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| We're going in the wrong direction. PHOTO: Sascha Steinbach |
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- Greenhouse gas emissions rose 2.7% to hit record highs
- Qatar's decision to exit the OPEC cartel rocked the oil industry
- A Huawei executive's arrest threatened Trump and Xi's trade detente
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Emails revealed Facebook's less-than-beneficent use of user data
- China was blamed for hacking the details of 500m Marriott guests
- Australia passed a controversial surveillance bill targeting tech companies
- A lower-house vote moved Ireland closer to legalising abortion
- The Spanish far-right won its first seats since Franco's reign
- Former Trump confidante Michael Flynn flipped to avoid prosecution
- Israeli police recommended more bribery charges against Netanyahu
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Dreaming of a quiet Christmas. Photograph: PA
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December 7th is, as Americans are wont to remind us, a date which will live in infamy (for the Pearl Harbour attack). But for the United Kingdom, the 11th of December may well become the day of lament. That's the date of the make-or-break vote on Theresa May's Brexit plan. While the US can pin its tragedy on foreign aggression, Britain's disastrous mess is mostly self-inflicted.
Who bears wins
Before we launch into a preemptive postmortem, let's take stock of just how we got here. Theresa May did not appear long for the top job when she caught a hospital pass from the hastily-retreating figure of David Cameron. Then, a snap-election that was meant to cement her authority achieved the opposite, leaving her government unbidden, unmoored and in bed with radicals from Ulster. And ever since, countless members of her cabinet - senior politicians of varying calibre and seriousness - have white-anted, rebelled and defected.
The UK's conspicuous lack of bargaining chips has yielded predictable concessions towards Brussels. This has led both of May's Brexit secretaries to quit in principled huffs, neither able to abide the terms they themselves negotiated. Britain's ineffectual attempts to dictate the terms of withdrawal have also incensed the Brexiteers. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who many see as May's likely successor, has been entirely unhelpful. Her other possible successor, Boris Johnson, has continued to entertain himself by courting controversy. Yet, miraculously, through all of this May has survived and persisted. In her own utterly uncharismatic style she has drunk deeply from the poisoned chalice but marched on nevertheless, striving to execute the mandate of the Brexit referendum. There is a plodding, stoic heroism at work that one can't help but admire.
Septem horribilis
This week May's cabinet was found in contempt of parliament for withholding damaging legal advice about her Brexit plan. And so it has been another blistering week at Westminster, but one that has seen Brexiteers standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Remainers.
Meanwhile there is still no satisfactory resolution to the matter of the Irish border backstop (for the simple reason that there can be no logical solution). And so, we press on, knowing that on Tuesday Britain's parliamentarians will deliver their "final verdict".
If she wins on Tuesday, Britain might just canonise May. It will leave the European Union on the 29th of March, 2019, and begin a new era of finding its place in the world. The deal-making with Brussels will still last a few years, maybe even decades, but London will be (mostly) in charge of its own destiny. And it will finally be able to move on from the morass that it is presently stuck in.
Unfortunately for the prime minister the more likely scenario is that she will lose the vote by a sizeable margin. And that's when things will get really tricky.
Plan B-Z
May is running out of time to renegotiate with Brussels (good luck getting European bureaucrats to work over their Christmas break). And after losing the vote she would be in an even weaker bargaining position.
With her back to the wall May could always try to ram her plan through the lower house again. Or she might try calling for another general election to win some semblance of a popular mandate. But an election could also just as easily end her premiership and bring Labour to power. And of course, it goes without saying that a bad enough loss on Tuesday might just spell the end of Theresa May's premiership anyway.
There are other options too but all of them seemingly lead to oblivion. The European Court of Justice has delivered a timely, if cheeky, reminder that Britain could simply revoke Article 50 and pretend that none of this had ever happened. Then there is talk of a 'Norway plus' option but this is entirely fanciful and would incense the Brexiteers. Last, and also least, Britain could just crash out of the EU without a deal. Although this is highly unlikely because Tory backbenchers have sought numerous safeguards against the Slim-Pickens-riding-a-nuclear-bomb option.
All of this means that, as crazy as it sounds, the path of least destruction might just be to call a second referendum. Painful, sure. Unorthodox, certainly. And there would be hooting and hollering a-plenty over democratic norms being trashed. But it must be recalled that the first referendum only garnered a 72% turnout. And there are no good options. So it might just be worth asking the question again.
We'll see you on Tuesday.
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| Paris is burning (still). PHOTO: Getty |
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Yellow jackets, black smoke
Elaborate barricades, burning cars, the Arc de Triomphe shrouded in smoke. The French are rioting. Weeks of protests over a despised fuel-hike shut down large sections of the capital and arterial roads nationwide. Emmanuel Macron's government has since scrapped the unpopular tax, but his concession came too late. The gilets jaunes (yellow-jacket) movement enjoys wide popular support and has vowed to return to the capital. Now workers in regional areas are striking in solidarity with the front-line in Paris.
