct three decades ago, when the Pinochet dictatorship controlled all of Chile's media.

Chile: Unreal Reality

On September 11, 1973, two Hawker Hunter planes flew over La Moneda, the government palace in Chile, dropping bombs that made the walls that housed the country's democratic tradition tear into pieces. That was the last day of government for the first democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende.

The same day, the Governing Board of the Chilean Armed Forces, led by the new dictator Augusto Pinochet, prohibited the publication of all newspapers, with the exception of El Mercurio and La Tercera, the owners of which were favorable to the coup. As in Iran, the first step was to control the silence; the next would be to impose their voice to create a new reality.

A  issued on September 11 outlines the creation of the Office of Censorship of the Press, which was named as the National Communications Direction under the General Secretary of the Government. This office had the task of checking both newspapers sent by the directors of each media outlet, before their distribution. Four days later, on September 15, a  issued by the Governing Board prohibited printing and distributing any type of material that could be "subversive propaganda contrary to the Supreme Government."

During the first years after the coup there was still an atmosphere of tension and civil war in Chile, with opposition groups who felt that weapons were a viable option for overthrowing the dictatorship. One of them was the Revolutionary Left Movement. Between May 27, 1974, and February 20, 1975, 119 opposition activists, mainly members of Revolutionary Left Movement, were arrested by the military as part of a plan known as the . All of them were killed.

On April 14 of the same year, a new edition of the O'Dia newspaper was launched in Brazil. The last time the paper was printed was 52 years before, and now the name included the word “novo.” This Novo O'Dia, appeared again on May 31 and a third edition on June 25, 1975. The last issue detailed the disappearance of 59 of the 119 detainees. The paper argued that they died in a gun battle against the Argentinean Army in the city of Salta as part of a revolutionary strategy for the rest of the continent.

Almost a month later, on July 15, a new magazine appeared in Argentina, which had just one issue in its whole existence: Lea. Some 20,000 copies were printed in order to deliver only one story: 60 revolutionaries who opposed Pinochet were murdered in a fight between each other, as a consequence of internal squabbles within the group. The 59 revolutionaries of the Brazilian publication, plus the 60 mentioned in the Argentinian paper, explained to the international public the whereabouts of the 119 missing people.

Both publications were financed by the Chilean State — in the case of Novo O'Dia through the Chilean Embassy in Brazil and in complicity with the national airline LAN — while Lea was developed with the complicity of the Argentinean Ministry of Social Welfare. The next step of the disinformation plan was to spread the stories inside Chile. The strategy of first positioning the publications in an international arena was to support the facts that were going to be published inside the country, without using the regime as the official source.

On July 23, 1975, UPI news agency issued a press release, whose source of information was the Argentinean magazine Lea, that gave an account for the deaths of opposition activists and their mutual extermination. On the same day, the story was published by Las Últimas Noticias (owned by El Mercurio) and La Tercera. Further shocking was the reaction of La Segunda (also owned by El Mercurio) that published the headline: "Exterminated like rats."

LATIN news agency decided to research the subject, and its findings forced El Mercurio to recognize in an editorial column that the militants never set a foot on Argentinean soil. The piece, dating back to August 9, 1975, was contradicted by a subsequent publication on August 31 by a new explanation given over the death of the militants — this time in a revolutionary battle in Tucuman, Argentina. Even more extreme was La Segunda’s correction: after claiming they died like rats, on November 13, the newspaper announced that the 119 missing people were actually alive and "in good health."

What would have happened if online social networks had existed at the time? If siblings, relatives, friends, and acquaintances of the detainees had cell phones and computers — to counter what the newspapers were publishing. An approximation to this response can be found in Iran.

One Simple Word

The lack of freedom of speech and free media does not only lead to false information for the audience inside Iran, it could easily have a profound correlation with the expectation and observation of foreigners.

In February 7, 2013, Gallup published the result of a  that was conducted from December 16, 2012, to January 10, 2013, which stated: “The majority of Iranians are so far seemingly willing to pay the high price of sanctions. Sixty-three percent say that Iran should continue to develop its nuclear program.” The report said that the results were based on telephone interviews with 1,000 adults inside Iran.

Anyone who knows the social situation in Iran would confirm that people do not talk freely on the phone. Even before the 2009 uprising, there was a strong belief that the Iranian government monitors phone conversations. During the 2009 uprising, Nokia Siemens Networks  that they had provided lawful interception equipment and services to Iran, capable of monitoring local voice calls.

It was later revealed that  and western  did the same, collaborating with the government to spy on its citizens. With these facts, how could a highly political issue like sanctions against Iran and its nuclear program be a topic for a survey that is based on phone interviews?

The manipulation of information in Iran also has a social effect. Before the 2009 election, while the government was conducting different polls about the electoral process, people lied because they thought that telling the truth would prevent the regime from assessing the real mood of the electorate — so the opposition candidate could win the election. It was a lesson learnt from the 1997 , when reformists gained power while no one — even them — could believe it.

Just nine years earlier, Chile had a unique experience. A country under a dictatorship where people finally had a chance to openly say what they thought of the totalitarian regime, and thereby define its continuity. In 1988, a plebiscite was called, which had only two options: “Yes” or “No.” The first answer designated the agreement to Pinochet remaining in charge of the country, legitimizing the figure of the leader as president until March 11, 1997; the second meaning the end of the dictatorship and access to presidential and parliamentary elections.

Against the predictions of the regime, with the support of a creative communication campaign by the opposition, the majority chose the “No” option and Pinochet was forced to resign. One of the reasons for the campaign’s victory was due to a free advertising campaign on TV. Informative and often provoking programs pushed many people to take an active position to try and change the system. As we can see from the result, they were successful.

In Iran, the same process had begun, but it ended in a different way. During the 2009 presidential campaign, social media, cell phones and websites were used as the Green Movement’s main means for confronting Ahmadinejad. At the time, the Green Movement could not freely use state media, which was under the control of the conservatives and Ahmadinejad’s campaign team.

After the 2009 election’s result was out and demonstrations started in Iran, again, the social networks and websites had a crucial role in mobilizing people. These networks, in the absence of foreign correspondents in Iran, were also the main source for international news media. But Iran's brutal crackdown on demonstrations and mass arrests have turned the country back to the situation that Chile faced after the 1973 coup.

*[Note: The authors wish to remain anonymous and have used pseudonyms.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51łÔąĎ’s editorial policy.

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