Category: PSIR

The WHO isn’t perfect, but it needs more money and power, not less

August 12, 2021

The WHO needs more authority, not less. 

It needs the capabilities to independently investigate outbreaks and to provide rapid and significant support to control those outbreaks where they occur. The WHO should be able to fund and coordinate the development and global rollout of tests, equipment, treatments, and vaccines, and it should be able to rely on other parts of the United Nations to support a financial response designed to limit the economic costs of an outbreak. The WHO has many of these powers on paper. What it needs is more money to execute them.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/15/999085/who-trump-funding-cut-bad/?truid=e0dd2cbe984961ceccec29c613c6f06f

To End Forever War, End the Dollar’s Global Dominance

August 12, 2021

In its laser focus on military restraint, the present debate about endless war overlooks the financial architecture of U.S. empire.

To keep Iraq amenable to a U.S. presence, the State Department turned to the United States’ “dollar power”—its vast control over the supply and distribution of the dollar, the global reserve currency—and threatened to cut off Iraq’s access to its Federal Reserve account, which would effectively paralyze the government’s ability to provide basic services. Faced with this threat, which according to one Baghdad official “would mean collapse for Iraq,” Iraqis have backed away from their call to banish U.S. troops. The American military looks set to remain in the country indefinitely.

https://newrepublic.com/article/156325/end-forever-war-end-dollars-global-dominance

For Thousands of Years, Egypt Controlled the Nile. A New Dam Threatens That.

August 12, 2021

Ethiopia is staking its hopes on its $4.5 billion hydroelectric dam. Egypt fears it will cut into its water supplies. President Trump is mediating.

The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the $4.5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — Africa’s largest, with a reservoir about the size of London — has become a national preoccupation in both countries, stoking patriotism, deep-seated fears and even murmurs of war.

The Future of America’s Contest with China

August 12, 2021

Washington is in an intensifying standoff with Beijing. Which one will fundamentally shape the twenty-first century?

To a degree still difficult for outsiders to absorb, China is preparing to shape the twenty-first century, much as the U.S. shaped the twentieth. Its government is deciding which features of the global status quo to preserve and which to reject, not only in business, culture, and politics but also in such basic values as human rights, free speech, and privacy. In the lead-up to the anniversary, the government demonstrated its capacity for social surveillance. At the Beijing University of Technology, where students trained to march in the parade, the administration extracted data from I.D. cards to see who ate what in the dining hall, and then delivered targeted guidance for a healthy diet. In the final weeks, authorities narrowed the Internet connection to the outside world, secreted dissidents out of town, and banned the flying of drones, kites, and pet pigeons.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/01/13/the-future-of-americas-contest-with-china

“Anywheres” vs. “Somewheres” A framework for understanding populism

August 12, 2021

The Anywheres constitute about 25 percent of the British population, but they dominate the political class, and it is their concerns that are paramount in public policy. The Anywheres favor “progressive individualism.” They place a “high value on autonomy, mobility, and novelty” and a “much lower value” on “faith, flag, and family.” Anywheres are “comfortable with immigration, European integration, and . . . human-rights legislation,” which “dilute the claims of national citizenship.”

In contrast to the people who see the world from “anywhere” are the people who see the world from “somewhere.” The Somewheres are more rooted and socially conservative, older, with less formal education but a greater attachment to tradition, the Crown, and the nation. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2017/07/31/david-goodhart-the-road-to-somewhere/