It must be noted that there is undoubtedly a radical minority trying to force confrontations with police (some rioters stole an assault rifle from a police van last week). However, the broad demonstration has a historic quality to it: the masses, suffocated by rising living costs, and presided over by an unflinching young bureaucrat. While we don't expect to see any guillotines on the Champs-Élysées, Macron has deployed 90,000 extra police to counter this weekend's expected protests.
When Napoleon III had ordered Haussmann to demolish the old medieval neighbourhoods of Paris he justified it by pointing to the crime and disease that had flourished in the labyrinth. His architect was to bring light and air into the streets, modernise the centre and create grand boulevards. There was also an ulterior motive: it would be a lot harder for restive workers to barricade wider avenues than it would three-metre-wide lanes. It seems both the emperor and his architect underestimated their future compatriots' propensity to riot.
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| One president lays another, his father, to rest. PHOTO: AFP |
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Bush Senior remembered
George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President of the United States of America and patriarch of an enduring dynasty, was commemorated this week in Washington. Bush Senior was remembered as a man whose affability and warmth had endeared him to opponent and ally alike. The son who followed him into the Oval Office, George W Bush, gave a moving eulogy. Later, a battery of howitzers boomed a 21-gun salute. The funeral - like John McCain's earlier this year - was an opportunity to show the world that despite their stark differences, there was a genial relationship amongst the country's political elite. The Carters, Clintons, Obamas and Trumps all shared a pew.
In remembrance HW has been lavished with garlands of praise, described as the last sensible Republican and a truly bipartisan statesman. It's true that he showed great patience in dealing with Gorbachev and demurred from toppling Hussein during the Gulf War (he took heed of the warning that Iraq would be plunged into chaos).
But as so often happens after the death of a leader, those left behind fall prey to a heady mix of pageantry and presentism. And so much of the commentary has failed to mention that HW dragged his feet while tens of thousands of predominantly gay men died of AIDS. His contribution to racial equality too was largely non-existent. In 1964, at the height of the civil rights movement, he allied with segregationists and ran for office on an anti-Civil Rights Act platform. Years later, during his tilt at the White House, he ran the Willie Horton attack ads; a shameful case of fear-mongering that itself has become a byword for political racism. The line connecting the GOP's race-baiting attacks ads of this years Mid Terms to Willie Horton may be long, but it is straight.
For all his faults and foibles, one thing is without doubt - George H W Bush adhered to the protocol and decorum of office, a major point of difference with the sitting president.
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| Feeling better yet? PHOTO: Pantone Color Institute |
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Colour between the minds
Each year at Art Basel Miami Beach the Pantone Color Institute unveils the colour they believe will define the year to come. In recent years we've had safe options like Ultra Violet and Greenery, with a brief affair with Rose Quartz and the vague allure of Serenity. This year these doyens of the palette decided to inject a little positivity into our lives. Behold, Living Coral. In an era of unremitting negativity, Living Coral conveys a sense of optimism. Hopefully that sense of optimism translates into action before it becomes Dead Coral.
A revolution in cancer screening
Cancer researchers at Australia's University of Queensland have struck gold. Thanks to their work, a near-universal cancer screening test with 90% effectiveness is now a reality. It's costs just $10. The scientists, led by Laura Carrascosa, found that cancerous DNA and healthy DNA adhere to metallic surfaces in different ways. A simple test will reveal the presence of damaged DNA in your bloodstream. This blood-test is a huge improvement on the current process which is both laborious and expensive.
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| Epstein in court. PHOTO: Washington Post |
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Child abusers and Cabinet members
Trump's Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is facing growing pressure over his involvement with the billionaire child sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. An investigation into Epstein in 2008 revealed that the well-connected financier - a friend of Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Alan Dershowitz - had sexually abused girls as young as 14 in his mansion.
Acosta, then a federal prosecutor, had handed Epstein a 13-month sentence rather than the life sentence his charges would usually carry. This wasn't just a sweetheart deal, it was a gross miscarriage of justice. There is little doubt that Epstein's friends in high places helped ease his passage through the system. Now this old case is garnering new attention.
We highly recommend reading the explosive reporting from the Miami Herald that sparked this latest interest. It is a long, disturbing read. Part 1, part 2 & part 3.
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Quote of the week
"He demeaned himself to get a department in the university, so that he could teach and write some strange books that none of those present here today have read" - Russian Vice Admiral Igor Mukhametshin picks a fight with the 18th century transcendental idealist philosopher Immanuel Kant
Headline of the week
Pig-to-human heart transplants 'one step closer' after success with baboons - The Independent
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